Agency, control, and self-efficacy refer to how individuals perceive their ability to act, influence outcomes, and effectively deal with challenges. These constructs link the self-system to behavior by capturing beliefs about competence, control, and personal impact on the environment.
A central distinction is between perceived capability and perceived control. Self-efficacy reflects beliefs about one's ability to perform specific actions or handle demanding situations, whereas locus of control concerns beliefs about whether outcomes are determined by one's own actions or by external forces. Together, these constructs shape motivation, persistence, and responses to success and failure.
General self-efficacy refers to a broad and relatively stable belief in one's ability to cope with a wide range of situations. These measures assess generalized confidence in handling difficulties, solving problems, and acting effectively across different life contexts.
The General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) is one of the most widely used measures of this construct, assessing generalized confidence in handling difficulties and achieving goals.
The New General Self-Efficacy Scale (NGSE) provides a more recent and psychometrically refined assessment of global self-efficacy.
The Self-Efficacy Scale (SES) captures general beliefs about personal effectiveness and is often used in applied and individual-differences research.
Self-efficacy is often domain-specific: a person may feel highly capable in one area of life but less effective in another. These measures assess confidence in relation to particular roles, tasks, goals, or demands, such as study, work, parenting, emotion regulation, social interaction, counseling, or career choice.
The Perceived Competence Scale (PCS) assesses domain-specific feelings of competence and is often used in education, health behavior, and motivation research.
The Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (RESE) assesses perceived ability to manage negative emotions and express positive emotions effectively in everyday situations.
The Occupational Self-Efficacy Scale (OccSEFF, OSS-SF) measures confidence in one's ability to meet work-related demands and challenges.
The Decision Self-Efficacy Scale assesses confidence in making informed and effective decisions in health and clinical context.
The Scale of Perceived Social Self-Efficacy (PSSE) focuses on perceived interpersonal competence and confidence in social situations.
The Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale (CDSE-SF) assesses confidence in tasks related to career choice and decision-making.
The Career Self-Efficacy Sources Scale (CSESS) examines perceived sources of career-related efficacy beliefs.
The Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES) assesses perceived effectiveness in instructional strategies, classroom management, and student engagement.
The Parental Self-Efficacy Scale captures confidence in managing parenting tasks and supporting child development.
The Counselor Activity Self-Efficacy Scales (CASES) assess counselors' confidence in performing counseling-related activities, including helping skills, session management, and working with difficult client situations.
Locus of control refers to generalized beliefs about the causes of outcomes – whether they are contingent on one's own behavior or on external factors such as chance, fate, circumstances, or powerful others. Broader perceived-control measures describe the extent to which people feel able to influence important events in their lives.
The Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale assesses a unidimensional continuum from internal to external control.
The Levenson Multidimensional Locus of Control Scales extend this approach by distinguishing between internal control, chance, and powerful others.
The Internal Control Index (ICI) provides a unidimensional assessment of internal control beliefs with improved psychometric properties.
The Pearlin Mastery Scale assesses a general sense of personal control over life circumstances.
The Sense of Control Scale assesses perceived control through two related components: personal mastery and perceived constraints.
The Spheres of Control Scale assesses perceived control across personal, interpersonal, and sociopolitical domains, reflecting the idea that control beliefs may differ across areas of life.
The Belief in Personal Control Scale (BPCS) assesses beliefs about personal, external, and God-mediated control over outcomes.
The Locus of Control of Interpersonal Relationships Questionnaire assesses beliefs about personal control, influence, and responsibility within interpersonal relationships and social interactions.
The Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale for Children assesses children's generalized expectancies about whether outcomes are controlled by their own actions or by external forces such as luck, chance, or powerful others.
Agency refers to the experience of oneself as an active initiator of action, choice, and life direction rather than a passive recipient of circumstances. These measures focus less on confidence in specific abilities and more on the felt capacity to initiate action, influence events, take responsibility, and experience oneself as the author of behavior.
The Sense of Agency Scale (SoAS) assesses subjective experiences of control over one's actions and their outcomes, including positive and negative aspects of agency.
The Personal Agency Scale assesses the extent to which individuals experience themselves as active agents capable of initiating and directing action.
The Multi-Measure Agentic Personality Scale (MAPS20) assesses agentic personality as an intangible form of identity capital, focusing on personal resources that support active self-direction.
The General Human Agency Indicators (GHAIs) assess general perceptions of personal agency, including intentional action, self-directedness, and perceived control over one's life.
The General Personal Agency Scale (GPAS) assesses the perceived ability to intentionally influence one's own behavior, decisions, and life circumstances.
These measures assess learned or personality-based helplessness, perceived inability to influence outcomes, passive coping in the face of difficulties, and victimity-related patterns. They describe the opposite pole of agency and self-efficacy: reduced subjectivity, expectation of failure, refusal of effort, and a tendency to experience oneself as powerless or victimized.
The Learned Helplessness Scale (LHS) assesses generalized expectations that outcomes are uncontrollable and that one's actions are ineffective in changing negative situations.
⇒ Goals and Motivation. Self-efficacy and agency strongly influence goal choice, effort, persistence, and response to failure.
⇒ Coping. Perceived control and self-efficacy affect how people respond to stress and difficulty.
Agency, control, and self-efficacy describe different but closely related aspects of perceived personal effectiveness. Self-efficacy concerns confidence in performing actions or managing demands, locus of control concerns beliefs about what determines outcomes, and agency concerns the experience of oneself as an active source of action.
These constructs should not be treated as interchangeable. A person may believe they are capable of performing a task but still feel that outcomes depend on external circumstances; conversely, they may endorse an internal locus of control but feel low confidence in a specific domain.
Assessment is most informative when the level of generality is considered. General self-efficacy describes broad confidence, domain-specific self-efficacy describes perceived competence in particular roles or tasks, and control or agency measures describe wider beliefs about influence, authorship, and personal impact.
Together, these instruments help explain motivation, persistence, initiative, responsibility, coping, and the ways people understand their ability to act in the world.