Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale (SGSES)

1. Abstract

The Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale (SGSES), developed by Mark Sherer and colleagues in 1982, is one of the most foundational and widely utilized psychometric instruments designed to evaluate an individual's generalized sense of personal agency, task competence, and persistence in the face of adversity. Diverging from domain-specific assessments that measure contextual competencies (such as academic, athletic, or clinical self-efficacy), the SGSES was conceptualized to capture universal efficacy expectations that transcend discrete behavioral situations. The full original inventory comprises 30 self-report items, which systematically encompass a 17-item General Self-Efficacy subscale, a 6-item Social Self-Efficacy subscale, and 7 non-scored filler items introduced to obfuscate the scale’s underlying intent and mitigate response bias. Items are typically administered using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree), though a 14-point continuum was initially employed during preliminary development.

Psychometrically, the instrument exhibits robust internal consistency across diverse empirical investigations. The original validation study documented Cronbach's alpha coefficients of α = .86 for the General Self-Efficacy subscale and α = .71 for the Social Self-Efficacy subscale. Subsequent psychometric research across international cohorts has corroborated high internal stability, yielding reliability estimates typically spanning .83 to .89 for the general dimension. Construct validation efforts have verified predictable convergent associations with internal locus of control, self-esteem, ego strength, optimism, and proactive coping, as well as inverse correlations with neuroticism, trait anxiety, depression, and generalized psychological distress. Factor-analytic explorations have spurred significant theoretical discourse; while Sherer et al. supported a two-factor paradigm (General and Social), subsequent exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses—most notably by Bosscher and Smit (1998)—have frequently substantiated a tripartite structure of General Self-Efficacy characterized by Initiative, Effort, and Persistence. Today, the SGSES remains a cornerstone assessment across clinical psychology, organizational behavior, rehabilitation medicine, and educational research.

2. Keywords

Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale, SGSES, General Self-Efficacy, Social Self-Efficacy, Albert Bandura, Psychometrics, Factor Structure, Construct Validity, Internal Consistency, Coping, Agency, Persistence

3. Authors

The Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale was constructed and psychometrically validated through a collaborative scholarly initiative led by Mark Sherer, alongside distinguished contributors in behavioral medicine, social psychology, and clinical psychometrics:

• Mark Sherer, Ph.D., ABPP-CN, FACRM: Senior Scientist and Director of Research at the Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Hospital and Clinical Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas. Dr. Sherer is internationally recognized for his clinical and neuropsychological investigations into traumatic brain injury, cognitive assessment, and behavioral self-regulation.
• James E. Maddux, Ph.D.: University Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Maddux is a preeminent theorist in clinical and social-cognitive psychology, specializing in the conceptualization of self-efficacy beliefs, psychological health, and subjective well-being.
• Blaise Mercandante, Ph.D.: Clinical psychologist specializing in behavioral medicine and psychological measurement.
• Steven Prentice-Dunn, Ph.D.: Professor Emeritus of Psychology at The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Dr. Prentice-Dunn is renowned for his extensive experimental research on deindividuation, protection motivation theory, and cognitive mediators of health behaviors.
• Beth Jacobs, Ph.D.: Clinical psychologist whose research has explored behavioral adjustment, cognitive appraisal, and psychometric validation.
• Ronald W. Rogers, Ph.D.: Professor Emeritus of Psychology at The University of Alabama. Dr. Rogers is the seminal developer of Protection Motivation Theory, a foundational paradigm in health psychology and risk appraisal.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale (SGSES) is to provide an empirically sound, standardized measurement tool to quantify an individual's general expectations of personal mastery and capability across a wide spectrum of non-specific life situations. When Albert Bandura introduced self-efficacy theory in 1977, he emphasized that self-efficacy beliefs are inherently task- and domain-specific cognitive appraisals. However, clinical and personality psychologists soon recognized that repeated mastery experiences, varied successes, and diverse developmental encounters coalesce into an overarching, trait-like cognitive schema. Sherer and colleagues (1982) designed the SGSES precisely to operationalize this aggregate, dispositional sense of competence—a baseline expectancy that one can successfully orchestrate and execute the actions required to navigate unexpected hurdles and demanding environmental conditions.

Clinical and Psychiatric Applications

In clinical psychology and psychiatric rehabilitation, the SGSES serves as a critical diagnostic and prognostic index. Clinicians utilize the scale to evaluate baseline psychological resilience in patients presenting with affective disorders, major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and substance use disorders. Because low general self-efficacy is intimately tied to learned helplessness, catastrophic appraisal, and therapeutic non-adherence, identifying deflated efficacy beliefs enables psychotherapists to structure cognitive-behavioral interventions (CBT) that systematically rebuild agency through graded task assignments and behavioral activation. Furthermore, within neuropsychological and physical medicine settings (e.g., post-stroke recovery, traumatic brain injury, chronic pain management), SGSES scores reliably predict an individual's active engagement in therapeutic regimens, adaptive coping mechanisms, and long-term functional autonomy.

Organizational and Occupational Utility

Within organizational psychology and human resource management, the SGSES is extensively deployed to forecast employee adaptability, leadership emergence, job performance, and vocational burnout. Personnel exhibiting elevated general self-efficacy demonstrate superior psychological capital; they view complex occupational demands as challenges to be mastered rather than debilitating threats. Empirical studies frequently utilize the SGSES to assess how corporate training interventions, organizational restructuring, and leadership development programs influence workers' underlying confidence in resolving ambiguous organizational problems, sustaining goal-directed effort under stress, and initiating constructive organizational citizenship behaviors.

Educational and Academic Contexts

In educational psychology, the SGSES illuminates how students approach broad academic milestones, life transitions (such as entering tertiary education), and cumulative scholastic stress. While course-specific self-efficacy scales measure confidence within discrete subjects (e.g., mathematics or language acquisition), the SGSES assesses general persistence when confronting novel scholastic curricula, time-management dilemmas, and academic setbacks. Students possessing higher general self-efficacy exhibit greater cognitive flexibility, lower academic procrastination, and reduced vulnerability to attrition when facing rigorous degree requirements.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct operationalized by the SGSES is General Self-Efficacy (GSE), complemented by an exploratory secondary dimension designated as Social Self-Efficacy (SSE). To comprehend the depth of this construct, it is essential to distinguish generalized self-efficacy from related but distinct psychological constructs such as self-esteem, generalized outcome expectancies, and locus of control.

General Self-Efficacy (GSE) Dimension

General self-efficacy refers to an enduring, trait-like cognitive appraisal of one's aggregate competence to mobilize the motivational resources, cognitive faculties, and courses of action necessary to meet situational demands. Unlike self-esteem—which represents an affective evaluation of self-worth (i.e., "Do I value myself?")—general self-efficacy is a cognitive appraisal of functional capacity and capability (i.e., "Can I execute the required behaviors to achieve success?"). It reflects a generative capability that synthesizes cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioral subskills.

Within the 17-item general subscale, the construct manifests through three interrelated behavioral facets:

• Initiative (Willingness to Initiate Behavior): This component measures an individual's propensity to initiate action proactively, formulate ambitious plans, and launch novel undertakings without excessive hesitation or maladaptive avoidance. Exemplified by items such as "When I make plans, I am certain I can make them work" and "When I decide to do something, I go right to work on it," it evaluates the threshold between conceptual intention and behavioral execution.
• Effort (Expenditure of Resources): This facet reflects the magnitude of cognitive and physical energy an individual is willing to dedicate to a project, particularly when confronting taxing or tedious parameters. It captures the avoidance of disengagement when facing complex or unpleasant tasks (e.g., "When I have something unpleasant to do, I stick with it until I finish it").
• Persistence (Tenacity in the Face of Failure): Considered the defining hallmark of self-efficacy, persistence denotes the capacity to sustain effort and remain task-focused despite negative feedback, operational failures, or sudden obstacles. Exemplified by items such as "Failure just makes me try harder" and "If I can’t do a job the first time, I keep trying until I can," it assesses resilience against the cognitive fatigue and discouragement that typically prompt premature capitulation.

Social Self-Efficacy (SSE) Dimension

The 6-item social subscale assesses self-referent beliefs specifically concerning interpersonal encounters, social initiation, and the cultivation of interpersonal relationships. Social situations present unique behavioral challenges because outcomes are contingent not merely on one's actions, but on the unpredictable responses of other social agents. Social self-efficacy reflects confidence in entering unfamiliar social contexts, approaching prospective acquaintances, engaging effectively in group gatherings, and persisting when attempting to establish friendships with reticent or uninterested individuals. Measured by items such as "If I see someone I would like to meet, I go to that person instead of waiting for him or her to come to me" and "I do not handle myself well in social gatherings" (reverse scored), this dimension addresses interpersonal assertiveness, social approach behavior, and resilience against social rejection.

Filler Items and Structural Balance

The inclusion of 7 non-scored filler items (e.g., "I like to grow house plants," "There is some good in everybody," "I like science") was a deliberate methodological choice by Sherer and colleagues. These items serve to attenuate demand characteristics, diminish response bias, and reduce the likelihood that respondents will adopt a uniform, highly conscious self-presentation strategy. Consequently, the construct measured by the scored items reflects a more authentic, less defensive manifestation of personal agency.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual foundation of the SGSES is rooted primarily in Social Cognitive Theory, originally formulated by Albert Bandura (1977, 1986, 1997), with vital theoretical contributions synthesized from Julian Rotter's (1966) Social Learning Theory and Martin Seligman's (1975) learned helplessness paradigm.

Bandura's Triadic Reciprocal Causation and Efficacy Expectations

Bandura posited that human functioning is governed by triadic reciprocal causation, wherein internal personal factors (cognitive, affective, and biological events), behavioral patterns, and environmental influences operate as interacting determinants that influence each other bidirectionally. Central to this model is the distinction between two cognitive appraisals:

1. Outcome Expectancy: A person's judgment that a given behavior will inevitably lead to specific outcomes (e.g., "Exercising consistently will improve cardiovascular health").
2. Efficacy Expectation: The conviction that one can successfully execute the behavior required to produce the outcomes (e.g., "Can I maintain an exercise regimen when exhausted or stressed?").

Bandura demonstrated that even when individuals fully comprehend that a specific course of action yields positive rewards (high outcome expectancy), they fail to initiate or sustain that behavior if they doubt their personal capability to execute it (low efficacy expectation). According to Bandura, efficacy beliefs are synthesized from four primary information sources: enactive mastery experiences (past successes and failures), vicarious experiences (observing peer modeling), verbal persuasion (encouragement or social feedback), and physiological and affective states (interpreting stress responses, autonomic arousal, or fatigue).

The Generalized Efficacy Paradigm

A central theoretical divergence emerged between Bandura and psychometricians such as Sherer, Maddux, and later scholars like Ralf Schwarzer and Matthias Jerusalem. Bandura steadfastly maintained that self-efficacy must be conceptualized and measured in micro-analytic, domain-specific terms, arguing that omnibus measures sacrifice predictive validity because confidence varies substantially across divergent life spheres (e.g., high efficacy in public speaking vs. low efficacy in mechanical repair).

In contrast, Sherer and colleagues (1982) argued that individuals do not enter novel life situations as cognitive "blank slates." Instead, an individual's developmental history of mastery experiences, parental support, academic challenges, and social problem-solving gradually crystallizes into a generalized set of efficacy expectations. When people confront novel, ambiguous, or multi-faceted challenges where no specific historical efficacy data exists, they automatically extrapolate from this generalized reservoir of self-efficacy. Thus, General Self-Efficacy functions as a fundamental cognitive heuristic that guides primary appraisal processes, determining whether an unfamiliar challenge is perceived as an exciting developmental opportunity or a threatening precursor to psychological failure.

Integration with Locus of Control and Learned Helplessness

The theoretical framework of the SGSES also bridges Bandurian theory with Julian Rotter's construct of Locus of Control. Rotter differentiated individuals who believe outcomes depend on personal agency, effort, and skill (internal locus) from those who view outcomes as governed by chance, luck, systemic fate, or powerful others (external locus). Sherer et al. recognized that while internal locus of control is a necessary precursor for personal initiative, it is conceptually insufficient: one may believe that academic grades are directly contingent on effort (internal control), yet simultaneously believe that one lacks the intellectual endurance or organizational capacity to produce that effort (low self-efficacy). By measuring the perceived capability to execute behavior across adverse scenarios, the SGSES operationalizes the active, agentic component of cognitive control that learned helplessness theory had identified as absent in clinically depressed populations.

7. Validity

The psychometric integrity of the Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale has been extensively evaluated across decades of empirical scrutiny, demonstrating robust construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity.

Construct and Convergent Validity

In the seminal validation study conducted by Sherer et al. (1982) involving 376 undergraduate psychology students, the SGSES demonstrated striking convergence with established psychometric inventories measuring related personality dimensions. Construct validity was corroborated via statistically significant positive correlations with:

• Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale: General self-efficacy correlated moderately with internal locus of control (r = -.28 to -.40, where lower scores on Rotter's scale denote internality), confirming that high self-efficacy aligns with personal agency.
• Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES): Studies consistently yield strong positive correlations between the SGSES and self-esteem (typically r = .51 to .65), corroborating that a strong sense of operational competence bolsters general feelings of self-worth.
• Ego Strength: Evaluation using the Barron Ego Strength Scale revealed significant positive correlations (r = .42), affirming that high efficacy coincides with psychological resilience, adaptability, and ego-defense maturation.
• Interpersonal Competence: The Social Self-Efficacy subscale exhibited targeted convergent validity with the Texas Social Behavior Inventory (TSBI), demonstrating moderate-to-high correlations (r = .58 to .62), verifying that the social subscale accurately captures social poise and interpersonal assertiveness.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been demonstrated through the SGSES's predictable inverse relationships with maladaptive psychological constructs. Sherer and Adams (1983) conducted a comprehensive construct validation study examining the SGSES against several subscales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale:

• MMPI Pathological Scales: The General Self-Efficacy subscale correlated negatively with the MMPI Psychasthenia (Pt; anxiety/obsessiveness) scale (r = -.47), the Depression (D) scale (r = -.45), and the Social Introversion (Si) scale (r = -.38 for General, and r = -.59 for Social Self-Efficacy).
• Trait Anxiety: SGSES scores consistently yield strong negative correlations with the Spielberger Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T; r = -.52 to -.61), demonstrating that individuals with robust self-efficacy expectations experience substantially lower vulnerability to chronic apprehension and autonomic arousal.
• Social Desirability: Correlations between the SGSES and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale have consistently remained non-significant or negligible (r = .08 to .14), confirming that the instrument captures authentic personal agency rather than a conscious need for social approval.

Criterion and Predictive Validity

Criterion-related validity is highlighted by the scale's capacity to predict real-world behavioral outcomes across vocational, educational, and medical cohorts:

• Vocational Performance and Adjustment: Sherer et al. (1982) demonstrated that in a sample of recovering psychiatric and vocational rehabilitation outpatients, higher baseline SGSES scores significantly predicted successful vocational placement, sustained job retention over six-month follow-ups, and favorable supervisory evaluations.
• Academic Persistence: Educational investigations show that the SGSES independently predicts college retention rates, grade point averages (GPA), and completion of advanced degree milestones, even after statistically controlling for standardized cognitive ability metrics (e.g., SAT/ACT scores).
• Addiction and Health Behaviors: In substance abuse recovery literature, baseline SGSES scores reliably differentiate individuals who maintain long-term abstinence from those who relapse following treatment discharge, illustrating the critical role of general agency during personal crisis management.

8. Reliability

The Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale demonstrates exemplary reliability parameters across diverse demographic populations, languages, and clinical conditions.

Internal Consistency

In the original scale construction study by Sherer et al. (1982), internal consistency was computed using Cronbach's alpha on an initial cohort of university students (N = 376):

• General Self-Efficacy Subscale (17 items): Obtained a coefficient alpha of α = .86, indicating high internal coherence among items assessing initiative, effort, and persistence.
• Social Self-Efficacy Subscale (6 items): Yielded a coefficient alpha of α = .71, representing an acceptable reliability estimate for a brief, 6-item interpersonal index.

Subsequent psychometric investigations have continuously replicated these values across a variety of demographic cohorts:

• Imam (2007) examined the psychometric stability of the SGSES across a large international sample of 1,027 university undergraduates, documenting a Cronbach's alpha of α = .85 for the General Self-Efficacy subscale and an alpha of α = .69 for the Social Self-Efficacy subscale.
• Woodruff and Cashman (1993) administered the SGSES to working adults in organizational settings, documenting internal consistency estimates ranging from α = .84 to .88 for the General subscale.
• Bosscher and Smit (1998) evaluated a translated European cohort of older community-dwelling adults, obtaining a Cronbach's alpha of α = .79 across the core General items.

Test-Retest Stability

The temporal stability of the SGSES confirms its conceptualization as a durable, trait-like cognitive disposition rather than a fluctuating emotional state:

• Sherer and Adams (1983) observed test-retest reliability over a 4-week interval, obtaining a stability coefficient of r = .74 (p < .001) for the General subscale and r = .70 for the Social subscale.
• Imam (2007) examined a 3-week test-retest cohort, documenting a Pearson correlation coefficient of r = .81 for General Self-Efficacy, verifying robust measurement stability in the absence of targeted cognitive interventions.

Measurement Precision and Standard Error

The Standard Error of Measurement (SEM) across standard administrations of the 17-item General Self-Efficacy subscale ranges between 3.12 and 3.85 points (on a total scale score spanning 17 to 85). This low standard error supports clinical decision-making and ensures that observed pre- to post-treatment score gains reflect authentic cognitive shifts rather than measurement artifact.

9. Factor Analysis

The factor structure of the SGSES has generated extensive academic analysis and psychometric debate. While the scale was originally constructed around a two-factor paradigm, subsequent structural equation modeling (SEM) and exploratory factor analyses (EFA) have enriched our understanding of its internal topology.

Original Factor Structure (Sherer et al., 1982)

During the initial development of the scale, Sherer and colleagues subjected 36 pilot items to an exploratory factor analysis using principal components extraction followed by an orthogonal Varimax rotation. Criteria for item retention included an eigenvalue greater than 1.0 and factor loadings of at least .40 on the primary factor, with minimal cross-loading onto secondary factors. This procedure resulted in the elimination of several items and the retention of 23 scored items spanning two primary factors:

• Factor 1: General Self-Efficacy: Comprising 17 items accounting for 26.5% of the total variance (eigenvalue = 5.43). All 17 items reflected general expectations that one's efforts would result in success across broad task domains.
• Factor 2: Social Self-Efficacy: Comprising 6 items accounting for 8.5% of the total variance (eigenvalue = 1.64). These items clustered cleanly around interpersonal engagement, social assertiveness, and friend-making competence.

Together, these two factors explained 35.0% of the total variance, leading the original authors to assert that General Self-Efficacy and Social Self-Efficacy represent distinct dimensions of human agency.

The Tripartite Model of General Self-Efficacy (Bosscher & Smit, 1998)

Subsequent psychometric researchers challenged the unidimensionality of the 17-item General Self-Efficacy subscale. Most notably, Bosscher and Smit (1998) conducted rigorous Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) using LISREL on a sample of 494 community-dwelling adults. They demonstrated that the 17-item general subscale does not represent a purely homogeneous single construct, but rather a higher-order construct composed of three distinct, highly interpretable first-order factors:

• Initiative (3 items): Capturing the cognitive disposition to begin a task (e.g., Items 1, 9 in the 17-item subset: "When I make plans, I am certain I can make them work"; "When I decide to do something new, I go right to work on it"). Factor loadings spanned .46 to .68.
• Effort (4 items): Evaluating the willingness to dedicate persistent physical and mental energy despite fatigue or disinterest (e.g., Items 3, 8 in the 17-item subset: "If I can’t do a job the first time I keep trying until I can"; "When I have something unpleasant to do, I stick to it until I finish it"). Factor loadings spanned .42 to .71.
• Persistence (5 items): Denoting resistance to surrender when obstacles, errors, or acute complications occur (e.g., Items 5, 11, 13, 16 in the 17-item subset: "I give up on things before completing them"; "When unexpected problems occur, I don’t handle them well"; "Failure just makes me try harder"; "I give up easily"). Factor loadings spanned .51 to .74.

Bosscher and Smit eliminated five items with low factor loadings or multi-collinear cross-loadings, demonstrating that a streamlined 12-item, 3-factor CFA model yielded superior goodness-of-fit indices: χ²(51) = 75.34, p = .014; Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI) = .97; Adjusted Goodness-of-Fit Index (AGFI) = .96; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .031.

Structural Fit Across Cross-Cultural Samples

Later investigations across diverse international environments (such as Chen, Gully, & Eden, 2001; Imam, 2007) have corroborated that while the three-factor model of Initiative, Effort, and Persistence provides deep theoretical nuance, the 17-item General Self-Efficacy subscale also functions effectively as a unidimensional composite score. Bifactor and hierarchical structural equation models confirm that a single broad General Agency dimension accounts for the majority of common item variance, justifying the common clinical and organizational practice of computing a single aggregate General Self-Efficacy score.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The standard, full administration of the Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale is structured as follows:

• Instrument Type: Self-report psychological questionnaire.
• Administration Format: Available in paper-and-pencil, computer-based, or web-administered digital formats; suitable for individual clinical assessment or large-scale group administration.
• Completion Duration: Approximately 5 to 10 minutes for the complete 30-item questionnaire.
• Total Item Count: 30 items comprising:
  • General Self-Efficacy Subscale: 17 scored items (Items 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30).
  • Social Self-Efficacy Subscale: 6 scored items (Items 6, 10, 14, 19, 24, 28).
  • Filler Items (Non-Scored): 7 items (Items 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, 25).
• Response Continuum: Standard 5-point Likert scale formatted as:
  • 1 = Strongly disagree
  • 2 = Disagree
  • 3 = Neither agree nor disagree
  • 4 = Agree
  • 5 = Strongly agree
• Scoring and Directionality Rules:
  • Positively Phrased Items: Scored directly as marked (1 = 1, 2 = 2, 3 = 3, 4 = 4, 5 = 5). Positively worded items within the scored subscales include Items 2, 4, 10, 15, 16, 19, 23, 27, and 28.
  • Negatively Phrased (Reverse-Scored) Items: Must be mathematically inverted prior to computing subscale totals (i.e., 1 becomes 5, 2 becomes 4, 3 remains 3, 4 becomes 2, and 5 becomes 1). Reverse-scored items include Items 3, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 29, and 30.
  • Filler Items: Items 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21, and 25 are completely omitted from subscale and composite score calculations.
• Subscale Score Ranges:
  • General Self-Efficacy (17 items): Theoretical score range from 17 to 85. Higher composite scores reflect stronger generalized efficacy beliefs, greater frustration tolerance, and persistent goal pursuit.
  • Social Self-Efficacy (6 items): Theoretical score range from 6 to 30. Higher scores indicate superior confidence in initiating social contact, navigating interpersonal ambiguity, and building peer networks.
  • Total Score (23 scored items): Some researchers utilize an omnibus score spanning 23 to 115, although calculating the General and Social subscales independently is psychometrically preferred.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale was formally developed and introduced to the scientific community in 1982 through a seminal publication in Psychological Reports:

• Original Publication Year: 1982.
• Copyright & Intellectual Property: The original publication rights reside with the authors (Mark Sherer et al.) and the journal Psychological Reports (Ammons Scientific / SAGE Publications).
• Academic and Non-Commercial Research Use: As is standard with psychometric assessments published in open academic journals during that era, the scale is widely accessible without commercial licensing fees for non-profit academic research, student theses, dissertations, and routine institutional clinical evaluations, provided that appropriate scholarly attribution is maintained.
• Commercial Applications: Organizations, corporate assessment providers, or commercial digital platforms intending to incorporate the SGSES into commercial diagnostic batteries, monetized mobile applications, or proprietary hiring pipelines must ensure compliance with publisher permissions and copyright legislation. Researchers are advised to contact the lead author or the copyright holding journal if institutional policies mandate formal written licensing.

12. References

Below are primary academic references documenting the theoretical foundation, scale construction, and psychometric validation of the Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale in APA 7th edition format:

• Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
• Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.
• Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W. H. Freeman and Company.
• Bosscher, R. J., & Smit, J. H. (1998). Confirmatory factor analysis of the General Self-Efficacy Scale. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 36(3), 339–343. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7967(98)00025-4
• Chen, G., Gully, S. M., & Eden, D. (2001). Validation of a new General Self-Efficacy Scale. Organizational Research Methods, 4(1), 62–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/109442810141004
• Hamill, S. K. (2003). Resilience and self-efficacy: The importance of efficacy beliefs and coping mechanisms in resilient adolescents. Colgate University Journal of the Sciences, 35, 115–146.
• Imam, S. S. (2007). Sherer et al. General Self-Efficacy Scale: Dimensionality, internal consistency, and temporal stability. Proceedings of the Redesigning Pedagogy: Culture, Knowledge and Understanding Conference, Singapore.
• Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 80(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0092976
• Sherer, M., & Adams, C. H. (1983). Construct validation of the Self-Efficacy Scale. Psychological Reports, 53(3), 899–902. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1983.53.3.899
• Sherer, M., Maddux, J. E., Mercandante, B., Prentice-Dunn, S., Jacobs, B., & Rogers, R. W. (1982). The Self-Efficacy Scale: Construction and validation. Psychological Reports, 51(2), 663–671. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1982.51.2.663
• Woodruff, S. L., & Cashman, S. B. (1993). Task, domain, and general self-efficacy: A reexamination of the Self-Efficacy Scale. Psychological Reports, 72(2), 423–432. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.1993.72.2.423

13. Items of the Scale