Self-Efficacy Versus Expertise

Expertise: Knowledge and actual skills Self-efficacy: An individual’s confidence about his or her skills Definition Self-efficacy (Bandura 1977a, b) is an individual’s self-perception of his or her ability. By placing importance on the individual’s perception as opposed to the individual’s actual skill, this construct can explain why people have different behaviors even if they have a similar skill set. In much of social-psychological research, selfefficacy serves as a good proxy of predicting people’s behaviors because it looks not only at perceived expertise (knowledge and actual skills) about a certain behavior but also perceived confidence. However, in the context of behaviors required to ensure privacy and security in an online environment, confidence in one’s ability may not necessarily be the best factor that explains behavior. Because privacy behaviors, such as changing privacy settings and employing preventive security….