Read the chapter and review the powerpoint presentation that was sent to you.
Answer the following questions, using the questions as headings.
What was the most surpising thing you learned in this chapter?
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
What is the relationship betweens self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
Most of the information we've learned in this class hasn't struck me as "surprising"... once I read the material, it totally makes sense. I just think that it's really interesting that there are so many components within such a seemingly-narrow topic, motivation and emotion, and each component is so applicable to every aspect of our behaviors and lives. However, Reeve (2005) discusses physiological state with self-efficacy. He begins the section by stating that certain physical behaviors (i.e. fatigue, muscle tension, trembling) are reactions to a task being too much for a person to handle (p. 231). I found this a little unbelievable, as muscle tension is a pretty common occurrence for me... I know that I can handle the amount of the schoolwork that is assigned, even though I won't deny that at times it seems a little overwhelming! But, things like muscle tension can be a product of a lot of other things, like leaning over a computer for too long. So it surprised me that he would venture to say that that these reactions signal a lack of being able to handle the demands of the task.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
I think that the entire section on self-efficacy is helpful for every situation in life. Everyone is going to experience situations that seem particularly difficult to endure, but to survive them it's important to have high self-efficacy to get through it. Specifically, I think that it will be helpful to know the 4 sources of self-efficacy in order to have a better chance of getting through a challenge. For example, getting through grad school - when I'm having a difficult time and start thinking I won't be able to do it, I can remember that I survived undergrad when I didn't think I could (personal behavior history), look around me and see the numerous professors and other grad students who have survived (vicarious experience), verbal persuasion (I can reach out to parents and professors to boost my self-efficacy, and give myself pep talks), and try to keep myself relaxed and practice stress relief exercises (like getting massages - yay!) to maintain self-efficacy (physiological activity) (Reeve, 2005, p. 233).
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
I think that self-efficacy and mastery beliefs are dependent on each other. In order to increase self-efficacy, you need to believe "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," and that "failures are the best way to learn." However, in order to have these mastery beliefs, that you can still succeed despite failures (Reeve, 2005, p. 237), you need to have self-efficacy to believe that you will succeed, even if you have to try different methods of achieving the task. Finally, both self-efficacy and mastery beliefs produce hope. When you believe that you have the capacity to do something, even if it takes a few different tries and methods, you will also have hope that the task will be achieved.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
What was most surprising to me in this chapter is the extent of control we actually can have over our situations. I think a lot of times it's very easy for us to get caught up in our negative thoughts and dismiss the obvious way to get through our problematic times in a more positive way. If we just believe we can do it and know that what we plan to do will have some effect, the outcome is likely to rule in our favor. A lot of what we learn in this class can be seen as common sense once it's all reasonably laid out for us, but this is a very powerful concept that could serve us all well in life. Another surprising thing I learned was how accurately depressed individuals can judge the amount of control they have over a situation compared to nondepressed individuals (Reeve, 2009, p. 252). In the experiment in our textbook, the nondepressed individuals overestimated their perceived control in performing a task.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
This chapter helped me to better understand the behaviors of other people in my life. An individual I know recently determined that the only way out of her problems was to end her life. She did not follow through with her plan, but she had everything lined up to do so. I've struggled with trying to understand why she would have come to such a conclusion when facing her problems, and the section on learned helplessness helped me to reason with her behaviors. She has definitely lived her life with the belief that she has little control over what happens to her, and it has caused a great number of troubles over the years. By taking her life in her own hands, she held control over something. Her decreased willingness to try, pessimism, and emotional deficits finally got the best of her. With therapy, we are hoping her self-efficacy and personal control beliefs will improve.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Hope brings all the concepts together by showing how self-efficacy and mastery beliefs work together to provide energy and direction for one's coping efforts. Individuals who demonstrate strong self-efficacy and mastery motivation while also possessing high-hope will outperform and outcope low-hope individuals in many domains (Reeve, 2009, p. 261).
What was the most surpising thing you learned in this chapter?
I was most surprised by the information about coping. I had only ever heard of approach vs. avoidance coping. The book discussed a variety of different coping strategies including: social vs. solitary, proactive vs. reactive, direct vs. indirect, etc. All of the coping mechanisms discussed make sense, and I can come up with examples from my own life about them, but they were not terms that I was familiar with beforehand.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
This chapter seems very applicable to every day life, especially the information over self-efficacy. It seems as though whether or not you believe that you can effectively cope with a situation directly correlates with your actually effectively coping with the situation. This may be due to self-efficacies effect on choice of coping method, effort, persistence, emotional reactions, and decision making. I think that this will be helpful to my everyday life because the choice to believe that I can accomplish something is relatively easy. It can be a quick change that may make me more effective at accomplishing tasks and motivating myself.
What is the relationship betweens self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Hope links mastery beliefs and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is when an individual believes that he/she can do something, while mastery beliefs is when someone will try a variety of ways to accomplish something. If an individual is high in hope he/she will translate high self-efficacy into high mastery beliefs.
What was the most surpising thing you learned in this chapter?
I felt the most interesting thing in this chapter was Reeve's discussion on helplessness and depression. First, learned helplessness is the psychological state that results when an individual expects that life's outcomes are uncontrollable. Essentially, it is the strength of the perceived relationship between the person's behavior and the person's subsequent fate or outcome (Reeve, 2005). When studied alongside depression, it was surprising yet interesting to find that depressed and nondepressed individuals both accurately judged how much control they had in all but one situation. In the no control situation, depressed individuals accurately judged they had no control while nondpressed individuals overestimated their perceived control. Thus people with depression are not more prone to learned helplessness deficits. Instead, people who are depressed may actually have a more balanced viewpoint on life than nondepressed individuals who often harbor biases when recalling positive events, misjudging the control they have in events within their lives. Pretty fascinating conclusions and really interesting to think about.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
Regarding athletes and sports, self-efficacy is an important aspect within their performance and behavior. I will take the Kansas vs. UNI game to demonstrate this material which I believe will be helpful to consider when I coach athletes.
First, self-efficacy is the generative capacity in which an individual organizes his or her skills to cope with the demands and circumstances that arise. Thus, it's an important aspect of competent functioning as situations arise, especially within sporting events, which are stressful, ambiguous, and unpredictable. As the environment changes, one's self-efficacy is put to the test.
For UNI in their 2nd round game vs. Kansas, their team self-efficacy (belief whether or not they would advance in the tournament) was a judgment formed through multiple sources, specifically the following: personal history trying to execute that particular behavior, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological state.
First, their personal history affected their belief they could win. While this season they had won many games, UNI had never defeated the #1 team in the nation in the past and had never even advanced to the sweet sixteen. Next, vicarious experience; UNI has watched other teams defeat Kansas, yet they have also seen Kansas be victorious a great number of times. Also, past history of the NCAA tourney shows that 2nd round upsets of the #1 seed are possible, yet few and far in between. Also, the team could have looked at UNI's 1990 team which also pulled off a shocker against Mizzou in a 3 vs. 14 matchup. Verbal persuasion; Ben Jacobsen and the team knew they had a shot at knocking them off, yet much of the media had been telling them they had no shot at even competing with the best team in the nation. I think the coach's and individual's verbal persuasion on the team definitely outweighed the media's, providing them an efficacy boost, generating motivation. This led to a solid physiological state in which there appeared to be an absence of tension, fear, and anxiety about playing Kansas.
Overall, it seemed UNI had positive self-efficacy beliefs through their speech and their actions on the court as they shocked the nation defeating Kansas!
What is the relationship betweens self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
As Reeve states, hope emerges from an integrated two-part congnitive motivational system. First, self-efficacy relates to the "can-do" belief regarding their capacity to accomplish a goal. This is agentic thinking. The second part of hope involves clear pathway thinking in which the individual believes that one has multiple and controllable pathways to that goal. In total, self-efficacy supports confidence while pathways represent mastery motivation, which suports optimism. When these things are high/positive in an individual, the overall emotional experience is hope.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
I think one of the most surprising things I read was on page 259 of our text. Reeve wrote about an experiment in which there were three groups. One of them was a control group that did not do math problems, but participants in the other two groups did work on math problems. The two experimental groups differed in how many unsolvable problems they had to try to solve in the first phase of the experiment, and it was found that the group with a higher number of unsolvable problems did significantly worse in the second phase of the experiment (with the second set of problems).
While I also found the finding about depression and personal control (on p. 253) to be very interesting, the reason I chose to write about the math experiment is because it raises some very interesting questions about education. In class, we discussed how unjustified self-esteem and an extreme fear of marking children's answers incorrect might cause serious harm. I think what becomes clear is that an effective, balanced educational system needs to exist. The focus should never be on simply having teachers hand out (and grade) assignments without making a sincere effort to first explain the material - that is stupid (and stupid is not a word I use lightly). The focus should be on actually explaining the material, and then assessing how well the student performs. Of course performance is the product of many factors, but in short I believe that showing students how to solve problems (Math Problems, for example) can significantly increase their feelings of self-efficacy, which along with Mastery Motivation can lead to confidence, hope, and success.
I think opportunities for preparation/study/exercising understanding of relevant concepts (such as homework) can be very important, but it needs to be gone about in the right way - I have never understood how some teachers could possibly believe they are making any kind of impact in a student's life when the totality of their aspirations seem to be grading assignments and not on actually teaching the material or cultivating genuine understanding. Luckily, I have had relatively few classes that fail in this regard, but if you ask me, our educational system can and must do a lot better job of weeding out these types of "teaching." Using a red ink pen does not make one a teacher.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
This might sound strange, but I would actually say the material on pessimistic explanatory style (p. 254), optimistic explanatory style (p.254), and the finding that ("People with depression are not more prone to learned helplessness deficits. Rather, it is the individuals who are not depressed who sometimes believe they have more control than they actually have... Most of the misjudging is done by non-depressed individuals, not by those who are depressed.")
I find all of this information helpful in understanding my own everyday thoughts and the thoughts of others, but I must admit that some of these findings seem somewhat contradictory. As was written in our text (and shown above), those with depression are actually the people who tend to be more accurate in their assessments. Here we may have empirical support for something I have long suspected. I think that being somewhat pessimistic (as you often see in mildly depressed individuals) does not necessarily put one at some great disadvantage. Especially for certain people, I think there can be great value in just accepting who you are, even if that includes above average pessimism. A person should not feel worse about themselves just because they sometimes have pessimistic tendencies about outcomes.
To play Devil's advocate, however, I could also cite Reeve's statement that, "(Among those with pessimistic explanatory styles) academic failures, poor physical health, and subpar job performance are common... (it) is (also) associated with (social distress and depression)." To bring all this information together I would perhaps say that (as in so many things) there needs to be a balance. Although being optimistic can have its disadvantages as well (For Example: the tendency not to accept responsibility for personal failures, ignoring negative information, and even being somewhat delusional), I suppose the good alternative is to try to be "realistic." Obviously, being to the extreme in either direction has negative consequences, but I believe that the specific balance will be different in each person (we each have our own homeostasis).
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
For the direct book definition on page 259, I would reiterate, "Together, high self-efficacy supports confidence while mastery motivational orientation supports optimism... (We see that when outcomes and efficacy are positive) the overall emotional experience is one of hope." I would say that self-efficacy and mastery beliefs are the foundation for hope. Without strong support provided by these two factors, it would seem rather impossible to have a sense of hope. I believe that self-efficacy covers more of the emotional factors and mastery beliefs covers more of the specific task factors.
Take starting a new job. When I start an internship in government, I think I will start out with a strong sense of self-efficacy. I have generally gotten pretty good grades in school and have good study habits (Personal Behavior), I will have the opportunity to see how others do the work before the pressure is on (vicarious experience), I will be encouraged by friends, family, and probably a few co-workers (verbal persuasion), and I will probably try to rest up and prepare for my first few days (physiological state reference).
In the first few days of my work, I think I will then likely develop feeling of Mastery Beliefs. I will do my best to react to failure as positively as possible and try to learn what I can from failure without allowing them to hinder my progress. As I continue to see how the work is done, I will gain more confidence in my competence, and think about how best to improve my skills by taking an "approach" route rather than an avoidance one. I will also try to be social, direct, and problem focused. By doing all of these things, I will gain sufficient confidence that I really will be able to successfully complete the internship and be able to meet the demands of the job.
What is the most surprising thing you learned from this chapter?
A part of self-efficacy that I had not thought about were the physiological states that influence are self-efficacy beliefs. I used to think of self-efficacy as mainly a psychological constructThese physiological methods of performance feedback provide us with another means of recognizing whether or not we are adequately meeting the demands of a task. It is also interesting to note, however that the effects of physiological arousal on self-efficacy are most pronounced for relatively new tasks and can even be interpreted differently for experienced tasks (e.g. "I'm nervous" to "I'm pumped").
What information did you learn that will be personally helpful in your life? Why?
I think self-efficacy is an important aspect when one is engaging in any kind of behavior whether it be recreational, educational, professional, or social. Having confidence in one's own ability is essential for being able to function without experiencing a sense of anxiety and general negative emotion. Although running into anxiety provoking situations is almost inevitable, self-efficacy can help calm negative reactions associated with them, which in turn can increase attentional facilities back to the situation and improve the ability to cope with such situations.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Self-efficacy is a necessary component for both mastery beliefs and hope. Self-efficacy provides the opportunity for us to act in a particular situation. If self-efficacy is high, it is likely that a person will engage in some type of approach-based behavior. If it is low, it is likely that a person will engage in an avoidance-based (or non action) behavior. Being that people with higher efficacy expectations are more likely to act, this makes it more likely that they will achieve their desired(expected) outcome, or simply that what they thought they could do actually did something. As efficacy expectations and outcome expectations continue to be consistent, they will also get higher and higher with each success. This can foster a greater sense of control(perceived control). Once perceived control is relatively high, mastery beliefs are more likely to emerge. Strong mastery beliefs enable a person to engage in a task even when it appears to be incredibly difficult or they receive failure feedback. Because perceived control over an outcome is directed from the self rather than a particular action, when confronted with failure feedback, individuals with mastery beliefs will take another action that they anticipate (efficacy expectation) will help them achieve their desired outcome (outcome expectation). Hope is the convergence of these two things in that both are required to generate the general positivity, optimism, and fortitude that we often associate with "hope".
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
In this chapter the most surprising thing I learned was that of reactance theory. Reeve states that it is similar to learned helplessness, but it explains how people react to uncontrollable life events. Furthermore, expectations of controllability foster reactance, whereas in learned helplessness it is fostered by uncontrollability (Reeve, 2009, P. 261). In order for one to establish control be it psychological or behavioral, one must first confront the situation at hand that is perceived as difficult to them which the individual will then show an initial reactance response. On page 256 Reeve mentions that the term reactance (“reacting against”) is an attempt to reestablish an eliminated or threatened freedom. To me this theory means doing the opposite of what one is told, for example, a child who is told not to cross the street without being supervised and decides to cross anyway.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
I think the information on self-efficacy would be most helpful for me in my life and for the future. For one, we all have to use it in our lives to cope with overwhelming demands we are faced with whether it be at work or in our families. As we keep growing, I at least am watching people all around me (models), which may or may not entice my actions to do better in life and to fulfill my goals. Secondly, we are always getting lectured to or venting to someone (pep talks) which persuade us sometimes in way to motivate us down a certain path. Lastly, self-efficacy enables productive ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. Self-efficacy serves as a model for personal empowerment (Reeve, 2009, p. 261). This all effects how we live the rest of our lives, whether we realize it or not, because from reading this chapter I think self-efficacy will probably be the most helpful to me in my life.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Hope is integrated into self-efficacy and mastery beliefs. There are two types of hope: agentic thinking (self-efficacy) and pathway thinking (mastery versus helplessness) which function together to provide energy and direction for one’s coping efforts (Reeve, 2009, p. 261). Mastery beliefs according to the PowerPoint are the extent of perceived control one has over attainting desirable outcomes and preventing aversive ones. On the other hand self-efficacy is how well one will cope with a certain situation. In addition to hope it consist of high/low-hope individuals who possess resilient self-efficacy and strong mastery motivation (261).
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
The most surprising thing about this chapter to me was the fact that so much goes into things such as self-efficacy, personal control, hope, mastery beleifs, empowerment, coping, helplessness,reactance, and motivation in general. Who knew that there were so many little aspects of each component that make up one big thought or feeling that can motivate us, change how we behave, or even change how we view the world. I guess to be more specific, the aspects that go into self-efficacy (sources)most surprising to me.(Reeve, 235-237) So many small, detailed parts make up such an important thing in someone's life. Self-efficacy can change how a person view's themselves, the world, and others. I suppose such an important aspect of someone's life should have very detailed components within itself.
The sources of self-efficacy come from; personal behavior history, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological activity (Reeve, 235). It makes sense that these things would have an effect on self-efficacy. An example could be a college student who needs to bring up his grades. Let's say he goes out drinking every night instead of doing his homework. Maybe he learned this behavior in the past by s-kating by in highschool and not needing to deal with homework. Thus, in college he doesn't realize that he needs to change his routine to fit homework in, because he has always had time to go out with his friends in highschool. This behavior could also have been learned by watching his friends go out every night. This woul d be considered vicarious experience, or modeling. Seeing all of his friends go out every night could have an influence on the fact that he wants to go out every night. He sees his friends passing classes and still going out, so he beleives that he can do the same. His friends may also be peer pressuring him into gonig out, which may be considered verbal persuasion. If they are pep talking him in to going out and having a good time, it is likely going to be hard for him to decline the invitation. He also may have a physiological state that demands some sort of stress releif or relaxation, in which case going out may be his form of releif. If all of these aspects were modified: he gets into a routine where homework is normal, he learns from other peers in his classes who are doing well and choose to stay in during the week, he finds friends or peers who pep talk him into studying rather than going out, or he finds a different stress relief rather than going out, he can modify his self-efficacy into somethig more positive, and maybe even increase his grades.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
I think the section on ways of coping will be most helpful in my life. I think that alot of the things discussed in the text (p. 243) make alot of sense, and its something that you dont really think about everyday, even though its something that you have to deal with everyday. The chart given in the powerpoing and shown on page 235 of the text made it really easy to understand each type and compare with one another. Each type of coping can be used in a number of situations. I think that knowing this material will help me understand why I choose certain paths when dealing with a problem. Knowing which path I choose may help actually deal with the emotions, stress, anxiety, and frustrations that may come with any given situation. At the same time, its interesting to observe others when thinking about these aspects. In the future, it may help me help others with their coping skills and strategies by understanding that different situation may call for different paths of coping (Reeve, 243).
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beleifs, and hope?
In order to have a sense of mastery beleifs and hope, you must have a sense of self-efficacy as well. Self-efficacy is the extent to which you beleive you will cope with a certain situation based on your preceived level of skills and abilities. On the other hand, mastery beleifs is the perception of how much control you have over a situation, and how much control you have over making that situation a positive one. Along the same lines, hope consists of two major aspects. Those aspects are both self-fficacy and mastery beleifs. This suggests that hope is a product of both self-efficacy and mstery beleifs, considering self-efficacy is your perception of whether or not you can accomplish a certain task or idea, whereas mastery beleifs is your ideas on how you can get the task done or make it work. The diagram given in the powerpoint as well as discussed on page 259 (Reeve) show this relationship between hope and self-efficacy and mastery beleifs and describe it as "putting it all together," which is a great way to explain how hope is related to the other two aspects.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
I found the most interesting thing for me in the chapter was on helplessness and depression. I have a friend, we’ll call him “Jay” (since that’s his real name and it will make it easier for me to remember who I’m talking about) who is battling, and has been battling, depression for quite some time. He’s taking prescribed drugs, seeing a therapist, the whole nine yards. Anyway, reading this section helped me get a better understanding of how Jay may view things. Reeve summarizes that “learned helplessness is the psychological state that results when an individual expects that life’s outcomes are uncontrollable” and that when “people learn that their behavior exerts little or no influence over their outcomes while outside influences actually control what happens to them, they learn a helpless motivational orientation.” Jay always watches the news and gets too tied up emotionally (in my opinion) in world/US events which alter his moods dramatically. I’m not a doctor (but that doesn’t mean I’ve never told a girl that to get her phone number) but wouldn’t Jay be better off if he realized he is in control of his world and not worry about events he has no control over?
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
I liked the self-efficacy section as I think it will be useful to reflect on the four sources as I move on to the next stage of my life. First, when I look at personal behavior history (or what Bandura would call enactive mastery experience) I know that I have already had a “career” and I am not afraid to face new challenges a new career will bring, but rather re-energized to get out into the workplace again. The second source of self-efficacy, vicarious experience, will allow me to see how others do their work in whatever path I choose to take. This will allow me to pick out the methods I deem most efficient when taking on the new career path. The third self-efficacy source is verbal persuasion. I have a great network of family and friends to give me support and although there will be some negative “you can’t do that because” statements along the way I’ll always try to run with the positives. The final source of self-efficacy is physiological state where I will try to have an even keel about whatever occurs in my future work environment. For example, I want to be enthused about my job, but not overly excited where I’ll be disappointed if desired outcomes aren’t reached.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs and hope?
I think hope is the warm fuzzy feelings that bring self-efficacy and mastery beliefs together. Reeve talks about self-efficacy as being the concept of how well a person believes they can do a certain task and that mastery beliefs are when someone will try multiple means to accomplish something. Reeve writes that people who have a strong self-efficacy and mastery motivation and have high hope will perform better than people with low hope thus giving the high hope people that aforementioned warm fuzzy feeling.
What was the most surpising thing you learned in this chapter?
A lot of the information in this entire textbook is pretty factual and not surprising.. but if I had to pick something that surprised me the MOST, I would say the Optimistic and Pessimistic Explanatory Styles. It's kind of obvious when you think of optimistic and pessimistic things what one is referring to, but I thought it was interesting that we relate more optimistic views with situations that are more unstable and changeable and pessimistic views with stable and unchangeable views. I never put a lot of deep thought into the topic, but by reading this chapter and discovering that, it makes a lot of sense. It was kind of one of those 'well, duh! why didn't i think of that?" type of moments.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
One of the concepts from chapter nine I thought would be helpful would be the different ways of coping. On Page 243 in Reeve (2005), there is a graph of the different coping strategies. This is also included from the power point slide. I think this will be the most helpful to me because I am a communication major. We have many of these same concepts within the communication field that I can apply in a different way than psychology can. Communication and Psychology differ in the sense that psychology is more of a factual knowledge, and communication is more of a 'what works the best' theoretical knowledge. The concepts of the different ways of coping with problems (and the different problems) from the psychology standpoint really broadens my entire perspective.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
To begin, self-efficacy is the perception of our own capabilities given certain circumstances and situations. This is the view you have of yourself to accomplish certain goals or tasks. The mastery belief is the perception of control one has over desire outcomes and preventing undesired outcomes. Hope is when you put the two together- when you have the motivation to work at your goals and also KNOW the way to experience their goals. Self-efficacy is believing in yourself (aka the motivation), mastery beliefs pertains to how to reach those goals (the plan) and hope is what you get when you put the two together
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
I was most surprised by the ways to exercise personal control and the effectiveness of expectancy. On page 231, Reeve states, “Expectancy is a subjective prediction of how likely it is that an event will occur”. This statement did not surprise me because when you have confidence in your own abilities to influence your environment and the environment will be responsive to your attempts. When you have confidence in your abilities and expect to reach your goals, you will more likely be successful. However, I did not realize there are two kinds of expectancies, efficacy expectations and outcome expectation. Efficacy expectations ask the question, can I do it? It is the expectation of one’s abilities to execute a certain course of action (Reeve, pg. 232, 2009). Outcome expectations ask the question, will what I do work? The outcome expectation is the expectation of one’s actions producing a certain outcome.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
I think understanding the difference between mastery orientation and learned helplessness will be helpful in my personal life. I need to realize mastery-oriented people embrace challenges and will not be set back by failures. However, helpless-oriented people stay away from challenges and begin to question their abilities when they face failure (Reeve, pg. 243, 2009). I need to understand helpless-oriented people focus on failing instead of working to overcome the failure. I also need to realize because I am a more mastery-oriented person, does not mean I am a better person. I need to focus on helping people who feel they have little control over their outcomes instead of looking down upon them for not seizing a challenge.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
“Hope emerges from an integrated two-part cognitive motivational system” (Reeve, pg 259, 2009). When people figure out how to achieve their goal, they experience hope. The first part in the cognitive motivational system relates to self-efficacy and the “can do” belief in accomplishing goals. The second part of hope involves mastery beliefs or the belief that one can control the environment to reach their goal.
1) What was the most surprising thing that you learned in this chapter?
- It was surprising to learn all the different ways of coping. In previous psychology classes, I have only heard of or read about “problem-focused vs. emotions focused” and “approach vs. avoidance” coping strategies. They all seem to relate very closely with the others, especially the “approach-avoidance” and “control-escape” mechanisms. Although they are not exactly alike, they do share some overlapping qualities. The most interesting dichotomy was the “alloplastic vs. autoplastic” coping technique; I have never thought of coping in that light before, or at least I haven’t learned about it from that perspective. Many people, including myself, tend to focus more heavily on the situation, the problem, or the dreadful occurrence of stress. It seems immediately intangible to try to think about fixing one’s self before one is able to fix the material problem.
2) What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
- To me, the majority of the self-efficacy section is very pertinent information to hold on to. It is crucial to realize your own self-efficacy and then be able to attack stressful situations thereafter. Reading about all the areas on which self-efficacy can touch, such as choice behaviors, effort and persistence, emotionality, etc. I never thought about how personal behavior history of efficacy (high or low) can greatly shape the way we internalize and enact current courses of action; it is quite obvious and unsurprising, to say the least. Full disclosure: I believe myself to be a bit of a helpless-oriented individual when it comes to certain stressors. I now can work on my own self-efficacy by engaging in various scenarios that will potentially help boost me up to the level of mastery-oriented.
3) What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
- Hope is the inevitable outcome when one has already established a high degree of self-efficacy and a controlled sense of mastery-orientation. Self-efficacy is the belief in your own competence. Mastery beliefs are the controllability over undesirable situations, allowing for an attainment of better outcomes and avoided aversive or negative ones. Without reaching the two-abovementioned criteria, one cannot fully achieve hope, in the sense in which the textbook is explaining things.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
The most surprising thing to me was reactance theory. I knew that children often did the exact opposite of what they were told to do from their parents. I had no idea however why a lot of the time they were reluctance to listen. I found it very surprising however that people react against certain instruction to try to reestablish their own threatened freedom.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
I think the information from this chapter that will be most beneficial to me would be empowerment. Empowerment is a very important point of every person’s life. Empowerment includes having the knowledge and skills so that a person can have control over their own lives. Self-efficacy is a key point to empowerment and it is very important to know that self-efficacy can be acquired and changed.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Self-efficacy and mastery beliefs make up and bring about hope. “The first part of hope involves high agency, or the “can do” belief relating to a person’s confidence or efficacy.” “The second part of hope involves clear pathways, or the belief that one has multiple and controllable pathways to those goals.” The first part of hope is fulfilled by self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is our perceptions of how capable we are to cope with a situation. Mastery beliefs are “the extent of perceived control one has over attaining desirable outcomes and preventing aversive ones”. So mastery beliefs are the second part that helps to contribute to goals.
1. I don’t know if I would say this was surprising or not but I didn’t know that helplessness had to do with the environment necessarily. I actually thought it was more of a psychological thing whether you had one bad experience and became that way or whether it was that you just never tried to succeed or accomplish something which made you helpless. In one of the slides about learned helplessness it talks about contingency which states, objective relationship between a person’s behavior and the environments outcomes. I thought of helplessness as more of a personality attribute or psychological problem rather than dealing anything with the outside environment.
2. Basically all of the material could actual be put to good use in my life right now. I don’t feel as though I act helpless, although sometimes I want to. I’m nearing the end of my college career and I need to become more reliant on myself rather than my parents. This will require me to have high self-efficacy and expectations for myself. I will need to say, “I can do this” when it comes to getting a full-time job and paying more of my own bills. I think my main focus should be being optimistic about things, even if I don’t get an interview or someone else gets the job; I should see it as a learning experience and learn what to do better on the next time. In my job I will have to deal with the ways of coping. For instance, I want to be an HR manager so, I will need to cope by using the approach method versus the avoidance method. This states moving toward a problem and not walking away. I will need to take-charge and get tasks completed in order to keep my job instead of staying clear of the situation and leaving things for others.
3. The main goal of all three would be to achieve the desired outcome. Both self-efficacy and mastery belief mention something about staying away from undesired outcomes or coping with them if they occur. Which brings me to hope; which is like your knowledge of your ability to reach the desired outcome. They all go hand-in-hand for achieving our goals and desired outcomes.
What was most surprising to me in the chapter?
I also thought the section on reactance theory was very interesting. I have heard of this theory before but never really knew much about it. As defined in the textbook, "the term reactance refers to the psychological and behavioral attempt at reestablishing ("reacting against") an eliminated or threatened freedom." This theory is used in similar situations to learned helplessness as it attempts to explain how people behave when their freedom is taken away. One common behavior is when children do exactly the opposite of what they are asked to do. Instead of giving up, as people and dogs do when learned helplessness sets in, the reactance theory states that people will fight against the helpless feeling by acting out in order to maintain freedom of choice.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
I think one of the more valuable parts of this chapter is wheen Reeves is discussing the difference between Mastery vs Helplessness on pages 243-244. Reeves makes it clear that there are two ways to react to failure: either mastery motivational or helpless motivational. Mastery motivational people are resistent and remained task focused, even when in adverse situations. Helpless motivational people, on the other hand, give up and withdraw from the task at hand.
I think this is the most important and valuable part of this chapter because everyone faces adversity, and fails from time to time. Reeves states that helpless oriented people focus on why they are failing where mastery oriented people focus on how they can fix their failure. They realize that the harder things get, the harder they need to work, and this is very valuable way to motivate yourself to get back up and keep going in any situation.
What is the relationship betweens self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
These three emotions are highly related in that self-efficacy and mastery beliefs make up hope in a way. Hope is based upon the perceived capacity that the goal can be accomplished, as well as the belief that he or she can find a way to get the task done. According to Reeves, "high self-efficacy supports confidence while a mastery motivatinal orientation supports optimism." Basically: high self-efficacy+mastery beliefs= hope.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
What surprised me was how much of an impact self-efficacy has on motivation. It makes perfect sense, but I had never thought of it like that. The slide “Sources & Effects of Self-Efficacy” really helped lay out exactly what is happening. This is something I personally struggle with sometimes and this model was dead on. It helps me make sense of something that was an enigma before.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
As I said in question one, I learned why it can be so difficult to motivate myself sometimes and this information is the first step to fixing that. If I’m having trouble believing in my own abilities, it’s nearly impossible for me to even try. This is true even if I really do have the skills, but I’m just doubting myself. Knowing how self-efficacy and motivation work together can aid me in my attempts to correct any lack of motivation I struggle with.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Hope is what you have when you have high self-efficacy and high mastery beliefs. If you believe you can do it and that you have ways, or paths, to achieve it, then you have hope.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
For me the most surprising information I learned was about the different sources of self-efficacy. I never knew how much information a person takes in that would affect the way they believed they could behave in a situation. I figured that personal history would be an important factor, but never thought of modeling, pep talks, or physiological activity would have as much influence as it does. I never really believed in pep talks before because they never seem to work for me. This might be due to the person giving the talk and how I view them (either as incompetent or credible) or on the limitations of the situation. I have also never considered physiological states as important in a person’s self-efficacy but after reading about it, it makes more sense. If a person is feeling anxious or fearful they may not believe in their ability to complete a task, thereby decreasing their self-efficacy.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
I think the information about learned helplessness will be personally helpful. By knowing about this concept it may allow me to realize when I am experiencing it in my life, and therefore being able to break the cycle of helplessness. I may be able to exert control into certain aspects of my life, which would help me undo my learned helplessness. I also think the information on mastery beliefs will be helpful. I need to become more mastery-oriented in that I need more pathways of obtaining the goals I set for myself in life. I also need to learn to cope to negative feedback in similar ways as mastery-oriented people instead of being “helpless.”
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Hope is a combination of two different concepts, agency and pathways. Agency is the “can do” belief which relates to a person’s self-efficacy. How well a person believes they would be able to deal in a situation increases their agency. Pathways are when a person is able to generate possible courses to a goal. Mastery belief is a person’s perceived control over a situation, which would relate to hope in that they are able to create a pathway to a goal and are able to create new pathways when unexpected obstacles occur. If a person has low control beliefs they are unable to create those new pathways needed to obtain the goal, which would then decrease their levels of hope.
The most surprising idea that came out of this chapter was how much thought and cognitive aspect that are involved in our perceived control over a situation and how from looking at a situation different we can alter our self-efficacy and mastery beliefs. Prior to reading this chapter I had knowledge of what self efficacy was and peoples locus of control. However, in this chapter it breaks each cognitive idea down into smaller facets. For example; just the idea of how we view our expectations, expectancy expectations and outcome expectations, is must more details than I would have imagined. Also, with the prior understand of self- efficacy I had a pretty good idea of how we come to develop how high or low we feel our self efficacy is; yet after reading this chapter the facets such as, verbal persuasion, physiological state, and vicarious experience just put a name to these concepts.
What information did I learn that I think will be personally helpful to me in my life? Why?
This chapter is about personal control beliefs. There probably isn’t anything in this chapter that I could not apply personally. However, coping strategies is one aspect of the chapter that I feel is more personally applicable than some other theories. Looking at the ideas of approach and avoidance, social and solitary, problem and emotional focused coping and knowing how they are implemented in our decisions will help when a stressful situation arises. Having the knowledge of these coping strategies can help determine what is the best way to target this situation that will produce the desired outcome.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Self-efficacy as defined in our text states that it is ones judgment of how well one will cope with a situation given the skills one possesses and the circumstances one faces, This According to our text mastery beliefs are the perceived control one has over attaining desirable outcome and preventing aversive ones. Therefore, ones mastery beliefs are directly affected by ones self efficacy. If someone has low self efficacy then they feel as though they do not have the skills to cope with the circumstances and situation they are faced with. If this is the case then ones mastery beliefs (or perceived control over that situation) are lower therefore believing they can not produce the outcome they desire. Hope the combination of both self efficacy and mastery beliefs. There are two parts to the definition of hope. 1. The perceived ability (or self efficacy) that one has to ability to accomplish these goals. 2. the idea that the outcome of these goals can be achieved one way or anther and that the person possesses the control over these outcomes. Therefore, self efficacy and mastery beliefs are both the components that make up ones hope.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
Like a few other people said before me, I didn’t necessarily find anything to be surprising because a lot of the information makes sense once you read it. However I would say the most interesting aspect of chapter 9 to me was how self-efficacy can have effects on your behavior. On page 237 of the text it explains when people expect to not do well on a task or think they won’t be able to execute it correctly they are not willing to engage in activities that will ask them to perform the required task. Rather people will not put in much effort, will settle for average results, and will often just quit and give up entirely. So self-efficacy has a lot to do with the tasks we choose to engage in and those we ignore because we don’t think we will do well at them anyways.
What information do you think will be most helpful to you in your life? Why?
I think knowing that there are different ways to cope with different situations will be helpful to me in my life. I think it will be helpful to me because I tend to just completely ignore all aspects of something that is bothering me until I can at least figure out how to do something about it. After looking at the different ways of coping, it will be able to help me figure out what action to take with a certain problem. For example, I do not get alone with my roommate—at all. He always takes me DVD’s into his room and leaves them there for months getting dirty and falling behind his dresser. So instead of using an emotion focused way of coping by getting angry and bitter, I looked at a problem focused approach and removed all of my DVD’s from the common area so he can no longer get to them. Problem solved!
What is the relationship betweens self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Self-efficacy is your own ability to use your skills to cope with problems and challenges. Self-efficacy comes from within a person. Mastery beliefs are similar in that they reflect how much control you think you have over something happening the way you want it to. Mastery beliefs and self-efficacy both have to come from within a person to motivate them. If a person has high self-efficacy and high mastery beliefs they will have high hope. People with high mastery beliefs may not succeed at first, but because they have high self-efficacy they will try again; the combination of the motivation to work and the knowledge of how to achieve their goals creates hope.
What was the most surpising thing you learned in this chapter?
-I agree with the above poster in that nothing is really surprising information, rather practical explanations for why people do the things they do. The section about separating competence, and self-efficacy was helpful in providing examples of the differences between the two. This gave the two a clear distinction. It was also interesting to see that self efficacy can change with things other than purely random experience (like with a mastery modeling program for example).
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
-All of the information is almost useful, especially that of the self-efficacy, It is a neglected fact that your expectations of outcomes can drastically affect your performance on a task. Knowing you believe in your own abilities produces better results in itself is a powerful tool. Just reading the concepts allows you to be more aware of things in your own life, for example: If you are nervous every time you give a speech and don’t perform very well on it, your self-efficacy about giving speeches can change. It is not something you are burdened with forever.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
-Well just like illustrated in the book, Hope is the connection between self-efficacy and mastery beliefs. Hope also has two types: agentic thinking which is related to self-efficacy and pathyway thinking which is related to mastery orientation. Hope is putting it altogether, the actual experience of being high in both self-efficacy and mastery orientation.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
I found the concept of empowerment very surprising, or interesting. Reeve states that self-efficacy beliefs can be acquired and changed. These self-efficacy expectations can provide the foundation for personal empowerment (Reeve, 2009). I found this surprising because I have always thought about self-efficacy as a static component of a person. I thought that it could be changeable in the way that you could work with your own personal level of self-efficacy to develop the skills necessary to feel confident in different tasks and abilities. I guess the difference is that by empowering yourself you can actually change your self-efficacy where I always viewed in as something that could be altered, but not completely changed.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
I think that the information that is most helpful for me personally is the idea of the mastery-modeling program. This program helps people to become more empowered through self-efficacy training (Reeve, 2009). The program uses a combination of techniques (such as personal behavioral history, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion and physiological calmness) to help people to advance from “anxious novice to confident masters” (Reeve, 2009, p. 242). I found this to be very personally helpful because I know that when I am faced with a new task I can take very different actions. For instance, in some cases I will remain very uneasy until I have mastered the task and in other cases I will simply withdrawal from the task out of fear of failure. This could also be seen as a need for competence. This information is personally relevant because it made me realize that I am affecting my own self- efficacy because I place a limit on what I think I can do (which could also be a form of learned helplessness). Overall, I think that the entire chapter is helpful because it made me realize how I am holding myself back (Reeve, 2009).
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
The idea of hope arises from the motivation to work toward a goal (self-efficacy) and knowing ways to achieve these goals (mastery beliefs). The first part involves the feeling of being able to accomplish something and the second part is feeling that one has clear pathways that have multiple and controllable outcomes (Reeve, 2009). In sum, self-efficacy supports confidence and mastery motivational orientation supports optimism. Mastery beliefs are an important aspect of hope because when a person believes that she/he has multiple pathways to a goal they will not be discouraged when one pathway is closed. Agentic thinking then, is the counter to obstacles that could block certain pathways (Reeve, 2009).
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
Helplessness is learned. I also read the article sited in the book about the study of dogs getting shocks. It was interesting that dogs that learned to be helpless were the only ones that didn’t try to escape from the shock, they just submitted to it. They had no hope that they were ever going to avoid the shock. I guess this might not be the most surprising, but I think it is very interesting. Behavior has more of an influence on outcomes than outside forces do. Learned helplessness arises when their behavior continues to show no influence on situations. Then outside forces are taking over and they become helpless. It seems like a common-sense type happenstance, but spelled out like it is just makes you look at it in a different light.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
By the definition and examples in the book it seems that self-efficacy is fairly crucial in just about every decision an individual makes. I am a senior this year and graduating in May. I am realizing that finding a job is harder than I was really expecting. Now that I have actually had to work on that and realize the weight that comes along with graduation approaching I keep replaying the encouraging words from my mom. In my past history, getting a job was relatively easy because I’ve known people or the hiring process was laid back and kind of “you want a job, there ya go…come and work”. It wasn’t challenging and now I have to use ways of coping and remind myself I can do it…
If I think I’m going to get a job high self-efficacy is going to be important because no one is going to be looking for someone unqualified, inexperienced, AND un-confident.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Self efficacy is if an individual believes they can complete a task and how well they will cope with the outcome.
Mastery beliefs are the control and belief one can complete a task but an individual will also have knowledge and learn ways to avoid outcomes that are undesirable to them.
Hope is how self-efficacy and mastery beliefs work together in order for the individual to cope.
So self-efficacy is saying you can do it, and mastery beliefs helps one find a way to accomplish “it” and these combined give the individual hope of achieving the desired outcome.
1. What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
One of the most surprising things that I learned in this chapter is the reactance theory. One of my professors briefly mentioned this a couple of weeks ago and it didn't make a lot of sense to me until I read this section of the chapter. Reeves puts it in good terms as to why do people sometimes do the opposite of what you tell them to do, or why do people sometimes resist another person's well-intended favor? I have always wondered why others or myself do those kind of things and never understood it until now. I understand now when I feel like I am not in control. I become more aggressive or assertive and try to find a solutoin to make me be in control of an uncontrollable event.
2. What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
I think self-efficacy will be personally helpful in my life. Looking back at self-efficacy the four beliefes that arise from self-efficacy definitely caught my eye and I can benefit from knowing and how to put them into terms for the future. I know that once I get done with college I will be off on my own finding a job and not depending on mom and dad anymore. The personal behavior history definitely will help me with finding a job that I know I can do and benefit from because of my past experiences with certain jobs, or with the past actions that I have taken within the right courses. Knowing that having a vicarious experience can definitely help me become high in self-efficacy. I know in my job right now I watch the managers and store manager can help me in the process of hopefully becoming a manager of a business. It definitely puts me at a higher self-efficacy when I know by watching someone else I can do that same thing. Verbal persuasion will definitely help me in my future and career path, because I know in order to make someone else have high self-efficacy it's the pep talks that motivate someone and to feel a sense of worth. Along with the physiological state, knowing that I will become fatigue and have pain in the future with a new job or ant other circumstance, I'll understand that I will need to boost myself back up for the rest of the day
3. What is the relationship betweens self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Self-efficacy is how well one will cope with a situation, given the skills one has and the circumstances one faces (Bandura, 1986, 1993, 1997).
Mastery beliefs is how an individual can accomplish a task
Hope is when people have both the motivation to work towards a goal, and when people know whys to achieve those goals.
The relationship between them is that in order to have self-efficacy you need to be able to achieve hope with knowing how and what to accomplish and by doing that you would have accomplished a task (mastery beliefs)
What was the most surprising thing you learned in this chapter?
I think the concept of emotionality and its relationship with self efficacy. Although I know emotions play a role in behaviors, however i found it interesting to see that self efficacy is directly influence by emotions. The book talks about how the higher self efficacy a person has, the more a person is able to keep at bay the negative emotions such as anxiety, threat, or even fear. Another thing I would like to note is the fact that people use their past events to predict the outcome. The use the feedback from a previous experience and then use this to develop a strategy of the outcome. Using both emotionality and previous experience, it is easy to see how self efficacy could easily fluctuate causing many problems to arise.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
The information that I found most helpful is that about self efficacy. Prior to reading the chapter, I thought of self efficacy as similar to the self fulfilling prophecy. However, I found out of course that self efficacy is not the same as one's ability, that it is the capacity in which a person is able to continue to function even under stress or pressure from the surrounding environment. I feel as though this is helpful for me because I know I have the ability to behave in a certain manner, however sometimes stress does get the best of me. For instance, take tests for example. I know I know the material, and I have good study skills, yet when it comes to the test, I sometimes bomb under pressure. This is because my self efficacy is low in this situation. I just need to work on this, possibly by getting some verbal persuasion and minimizing any physiological states that would arise and cause a disruption in my behavior.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Basically it is like this. Self efficacy is the thinking that you can commit to a goal and also know how to acheive the goal. Master beliefs is the perceived control a person has over an outcome. Hope is a combination of both of self efficacy and mastery beliefs. Reeve (2009) states that hope involves the "can do" aspect of self efficacy, and also the control aspect of mastery beliefs over the situation.
What was the most surpising thing you learned in this chapter?
The one thing that i found that was surprising, but more in a good way was how hope has such an impact on peoples lives and their successes. I read the article in this section talking about college students and how if they are hopeful in the idea of college then the students are more likely to get better grades and graduate on time.
I also think that for the people who don't have much hope, which means they don't have either/or self-efficacy and mastery beliefs, that they wont be as sucessful as they could be in things that they try to do and goals they try to reach.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
Once formed, self-efficacy belief's contribute to the quality of human functioning in multiple ways (Bandura, 1986, 1997). I think that learning about self-efficacy is important to everyone in their daily lives. I think that it is more important when looking at self-efficacy if a person thinks that they aren't able to deal with certain situations and the knowledge of what those situations are. Then once figuring how which situations are troublesome to a person, they can figure out ways to get passed that insecurity. Which leads to the idea of empowerment and learning to get past those insecurities.
What is the relationship betweens self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Self-Efficacy + Mastery Beliefs = Hope
Hope sums up the combination of one's idea of being able to handle situations (self-efficacy) and that one can accomplish their goals and desires (mastery beliefs).
What was the most surpising thing you learned in this chapter?
The one thing that i found that was surprising, but more in a good way was how hope has such an impact on peoples lives and their successes. I read the article in this section talking about college students and how if they are hopeful in the idea of college then the students are more likely to get better grades and graduate on time.
I also think that for the people who don't have much hope, which means they don't have either/or self-efficacy and mastery beliefs, that they wont be as sucessful as they could be in things that they try to do and goals they try to reach.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
Once formed, self-efficacy belief's contribute to the quality of human functioning in multiple ways (Bandura, 1986, 1997). I think that learning about self-efficacy is important to everyone in their daily lives. I think that it is more important when looking at self-efficacy if a person thinks that they aren't able to deal with certain situations and the knowledge of what those situations are. Then once figuring how which situations are troublesome to a person, they can figure out ways to get passed that insecurity. Which leads to the idea of empowerment and learning to get past those insecurities.
What is the relationship betweens self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Self-Efficacy + Mastery Beliefs = Hope
Hope sums up the combination of one's idea of being able to handle situations (self-efficacy) and that one can accomplish their goals and desires (mastery beliefs).
What was the most surpising thing you learned in this chapter?
I think the information about hope was the most surprising to me. It makes sense that hope is the result of motivation and ability, but I've seen hope in individuals that have no potential pathways toward success. Some people manage to have hope despite a missing piece of the equation. So, while idea of hope as an integrated system makes sense, I don't think it's the only formula that exists.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
The sections on learned helplessness were interesting to me. The study with the cards and pattern detection was particularly applicable. Like the results of the study, I react as most people did when presented with frustrating and uncontrollable environmental stimuli. Knowing how that can affect behaviors and efforts when presented with a similar situation in the future made me realize that this is an area in my life that needs some work. It is expected to react with learned helplessness after a frustrating defeat, but anticipating the effects of learned helplessness could help the people in the study, and myself, approach future situations with a fresh mindset.
What is the relationship betweens self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Hope is the result of believing in one's abilities to accomplish a goal and believing that the goal is attainable through one of several possible controlled courses of action. Self-efficacy is the belief that an individual has about how well he or she can accomplish something based on his or her skills, abilities, circumstances, etc. This is abilities aspect of hope. Mastery beliefs are the amount of control an individual believes he or she has over the outcome of an event. This is the amount of control and how attainable a goal is concerning the second aspect of hope.
What was the most surpising thing you learned in this chapter?
I think the information about hope was the most surprising to me. It makes sense that hope is the result of motivation and ability, but I've seen hope in individuals that have no potential pathways toward success. Some people manage to have hope despite a missing piece of the equation. So, while idea of hope as an integrated system makes sense, I don't think it's the only formula that exists.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
The sections on learned helplessness were interesting to me. The study with the cards and pattern detection was particularly applicable. Like the results of the study, I react as most people did when presented with frustrating and uncontrollable environmental stimuli. Knowing how that can affect behaviors and efforts when presented with a similar situation in the future made me realize that this is an area in my life that needs some work. It is expected to react with learned helplessness after a frustrating defeat, but anticipating the effects of learned helplessness could help the people in the study, and myself, approach future situations with a fresh mindset.
What is the relationship betweens self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Hope is the result of believing in one's abilities to accomplish a goal and believing that the goal is attainable through one of several possible controlled courses of action. Self-efficacy is the belief that an individual has about how well he or she can accomplish something based on his or her skills, abilities, circumstances, etc. This is abilities aspect of hope. Mastery beliefs are the amount of control an individual believes he or she has over the outcome of an event. This is the amount of control and how attainable a goal is concerning the second aspect of hope.
Questions 1 & 2:
The most surprising thing that I learned was the extent in which self-efficacy effects my life. Self-efficacy can be applied to any situation where you are performing or learning a skill, and it is greatly influenced by our history. When one reencounters a situation, how you interpret your memories of the previous time(s) will influence how you do. However, this is not necessarily my actual ability to perform. It’s the interpretation of how you did. Since interpretations are subjective, you can choose what to believe. So even if you did poorly on the task, you can convince yourself that you did better than you originally thought. This can come in the form of a pep talk from either yourself or someone else.
Example: My younger brother bought a motorcycle last spring. I have always wanted one and wanted to learn. However, Ben is extremely possessive of his vehicles, so there was no way that I was going to ask him to teach me or to ride it. Over break, he unexpectedly offered to teach me. I know how to ride a bike, and my car is a manual transmission. Based on these two skills and experiences, I felt confident that I could capably drive the motorcycle. Well, I laid it down pulling out of the drive wave at three miles per hour. I immediately felt like an idiot, and I interpreted this as a total failure and that I should never get on a motorcycle again. However, after thinking about it, I fell while learning to ride a bike, and I stalled my car more times than I can remember. So even though I felt like a failure while learning those skills, I kept trying and eventually got darn good at the both of them. However, my dad taught me how to do both of those skills, and I would prefer him teaching me than my brother. This is because he was good at providing clear instructions and encouragement that kept me from giving up out of frustration.
Another personal example is from my preferred learning style. I am a textile-kinesthetic learner. I like the “monkey see monkey do” approach to learning (a vicarious experience). I am good at noticing details and by watching what I am supposed to do first, I remember those details and imitate them very accurately. My summer job is to do yard work for a couple who have fourteen acres. My first summer, the wife would show me how to clean the pool, cut the lawn (their way), and do a multitude of other tasks. After only three weeks, I got a fifty-cent raise because I was the best worker they have ever had. Louise, the wife, never had to repeat what chores needed to be done or how to do them. After the first time, I simply repeated the high precision work that I had done the first time. This is because after learning how they wanted the chore done, I simply remembered how she did it, then how it looked after I did it, and I was automatically confident that I could do it again to that caliber. It was simple for me and with the success, I enjoyed the praise for a job well done. I think it is because of this that I am now going back for my fifth consecutive summer.
Question 3:
Self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope work together to help accomplish goals. Mind you that these may not be elaborate goals but goals nonetheless. Our choice to learn to ride a motorcycle is only a goal until we do it. While it is still a goal, self-efficacy is used to determine whether we have the skills to perform the task or not. Mastery beliefs tell us whether we have the control to obtain the goal. And hope is the result of having the skills and control to obtain those goals
What was the most surpising thing you learned in this chapter?
The most surprising thing to me was learning the differences between mastery and helplessness. Mastery can help help and motivate you and the feedback can be constuctive and helpful. Helplessness can lead to feedback that makes one feel inadequate.
What information did you learn that you think will be personally helpful to you in your life? Why?
The different ways of coping will probably help me out the most.The chapter discussed which ways would be more helpful in coping and which ways you should avoid. I can look back to these examples when trying to cope with hard times that may come my way.
What is the relationship between self-efficacy, mastery beliefs, and hope?
Self-efficacy is believing that you can accomplish something, master beliefs is believing you can control the outcome in things that you do, and hope is believing that you can achieve something. Hope is used in self-efficacy when people think they can accomplish something and is used in mastery beliefs when someone thinks that they will find a way to accomplish the goal no matter what. they are all pretty similar.