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International Journal of ExistentialPsychology & Psychotherapy

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Performance and Self-Perception:Study of Self-Efficacy

Richard GrayeTyndale University

Our personal beliefs about ourselves unfold like a self-fulfilling prophecy. What we be-lieve is what we will receive, accomplish, and become. Human limitations are a construc-tion of what we imagine ourselves capable, so it is integral that we perceive an accurate and positive self-concept to be empowered to be success in life.

This is something that is at the kernel of all humanity: we are what we think we are. In popular psychology we tend to look at this area of our being as related to positive psy-chology, a branch of psychology that uncovers peoples strengths and promotes their posi-tive functions to bring about positive hu-man transformation. It is the purpose of this department of psychology to release more human potential and have people live better lives. In this field of psychology an area that has been studied the most and has produced the most empirical data to prove its validity is the study of self-efficacy.

The definition of self- efficacy in the Posi-tive Psychology textbook (2007) is, “Peoples beliefs in their capabilities to produce desired effects by their own actions” (p.174). An-other leading authority in Psychology has marked self-efficacy to mean, “What I believe I can do with my skills under certain condi-tions (Snyder, 2007, p.174). The Bible also defines self-efficacy, “As he thinks in his heart, so he is” (KJV, 2007, pro. 23:7). The synthesis

of these three denotations defines self-efficacy to be about the personal belief of who we our, what we can do, and the level of our ability to produce the best results in response to a challenge in varying environments. There-fore, it is my view our performance is directly related to our self-perception. In this paper it will be demonstrated that self-efficacy can be cultivated in three different ways, through our personal beliefs, through our environment, and through coaching techniques.

Personal asPect

We are not born with the view that we are able to conquer the world. Self-efficacy is a learned pattern of thinking. It is something that is cultivated within us from an early childhood and continues to grow and develop as we age. It initially comes from our parents instilling within us the belief that we will be high achievers, or capable of accomplishing a certain task. It is essentially important for such motivating verbal affirmation in the ear-lier stages of ones life because so much of that stage of life comes as a challenge from taking our first steps to going to the washroom for the first time.

When we are older it is the positive transfer of our parents and teachers telling us that we are capable of producing the desired results that motivates us. Those encouraging words support much of our life lead independently from our home life. The condition of our life is now about our ability to draw our strength from the knowledge of our previous success and other agencies to reaffirm ourselves in the belief that what lies ahead—a challenge of difficulty—is not to be deviate from but con-

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Volume 2, Number 2June, 2008

fronted because the possibility of our success is far greater than our belief in the possibility of our failure.

The power of our personal belief is not only drawn from our parents but from the model-ing of other people. Those, whom we perceive to be able to overcome adversity and perform competently in undesired conditions, are the ones we imitate. The self-replicating quality of humans is inherent in all of humanity. It is such that we will reproduce what we be-lieve and perceive within ourselves. There are many examples, and it only requires asking some of the most prominent business men, leaders, and people, who have impacted this world who their role model was, and we will observe that at some point of contact in their lives, one of these people began to imitate another person’s positive example, and in so doing found the strength to cope and achieve a desired result when it seemed impossible. This is clearly in Christianity, we model Christ, the person who overcame and achieved greatness in adverse conditions.

So our own perceptions of ourselves affect our performance and our cultivated by the examples of others. Also, our environment is directly related to our performance and per-ception of ourselves. Environment

In the movie “Freedom Writers,” a classroom of students that discover self-efficacy in the book “Diary of Anna Frank.” The book is the personal experience and testimony of a girl who went through the holocaust. The teacher of this class demonstrates that environment is a leading factor in positive psychology when she takes her class out of the Long Beach

ghetto the students live in and into a sophis-ticated part of California, to stay at a very classy hotel.

This is the first time any of these students have been in a different environment from the one they knew: an environment that is riddled in gang violence, drug abuse, racism, and murder. When the students arrive at the hotel they are marveled but its appearance and completely overwhelmed by the luxury and comfort of staying there. Immediately, they begin to say to themselves that they what to live in a place like that, next we see them start to believe they can through the facilitation of their teacher.

The impact that this teacher made revolution-ized these teenagers’ lives. Most of them prior to her tenure at the school were very discour-aged by life, unaware of the possibility of their own potential, and not acquainted with the hope that something better is a substantial ideal worth holding. The teacher demonstrates that the environ-ment we chose to grow in either cultivates a healthy positive self-concept or diminishes it. The other truth that this movie portrays in correlation to self-efficacy and our envi-ronment is the role parenting and teaching/ coaching has on self-efficacy.

coaching

From childhood we are being coached on how to deal with the world. Coaching starts with our parents, family, teachers, then heroes and figures of inspiration, the last probably the most potent in our development. How-ever, a coach could be a leader, your boss for


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example. The person who not only tells you what to do but also encourages you to move beyond your present position and applied abilities. We needed coaches because they will help us see our true potential.

In the movie “Facing the Giants,” there is an extraordinary scene of a coach releasing a football player’s potential to be more than he saw himself to be. What transpires is initially the most influential player of the team dem-onstrating a defeated, negative view of his ability towards an adversity and a half-heart attempt to perform a task. The coach chal-lenges the young man to “give him his very best!” The football player agrees. The coach blindfolds the young man and has him crawl, unaware, the entire length of a football field with another, less heavy, student on his back. This phenomenal accomplishment was not won without the coach continually telling him he could do it. The football player did not know until he saw in the end that he had the ability to do what he did.

This amazing scene proves the necessity of a coach in our life. It displays that everyone needs someone to come along side them and motivate them to perform at higher levels. The outcome of us not having a coach en-abling us to perform at higher levels is us not being able to see what we could really be capable of doing. Therefore, self-efficacy is cultivated through the influence of others empowering us to become greater through believing that we possess the strength to achieve a specific task.

conclusion

In this paper it was demonstrated that self-efficacy could be cultivated through three dif-ferent agencies: personal, environmental, and through coaching. The connection between what we perceive ourselves, in each of those three cases, is the leading determinant in how well we perform in various conditions. It is my belief that everyone needs to have Christ to release their ultimate potential and maxi-mum capability to perform in life.


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reFerences

Bible, 1989. New Revised Standard Version. 528, Provbers 23:7

Synder, C. R., & Lopez. S. J. Positive Psychol-ogy. 174.

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