Promoting Self-efficacy in Children

Building off the previous post by Prof. Walker, I’d like to talk about self-efficacy, a term coined by Alfred Bandura. Self-efficacy is the extent of a person’s belief in his/her own ability to complete tasks and reach goals successfully. For example, somebody with high self-efficacy is more likely to stick to a challenging activity without surrendering.

Higher self-efficacy is linked to:

• better ability to think productively by applying positive thinking skills when facing a challenge
• higher motivation
• stronger effort put into an activity or task
• greater resilience
• lower vulnerability to stress and depression

Evidently, nurturing self-efficacy in children is quite important for their successes in future.

Self-esteem vs. self-efficacy

Self-esteem is an opinion one holds about one's self-worth or self-value, which without a doubt influences self-efficacy. However, high self-esteem by itself does not give a child an optimistic attitude and willingness to persist when experiencing resistance. A child develops these characteristics through self-efficacy. If one’s self-efficacy in an area is much lower than their ability, they will likely under-challenge themselves. However, if self-efficacy is much higher than actual ability, they may over-challenge themselves, set unrealistic goals, and experience failure and frustration, that’s why parents need to nurture realistic self-efficacy in their children. Taking into account the following four building blocks can help promoting self-efficacy:

Sense of mastery.

When a child attributes a success to internal, stable, and global factors (personal effort, capabilities), he will experience a sense of mastery and this will reinforce his self-efficacy. When a child attributes success to external, unstable,  and specific factors, (luck, lenient grading etc), he will not experience a sense  of mastery or efficacy.

Observing others.

Seeing someone who is similar to oneself work hard to achieve a  goal or overcome an obstacle contributes to our belief that we, too, can successfully negotiate our

environment. For example, if a child sees  another one climb to the top of a hill after several attempts, the child might think “if he can do it, I can, too.” The more similar  the child feels to the person he is observing, the stronger the effect the other person’s successes or  failures will be on the child’s beliefs about her own ability to succeed.

Direct persuasion by others.

Children’s beliefs about their ability to master a situation are influenced by what they hear from adults or peers. Those who receive strong messages that they have the skills and capabilities to handle a specific situation are more likely to put in greater effort and to persist. Such feedback cannot consist of general or empty pep talks (“You can do anything.”) but rather should reflect the child’s real strengths and be specific (“You can think of a creative solution.”).

Mood.

Positive emotions and mood strengthen perceptions of efficacy and negative ones weaken them. The positivity enables children to see more solutions to problems they face, which strengthens their positivity, which further enhances their ability to cope with challenges, and so on.

What do you think of these four building blocks of self-efficacy? In which ways can parents organize and structure activities for their children to address those and to promote self-efficacy?