From Fear to Flow

10

Self-efficacy and self-confidence

Introduction

As Henry Ford said: ‘Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right.’ Self-confidence and self-efficacy are two important factors that can influence attitude towards new information as well as search activity. Self-confidence is a general overall reliance on one’s ability to master and succeed in any given context. Self-efficacy, on the other hand, is often context-dependent and based on previous experiences (Bandura, 2001). People may thus have strong feelings of self-efficacy in a situation in which they have succeeded in the past, but low feelings in another context. Self-efficacy is in this sense an estimation of personal competence and capacity. There is no rule that says this ...