Lesson 2: Do Not

Just Dream, Make

It Happen
INTRODUCTION
• Jack Canfield is an epitome of success. He has authored
seven books listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as
New York Times Bestseller, beating Stephen King. These
books are: Chicken Soup for the Soul Series; The Success
Principles; The Aladdin Factor; Dare to Win; etc. Jack Canfield
is the chairman and the founder of The Canfield Training
Group; founder and former chairman of The Chicken Soup
for the Soul Enterprises; and was invited to a thousand radio
and television program worldwide (Canfield 2017).
Albert E. Bandura’s Self-efficacy
The Bobo Doll Experiment
• In the 1950s, Dr. Bandura had a study known as the
Bobo Doll Experiment. In this experiment, the sample
children were presented with new social models of
violent and nonviolent behavior toward an inflatable
rebounding Bobo doll.
Summary of Self- efficiency
Theory
Weibell (2011) summarized Albert Bandura's self-effacacy
theory:
"Self-effacacy theory is based in the assumption that
psychological procedures serve as a means of creating and
strengthening expectations of personal efficiency."
• Self-effacacy theory distinguishes between expectations of
efficiency and response-outcome expectancies. According to
Weibell, outcome expectancy is "a person's estimate that a
given behavior will lead to certain outcomes". An efficiency
expectation is "the conviction that one can successfully
execute the behavior required to produce the outcomes".
• Self-effacacy typically comes into play when
there is an actual or perceived threat to
one's personal safety, or one's ability to deal
with potentially aversive events. Increasing
a person's self-effacacy increasing their
ability to deal with a potentially averse
situation.
• Weibell stated that Dr. Bandura define self-effacacy as "people's
beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of
performance that exercise influence over events that affect their
lives". He identified acts of people with "high assurance in their
capabilities," such as:

1. approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered;

2. set challenging goals and maintain strong commitment to them;
3. heighten or sustain efforts in the face of failures or setbacks;
4. attribute failure to insufficient effort or deficient knowledge and
skills which are acquirable; and
5. approach threatening situations with assurance that they can
exercise control over them.
• In contrast, people "who doubt their capabilities":

1. shy away from tasks they view as personal threats,

2. have low aspirations and weak commitment to goals they
choose to pursue;
3. dwell on personal deficiencies, obstacles they will encounter,
and all kinds of adverse outcomes, rather than concerirating on
how to perform successfully,
4. slacken their efforts and give up quickly in the face of
difficulties;
5. are slow to recover their sense of efficacy following failure or
setbacks. and
6. fall easy victim to stress and depression.
• Dr. Bandura described four main sources of influence by
which a person's sell-efficacy is developed and
maintained. These are:

1. performance accomplishments or mastery experiences;

2. vicarious experiences;

3. verbal or social persuasion; and

4. physiological (somatic and emotional) states.

• Dr. Bandura identified that "mastery experiences" or
"personal performance accomplishments" are the most
effective ways to create a strong sense of efficacy.
• Seeing people similar to oneself succeed by sustained
effort raises observers' beliefs that they, too, possess
the capabilities to succeed, given the comparable
activities.
• Verbal or social persuasion also affects one's
perception of self-efficacy Il is a way of strengthening
people's beliefs that they have what it takes to
succeed. Verbal or social persuasion can provide a
temporary boost in perceived ability.
• People also rely on their somatic or emotional
states when judging their capabilities. Stress and
tension are interpreted as "signs of vulnerability
to poor performance." Fatigue, aches and pains,
and mood also effect perception of ability.
• Since "most human motivation is cognitively
generated," self-belief ol efficacy is an important
factor in human motivation.
Dr. Albert Bandura's quotes about self-efficacy (Kendra 2017) are
as follows:
• "Self-efficacy is the belief in one's capabilities to organize and
execute the sources of action required to manage prospective
situations." From Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A
Social Cognitive Theory, 1986.
• "If efficacy beliefs always reflected only what people can do
routinely, they would rarely fail but they would not set aspirations
beyond their immediate reach nor mount the extra effort needed
to surpass their ordinary performances." From Encyclopedia of
Human Behavior, 1994.
• "Self-belief does not necessarily ensure success, but self-disbelief
assuredly spawns failure." From Self-efficacy: The Exercise of
Control. 1997.
• "By sticking it out through tough times, people
emerge from adversity with a stronger sense of
efficacy." From Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, 1994.

• "People's beliefs about their abilities have a profound

effect on those abilities. Ability is not a fixed property;
there is a huge variability in how you perform. People
who have a sense of self-efficacy bounce back from
failure; they approach things in terms of how to handle
them rather than worrying about what can go wrong.
From Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control, 1996.
Carol S. Dweck's Fixed and Growth Mindset
Theory
• Dr. Dweck's contribution to social psychology relates
to implicit theories of intelligence with her book,
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success published in
2006. Dr. Dweck described people with two types of
mindset. People who believe that success is based on
their innate abilities have a "fixed" theory of
intelligence, and goes under fixed mindset. On the
other hand, people who believe that success is based
on hardwork, learning, training, and perseverance have
growth theory of intelligence, which goes under growth
mindset.
• Individuals with growth mindset are
more likely to continue working hard
despite setbacks while individuals with
fixed mindset can be affected by subtle
environmental cues.
 Edwin A. Locke's Goal Setting Theory

• Locke (1996) first described that the approach

of goal setting theory is based on what Aristotle
called final causality, that is, action caused by a
purpose. It accepts the axiomatic status of
consciousness and volition.
 Goal Attributes
• Goals have both an intermal and an
external aspect. Internally, they are ideas
(desired ends); externally, they refer to the
object or condition sought (e.g a job, a sale, a
certain performance level).
14 Research Findings.
A research was made by Locke (2017) under the article "Motivation
Through Conscious Goal Setting."

1. The more difficult the goal, the greater the achievement- the
linear function assumes, however, that the individual is committed
to the goal and possesses the requisite ability and knowledge to
achieve it. Without these, performance does drop at high goal levels.
2. The more specific or explicit the goal, the more precisely
performance is regulated- high goal specificity is achieved mainly
through quantification (e.g., increase sales by 10%) or enumeration
(e.g., a list of tasks to be accomplished). Thus, it reduces variance in
performance, provided that the individual can control his or her
performance.
3. Goals that are both specific and difficult lead to the highest
performance- especially relevant here are the many studies
that compared the effect of specific hard goals such as "do
your best." People do NOT actually do their best when they try
to do their best because, as a vague goal, it is compatible with
many different outcomes, including those lower than one's
best.
4. Commitment to goals is most critical when goals are specific
and difficult- when goals are easy or vague, it is not hard be
committed to it because it does not require much dedication
to reach easy goals, and vague goals can be easily redefined to
accommodate low performance.
5. High commitment to goals is attained when:
a. the individual is convinced that the goal is important;
b. the individual is convinced that the goal is attainable (or
that, at least, progress can be made toward it).

6. In addition to having a direct effect on performance, self-

efficacy influences:
a. the difficulty level of the goal chosen or accepted;
b. commitment to goals,
c. the response to negative feedback or failure; and
d. the choice of task strategies.
7. Goal setting is most effective when there is feedback
that shows progress in relation to the goal- when
provided with feedback on their own performance or
that of others, people often spontaneously set goals to
improve their previous best or beat the performance of
others simply as a way of challenging themselves, but
this is not inevitable.
8. Goal setting (along with self-efficacy) mediates the
effect of knowledge of past performance on subsequent
performance- when people receive negative
performance feedback, they are typically unhappy and
may also experience doubts about their ability.
9. Goals affect performance by affecting the direction of
action, the degree of effort exerted, and the persistence
of action over time- the directive aspect is fairly obvious.
A person who has a goal to maximize quality of
performance will focus more attention and action on
quality than on, for example, quantity or speed.
10. Goals stimulate planning in general. Often, the
planning quality is higher than that which occurs without
goals. When people possess task or goal-relevant plans
as a result of experience or training, they activate them
automatically when confronted with a performance goal.
11. When people strive for goals on complex tasks, they
are least effective in discovering suitable task strategies
if:
a they have no prior experience or training on the task,
b. there is high pressure to perform well; and
c. there is high time pressure (to perform well
immediately).

12. Goals (including goal commitment), in combination

with self-efficacy, mediate or partially mediate the
effects of several personality traits and incentives on
performance.
13. Goal-setting and goal-related mechanisms can be
trained and/or adopted in the absence of training for the
purpose of self-regulation- affect. Emotion is a type of
automatic partly subconscious. psychological estimate-
an estimate of the relationship of things to oneself.
14. Goals serve as standards of self-satisfaction, with
harder goals- demanding higher accomplishment in
order to attain self-satisfaction than easy goals. Goals can
also be used to enhance task interest reduce boredom,
and promote goal clarity. When used to punish or
intimidate people, however, goals increase stress and
anxiety.