General self-efficacy is the belief in one's competence to cope with a broad range of stressful or challenging demands, whereas specific self-efficacy is constrained to a particular task at hand. Relations between general self-efficacy and social cognitive variables (intention, implementation intentions, outcome expectancies, and self-regulation), behavior-specific self-efficacy, health behaviors, well-being, and coping strategies were examined among 1,933 respondents in 3 countries: Germany (n = 633), Poland (n = 359), and South Korea (n = 941). Participants were between 16 and 86 years old, and some were dealing with stressful situations such as recovery from myocardial events or tumor surgery. Perceived self-efficacy was measured by means of the General Self-Efficacy Scale (R. Schwarzer & M. Jerusalem, 1995). Meta-analysis was used to determine population effect sizes for four sets of variables. Across countries and samples, there is consistent evidence for associations between perceived self-efficacy ...

Summary Perceived self-efficacy represents an optimistic sense of personal competence that seems to be a pervasive phenomenon accounting for motivation and accomplishments in human beings. The General Self-Efficacy scale, developed to measure this construct at the broadest level, has been adapted to many languages. The psychometric properties of this instrument is examined among 19,120 participants from 25 countries. The main research question is whether the measure is configurally equivalent across cultures, that is, whether it corresponds to only one dimension. The findings confirm this assumption and suggest the globality of the underlying construct. They also point to a number of cross-cultural differences that merit further investigation.

Although some people may develop an intention to change their health behaviour, they might not take any action. This discrepancy has been labelled the “intention–behaviour gap.” Detailed action planning, perceived self-efficacy, and self-regulatory strategies (action control) may mediate between intentions and behaviour. This was examined in a longitudinal sample of 307 cardiac rehabilitation patients who were encouraged to adopt or maintain regular exercise. At the first time point, the predictors of intention and intention itself were assessed. Two months and four months later, the mediators and outcomes were measured. Results confirmed that all the three factors (planning, maintenance self-efficacy, and action control) served to mediate between earlier exercise intentions and later physical activity, each of them making a unique contribution. The results have implications for research on the “intention–behaviour gap,” and indicate that planning, maintenance self-efficacy and action control may be important volitional variables.

Based on social‐cognitive theory ( 1 Bandura, 1997), this paper examined whether perceived self‐efficacy is a universal psychological construct that accounts for variance within various domains of human functioning. Perceived self‐efficacy is not only of a task‐specific nature, but it can also be identified at a more general level of functioning. General self‐efficacy (GSE) is the belief in one's competence to tackle novel tasks and to cope with adversity in a broad range of stressful or challenging encounters, as opposed to specific self‐efficacy, which is constrained to a particular task at hand. The study aimed at exploring the relations between GSE and a variety of other psychological constructs across several countries. Relations between general self‐efficacy and personality, well‐being, stress appraisals, social relations, and achievements were examined among 8796 participants from Costa Rica, Germany, Poland, Turkey, and the USA. Across countries, the findings provide evidence for associations between perceived general self‐efficacy and the selected variables. The highest positive associations were with optimism, self‐regulation, and self‐esteem, whereas the highest negative associations emerged with depression and anxiety. Academic performance is also associated with self‐efficacy as hypothesized. The replication across languages or cultures adds significance to these findings. The relations between self‐efficacy and other personality measures remained stable across cultures and samples. Thus, perceived general self‐efficacy appears to be a universal construct that yields meaningful relations with other psychological constructs.