Abstract
Research has shown that self-efficacy is often one of the most important personal resources in the work context. However, because this research has focused on cognitive and task-oriented self-efficacy, little is known about social and emotional dimensions of self-efficacy at work. The main aim of the present study was to investigate social and emotional self-efficacy dimensions at work and to compare them to a cognitive and task-oriented dimension. Scales to measure social and emotional self-efficacy at work were developed and validated and found to be well differentiated from the cognitive task-oriented occupational self-efficacy scale. Confirmatory factor analyses of data from 226 Swedish and 591 German employees resulted in four separate but correlated self-efficacy dimensions: (1) occupational; (2) social; (3) self-oriented emotional; and (4) other-oriented emotional. Social self-efficacy explained additional variance in team climate and emotional self-efficacy in emotional irritation and emotional exhaustion, over and above effects of occupational self-efficacy. Men reported higher occupational self-efficacy, whereas social and emotional self-efficacy revealed no clear gender differences. The scales have strong psychometric properties in both Swedish and German language versions. The positive association between social self-efficacy and team climate, and the negative relationships between self-oriented emotional self-efficacy and emotional irritation and emotional exhaustion may provide promising tools for practical applications in work settings such as team-building, staff development, recruitment or other training programs aiming for work place health promotion. The next step will be to study how social and emotional self-efficacy relate to leadership, well-being and health over time.
Published Version
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