Question

In regards to human motivation and improving employee performance, write summary sentences for Self- efficacy, mastery beliefs and learned helplessness.

Answer 1

Self efficacy refers to an individual’s evaluation about his/her ability to solve problems successfully and achieve desirable outcomes. in terms of improving performance of employees, enhancing the self-efficacy of the employees can increase their internal motivation to deliver the expected level of performance and attain the organisation goals.

Mastery belief refers to the ideas about accomplishment of a task or goal and it is seen that the greater the mastery beliefs of employees, the greater will be their motivation to work persistently in difficult tasks.This would ultimately lead to increased outcomes both for the employees and the organisation.

Learned helplessness defines the mental state in which a person may be forced to bear aversive or unpleasant stimuli, and becomes unable or unwilling to change behaviour in order to avoid subsequent encounters with those stimuli, even if they are escapable . When employees repeatedly encounter negative outcomes suchas anxiety, poor evaluation, taunts or verbal outlashes from their superiors, they gradually learn that they cannot change the outcomes of their behaviour and they may experience low motivation to perform their job related tasks. This has negative consequences for the organisation goals and the employee performance.