This is a Lexicon entry: the mechanism, when it shows up, and the countermeasure. The full correction, with real-world cases and the audit prompt, hasn't been written yet.
Definition
Albert Bandura's concept of a person's belief in their own capacity to execute the behaviours required to produce specific outcomes. High self-efficacy leads to higher goal-setting, more sustained effort and greater resilience in the face of failure. Low self-efficacy produces avoidance, learned helplessness and self-fulfilling failure. Crucially, self-efficacy is domain-specific - a person may have high self-efficacy for mathematics and low self-efficacy for social situations simultaneously.
When it shows up
When you know your future self will face a temptation that your present self wants to pre-empt.
Failure mode
Relying on future willpower that won't be available. Making resolutions your evening self won't keep. "I'll handle it when I get there."
Countermeasure
Make the commitment binding before the temptation arrives. Bet money. Delete the app. Give away the alcohol. Make defection costly or impossible rather than relying on resistance.
Related traps
Also connected in the map3 more, locked
Credit & first seen
DiscoveredDeveloped by psychologist Albert Bandura in Social Foundations of Thought and Action (1986). source ↗
Also revealed
Entry #614 of 631 in The Lexicon · see the full Lexicon