There’s a belief that something’s wrong if you don’t have what other people have—that it’s because you’re ‘disadvantaged.’ A teenage dropout mother is told she has a disadvantage. But if you’re going to call the negative consequences of chosen behavior ‘disadvantage,’ the word is corrupt beyond repair and useful only for propaganda purposes.
Perceived self-efficacy and beliefs about the locus of outcome causality must be distinguished
In social cognitive theory, perceived self-efficacy results from diverse sources of information conveyed vicariously and through social evaluation, as well as through direct experience
Regression analyses show that self-efficacy contributes to achievement behavior beyond the effects of cognitive skills
Thoughts lead to feelings. Feelings lead to actions. Action leads to results.
Only recently - about five minutes ago, relative to the long-running human comedy - have parents been driving themselves to distraction by taking too seriously the idea that 'as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.'
In any given instance, behavior can be predicted best by considering both self-efficacy and outcome beliefs . . . different patterns of self-efficacy and outcome beliefs are likely to produce different psychological effects
There is no reality of consciousness independent of the effects of various vehicles of content on subsequent action (and hence, of course, on memory).
What we think or what we know or what we believe is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do
Everyone has values; even criminal gangs have values. Values govern people's behavior but principles govern the consequences of those behaviors.
Persuasion, indeed, is a kind of force. It consists in showing a person the consequences of his actions. It is, in a word, force applied through the mind.
You are completely at choice who you will be today in your interactions with others. Compassionate, kind, giving and forgiving will create one set of probabilities; angry, judgmental, critical and defensive will create another one altogether.
People high in conscientiousness get better grades in high school and college; they commit fewer crimes; and they stay married longer.
What human beings consciously wish is often quite at variance with the results their reflex patterns automatically create for them.
