PASSI CITY COLLEGE
City of Passi, Iloilo
SCHOOL OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
GE 101
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
WITH POPULATION EDUCATION & CONTROL
FIRST SEMESTER, A.Y. 2022-2023
Ms. Jarol S. Batilaran, LPT
Instructor
Overview
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GE 1 Understanding the Self with Population Education and Control Module 7
Success eludes those who are not willing to come out of their comfort zone. As a matter of fact, we all
dream of success. We all think of success. We all want success. But, not all of us work hard for it. Or, should I
say not all of us are willing to work hard for it. That’s why our dream of success, continues to be just a dream.
Dreaming is important if you want to succeed - dreaming about success, but the challenge lies in having to
work for that success. And, those who take up this challenge head-on are the ones who are able to succeed!
Talk about the Vasco da Gamas, the Usain Bolts or the Larry Pages, they were all able to succeed in life not
only because they dreamed for success, but they worked hard to make their dreams come true.
Module Outcomes
At the end of this lesson, you must be able to:
1. Use Bandura's self-efficacy theory for self-assessment;
2. Differentiate growth and fixed mindset by Dweck; and
3. Design personal goals adapt in Locke's goal setting theory.
Introduction
Your dream is the reason for the way you are. Your dream is not a coincidence. Your dream IS who
you are. You SHOULD pursue it! Your dream gives you a sense of meaning and purpose, and drives you on
into your chosen future. Your dream IS the meaning of your life! Get your dreams off the shelf! Focus. Strive.
This is how things were meant to be. What you are dreaming of accomplishing in your life is God’s way of
getting you involved in his Master Plan.
Albert F Bandura's Self-efficacy
"Self-efficacy theory is based on the assumption that psychological procedures serve as a means of
creating and strengthening expectations of personal efficacy."
Self-efficacy theory distinguishes between expectations of efficacy and response-outcome expectancies.
According to Weibell (2011), "a person's outcome expectancy estimate that a given behavior will lead to
certain outcomes." An efficacy expectation is "the conviction that behavior required to produce the outcomes
one can successfully execute. Although a person may expect a certain activity to lead to a particular outcome,
they may lack the motivation to perform the action, doubting their ability to do so. Outcome and efficacy
expectations are differentiated because individuals can believe that a particular course of action will produce
certain outcomes. However, if they entertain serious doubts. About whether they can perform the necessary
activities with such information, it does not influence their behavior.
Self-efficacy 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-efficacy increases their ability
to deal with a potentially averse situation. For example, experimental studies on the treatment of adults with
ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) have demonstrated that raising levels of self-efficacy is an effective technique
to help them cope with threatening situations. Perceived self-efficacy mediates anxiety arousal.
Weibell (2011) stated that Dr. Bandura defined self-efficacy 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;
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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 all kinds of adverse outcomes, rather than
concentrating 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 self-efficacy is developed and
maintained. These are:
1. performance accomplishments or mastery experiences;
2. vicarious experiences;
3. verbal or social persuasion; and
Carol S. Dweck's Fixed and Growth Mindset Theory Biography
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 hard work,
learning, training, and perseverance have growth theory of intelligence, which goes under growth mindset.
According to Dr. Dweck, individuals may not necessarily be aware of their own mindset, but their mindset can
still be discerned based on their behavior. It is especially evident in their reaction to failure. Fixed-mindset
individuals dread failure because it is a negative statement on their basic abilities, while growth-mindset
individuals do not mind or fear failure as much because they realize their performance can be improved and
learning comes from failure. These two mindsets play an important role in all aspects of a person's life.
Goal Setting Theory
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The goal setting theory was first studied by Dr. Locke in the middle of 1960s. He continued to do more studies
in relation to his theory. In 1996, he published another article entitled "Motivation Through Conscious Goal
Setting." The article is about his 30 years of research findings on the relationship between conscious
performance goals and performance on work tasks. The basic contents of goal setting theory are summarized
in terms of 14 categories of findings discussed in the article (Locke 1996).
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. It
also assumes that introspective reports provide useful and valid data for formulating psychological concepts
and measuring psychological phenomena (e.g., purpose, goal commitment, and self-efficacy). He then
discussed the attributes of goals and his 14 research findings.
Goal Attributes
Goals have both an internal and an external aspect. Internally, they are Goal Attributes ideas (desired ends);
externally, they refer to the object or Condition sought (e.g., a job, a sale, a certain performance level). The
idea guides action to attain the object. Two broad attributes of goals are content (the actual object sought)
and intensity (the scope, focus, and complexity, among others of the choice process). Qualitatively, the
content of a goal is whatever the person is seeking. Quantitatively, two attributes of content, difficulty, and
specificity, have been studied (Locke 2017).
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. This is not to say that specificity is always desirable (it may not be in some
creative innovation situations), but only that it has certain effects.
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. The aspect of intensity that
has been most studied in goal setting research is that of goal commitment—the degree to which the person is
genuinely attached to and determined to reach the goals.
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. However,
when goals are specific and hard, the higher the commitment is being required, which results to better
performance.
5. High commitment to goals is attained when:
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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).
These are the same factors that influence goal choice. There are many ways to convince a person that a goal
is important:
• In most laboratory settings, it is quite sufficient to simply ask for compliance after providing a plausible
rationale for the study.
• In work situations, the supervisor or leader can use legitimate authority to get initial commitment.
• Continued commitment might require additional incentives such as supportiveness, recognition, and rewards.
Financial incentives may facilitate commitment and performance, except when rewards are offered for
attaining impossible goals. Here, performance actually drops.
Participation by subordinates in setting goals (i.e., joint goat setting by supervisor and subordinate) leads to
higher commitment than curtly telling people what to do with no explanation, but it does not lead to
(practically significant) higher commitment than providing a convincing rationale for an assigned goal.
Self-set goals can be highly effective in gaining commitment, although they may not always be set as high as
another person would assign.
Commitment can be enhanced by effective leadership. Relevant leadership techniques include:
• providing and communicating an inspiring vision;
• acting as role model for the employees;
• expecting outstanding performance;
•promoting employees who embrace the vision and dismissing this who reject it;
• delegating responsibility ("ownership able, responsible ") for key tasks; those who reject it;
•goal setting itself can be delegated for cap in employee capabilities;
• expressing (genuine) confidence employees;
• enhancing capabilities through training; and
• for commitment in public.
Self-efficacy refers to task-specific confidence and is a key component of Bandura's (1986) social cognitive
theory. Bandura showed that self-efficacy can be raised by enactive mastery, persuasion, and role modeling—
all referred to above. In organizational settings, enactive mastery can be assured by providing people with
needed experience and training and also by selecting people based on their skills and abilities. Persuasion may
include not only verbal expressions of confidence but also giving people information regarding what task
strategies to use. The effectiveness of role modeling depends on the attributes of the model and on the
person observing the model.
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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. The goal set may be higher or lower than the performance level
previously achieved. The effect of performance feedback (knowledge of score) depends on the goals set in
response to it
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. Those who can sustain their self-efficacy under such pressure tend to maintain or
even raise their subsequent goals, retain their commitment, intensify their search for better strategies, and
thereby improve their subsequent performance. Those who lose confidence will tend to lower their goals,
decrease their efforts, and lessen the intensity and effectiveness of their strategy search. According to
Bandura, changes in self-efficacy after experiencing failure may be affected by the types of causal affirmative
statements people make.
9. Goals affect performance by affecting the direction of action, the degree of effort exerted, and the
persistence of action over time.
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. Newly learned plans or strategies are most
likely to be utilized under the stimulus of a specific, difficult 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.
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The logic behind this model is that goals and self-efficacy are the immediate regulators of much human
action, and these goals and self-efficacy, therefore, reflect the individual's assessment of the value of
incentives and of the applicability of values and traits to specific situations.
Self-management. Goal-directed actions and choices are not necessarily "imposed" or even encouraged by
environment (e.g., organizational demands). People have own lives by setting their own purpose and working
to achieve them.
13. Goal setting and goal-related mechanism can be trained and/.or adopted in the absence of training for the
purpose of self-regulation
14. Goals serve as standards of self-satisfaction, with demanding higher accomplishment in order to attain self
satisfaction than easy goals. Goals can also be used to enhance task interest, reduce boredom, and
promotegoal clarity. When used to punish or intimidate people, however, goals increase stress and anxiety.
Summary
Dreams can come true, but it depends on how determined we are to make those happen in real life.
Rather than just keeping your dreams of promotion or fulfillment in your head, here are several tips on how to
make them happen:
Write your dreams down: If you want to make them real, then write them down and get a feel for the
ones that are achievable, and make sure they happen through hard work and perseverance.
Guidance, then go for it: To get your dreams underway, you need to let someone in on your ‘secrets’.
Find someone who can give you pointers like a business coach or a mentor, learn from their mistakes and
ensure you don’t fall into any traps. Once all your effort is done, then there’s only thing to do – go for it.
Be brave: Be accepting of challenges and knockbacks, but be brave and fight for your corner. Keep
your drive – and remember how much you want to achieve your dream.
Take in the journey: The start and finish of a project is naturally satisfying, but the journey should be
just as enjoyable. So work slowly and methodically, and pick up experience along the way. Whether you
achieve your goal at least you can draw experience from the journey
Dream on: Whether it works out or not, you should never stop taking your dreams and making them real. So
keep on dreaming and fulfilling that potential. Dont forget to take action, if you don’t, it will remain in your
dream.
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Activity 7.1
Dream Board. Make your dream board, five years after college graduation.
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural
Alata, E. J et. al (2018). Understanding the Self. Rex Book Store, 856 Nicanor Reyes, Sr. St., CM Recto Ave.,
Manila
Huyong, A. (2002). General Psychology. Mindset Publishing, Inc., Lopez Jaena St., Molo Iloilo City, p. 1-10
Miranda, N. (2008). Psychology: Essentials to understanding behaviour. National Book Store, Quad Alpha
Centrum, Bldg., 125 Pioneer Street, Mandaluyong City,
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