Beliefs About the Self and the World
The humanistic perspective, building on Rogers and Maslow discussed earlier in this course, treats self-concept — a person's organized set of beliefs about who they are — as central to personality. Closely related is self-esteem: the overall evaluative judgment a person makes about their own worth. Humanistic theorists argue that a mismatch between one's self-concept and one's actual experience (incongruence) is a major source of psychological distress, while a growth-supportive environment (offering unconditional positive regard) helps a person's self-concept develop in a healthy, integrated way.
The social-cognitive perspective, most closely associated with Albert Bandura, emphasizes how COGNITIVE beliefs about oneself and one's environment shape personality and behavior. Self-efficacy is a person's belief in their own capability to succeed at a SPECIFIC task or domain — distinct from global self-esteem, since a person can have high self-efficacy for public speaking but low self-efficacy for cooking, for instance. Self-efficacy strongly predicts persistence, effort, and resilience in the face of setbacks within that specific domain.
Julian Rotter's closely related concept of locus of control describes a person's general belief about what determines life outcomes: an internal locus of control is the belief that outcomes result mainly from one's own actions and choices, while an external locus of control is the belief that outcomes result mainly from outside forces — luck, fate, or powerful others. An internal locus of control is generally, though not universally, associated with better mental health, higher achievement, and more proactive coping.
| Concept | Scope | Key theorist |
|---|---|---|
| Self-concept | Global beliefs about who one is | Rogers |
| Self-efficacy | Belief in capability for a SPECIFIC task | Bandura |
| Locus of control | General belief about what determines outcomes | Rotter |
Common pitfall: treating self-efficacy and self-esteem as the same concept. Self-esteem is a GLOBAL evaluation of one's overall worth, while self-efficacy is SPECIFIC to a particular task or domain — a person can feel confident (high self-efficacy) about one skill while still holding low overall self-esteem, or vice versa.