Self-Regulating Failed Events

Many of us have read the brief metaphorical book, “Who Moved My Cheese” by Spencer Johnson (1998). We learned that having cheese is fine, but we need to check it regularly with all of our senses, ensuring it is the type of cheese we value and wish to keep. When it becomes foul, we should have a plan to refresh the cheese or move to newer cheese. Hence, one of the ways to balance success and failure, and attempting to stay on the healthy side of both, is to be aware, develop a system to check what you value, and most importantly work on your self-regulation skills. Self-regulation is a dualistic construct with properties of an aptitude (Snow & Lohman, 1984) and an event (Winne, 1997; Winne & Hadwin, 1997). Albert Bandura (1977) suggests three steps to building self-regulation: (1) Self-observation, we look at ourselves, our behavior, and keep tabs on it; (2) Judgment, we compare what we see with a standard; (3) Self-response, if we did well in comparison with our standard, we give ourselves rewarding self-responses. If we did poorly, we give ourselves punishing self-responses.

According to Bandura’s social cognitive theory, individuals possess a self-system that enables them to exercise a measure of control over their thoughts, feelings, motivation, and actions. This self-system encompasses one’s cognitive and affective structures. It provides reference mechanisms and a set of sub-functions for perceiving, regulating, and evaluating behavior, which results from the interplay between the system and environmental sources of influence. As such, it serves a self-regulatory function by providing individuals with the capability to influence their own cognitive processes and actions and thus alter their environments. Individuals engage in self-referent thought that mediates between knowledge and action. Through self-reflection, individuals evaluate their own experiences and thought processes. Bandura (1986) argued that self-reflection is the most uniquely human characteristic. Self-reflective judgments include perceptions of self-efficacy, and beliefs in one’s capability to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations. Generally, the higher the sense of efficacy, the greater the effort, persistence, and resilience. Obviously, there are exceptions and anomalies to every rule and research finding. Please do not take these as hard, fast truths, but more as guidelines that encourage us all to enhance our introspective capabilities so that we are better able to determine our failed events, respond to them, and experience appropriate results.

Bandura (1986) wrote that through the process of self-reflection, individuals are able to evaluate their experiences and thought processes. According to this view, what people know, the skills they possess, or what they have previously accomplished are not always good predictors of subsequent attainments because the beliefs people hold about their capabilities powerfully influence the ways in which they will behave. However, self-perceptions of capabilities help determine what individuals do with the knowledge and skills they currently possess. More importantly, self-beliefs are critical determinants of how well knowledge is acquired initially. In essence, we are in control of our own fates, our own failed events and our responses to those events. How we think of ourselves will be a major determinant of the end result of practically any situation in which we find ourselves. This premise sounds like good news, since it indicates that we can prepare ourselves specifically for the types of challenges that we ‘want’ to encounter in life. In other words, we may wholeheartedly accept failed events in arenas where our strengths and goals do not lie. It is in the awareness and intentional preparation that we determine which failed events will be addressed, which will not and which may simply be delayed until a time when we have built the necessary skills to tackle the event confidently and productively. Again, please do not misunderstand us, the goal is not to encounter the failed event, go and learn something, come back and try the event again and then succeed. Life is not linear, but a complex set of inter-dependent incidences that rarely make sense. Knowing this, we can place sense or value on our experiences if we first know and understand our goals and desires.

Involvement in self-regulation is tied closely to an individual’s efficacy beliefs (Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990). In presenting a model of self-efficacy that precedes self-regulation, Garcia and Pintrich (1991) determined that a participant’s belief in her capabilities was likely to lead to higher levels of self-regulation. In another study Garcia and Pintrich (1992) showed that metacognitive self-regulatory strategies were consistently positively related to critical thinking across domains. The study supports the positive relationship between motivation, deep strategy use, and critical thinking. However, there always seems to be a caveat in these studies. Just because you believe you have skills in a particular area does not mean you will always be successful in that area. Take, for example, two young students, one who has a high self efficacy in mathematics, and another who does not. The research indicates that the former who possesses the higher self-efficacy will perform better on a mathematics assessment. Many other variables involved. For instance, if the latter student is diagnosed with the lower self-efficacy, it might encourage him or her to try harder and put more time into preparation, resulting in performance equal or better, especially if the student who had the higher self-efficacy depended on that factor and did not prepare adequately for the assessment. These factors often level the playing field and provide people the data to use in determining their path. If they are not naturally able in certain areas, they can scaffold those areas with preparation.

Corno and Mandinach (1983) define self-regulation as an effort to deepen and manipulate the associative network in a particular area and to monitor and improve that deepening process. It refers to the deliberate planning and monitoring of the cognitive and affective processes that are involved in the successful completion of tasks. They suggest that some of these metacognitive processes of planning and monitoring may be so well developed that at times they appear to occur automatically.

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