Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioural change?

Abstract

1. Bandura presents the concept of efficacy expectations ambiguously; at times they are discussed as if they include action-outcome expectations, at other times they are contrasted as distinct from these. 2. It is helpful to keep action-outcome expectations and efficacy expectations conceptually distinct. Failure to do so does not allow consideration of the possibility that psychological treatments for phobias operate by modifying action-outcome expectations, without altering efficacy expectations. 3. There is no firm experimental evidence to support Bandura's contention that "psychological procedures, whatever their form, serve as means of creating and strengthening expectations of personal efficacy", or to decide between alternative expectation accounts of the action of psychological treatments.