The general self-efficacy scale: multicultural validation studies
Abstract
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 and the variables under study confirming the validity of the psychometric scale. General self-efficacy appears to be a universal construct that yields meaningful relations with other psychological constructs.
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The GSE has demonstrated strong psychometric properties in populations across cultures.
“The GSE has demonstrated strong psychometric properties in populations across cultures (Luszczynska et al., 2005; Scholz et al., 2002).”
From Feeling more confident to encounter negative emotions: The mediating role of distress tolerance on the relationship between self-efficacy and outcomes of exposure and response prevention for OCD (2024) · cites this paper as Luszczynska et al., 2005
A minimum of 16 patients is required per arm; including 10% dropout, 36 patients (18 per arm) are needed to achieve 80% power with a two-tailed significance level of P less than 0.05.
“A minimum of 16 patients is required per arm of the trial. With that, including a dropout of 10 %, we estimate that 36 patients with PD (18 per arm) are needed to achieve a sufficient statistical power of 80 % with two-tailed significance level set at a P value of less than 0.05.”
From BEWARE: Body awareness training in the treatment of wearing-off related anxiety in patients with Parkinson's disease: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. (2015) · cites this paper as [50]
The Statistical Analyses section (p. 6) sets a .05 Type I error level for this scale-validation study, but gives no trial sample-size or power calculation. The Method section (pp. 5–6) describes its study samples, not a trial of patients with PD. Searches for 16 or 18 patients per arm, 10% dropout, and 80% power found no supporting passage. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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“This generality makes the strength of general self-efficacy as it can be used in different domains, in comparison to more specific self-efficacy scales [40].”
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“Considering this study and data on the GSES in other chronic diseases [50], we expect to detect a 10 % larger reduction in GSES score from 32 to 28.”
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- Authors
- Luszczynska, A., Scholz, U., & Schwarzer, R.
- Affiliations
- Freie Universität Berlin (DE)
- Venue
- The Journal of Psychology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2005-09
- Volume
- 139
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 439-457
- ISSN
- 0022-3980 (ISSN-L)
- 1940-1019
- OpenAlex
- W2154060752
- Cited by
- 1,878
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 134 · 2025: 168 · 2024: 156 · 2023: 151 · 2022: 178 · 2021: 144 · 2020: 121 · 2019: 116 · 2018: 98 · 2017: 91 · 2016: 83 · 2015: 99 · 2014: 69 · 2013: 79 · 2012: 53
- FWCI
- 21.71
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Journal of Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion)
- KOPS (University of Konstanz) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Education, Achievement, and Giftedness
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health and Wellbeing Research
- Keywords
- General Self-Efficacy Scale, general self-efficacy, scale validation, cross-cultural validation, implementation intentions, outcome expectations, self-regulation, health behavior, well-being, coping strategies, cancer surgery, psychometric properties
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Psychological, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Coronary Disease, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Ethnicity, Female, Gastrointestinal Neoplasms, Germany, Humans, Korea, Language, Male, Middle Aged, Personality Inventory, Poland, Psychometrics, Reference Values, Social Adjustment, Students, Reproducibility of Results, Health Behavior, Cultural Diversity, Self Efficacy
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