Self-Efficacy Dynamics in Adolescent Mental Health
Summary
Self-efficacy, the belief in one’s capacity to organise and execute behaviours necessary to achieve specific outcomes, plays a central role in adolescent mental health. During adolescence, rapid neurobiological, social and academic changes challenge young people’s confidence in managing emotions, relationships and tasks. High self-efficacy is associated with greater resilience, improved emotional regulation and reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression. Conversely, low self-efficacy can exacerbate vulnerability to stress, impair coping strategies and contribute to maladaptive behaviour. Self-efficacy beliefs evolve through mastery experiences, vicarious learning, social persuasion and physiological cues, creating a dynamic interplay between individual competence and environmental influences. Interventions that strengthen self-efficacy—through skills training, mastery tasks and supportive feedback—have demonstrated promise in promoting psychological well-being, fostering healthy adjustment and mitigating risk factors for internalising disorders. Recognising the bidirectional relationship between self-efficacy and mental health, researchers are exploring developmental trajectories, contextual moderators (such as family support and cultural factors) and the translation of theory into scalable prevention programmes across diverse settings.
Research from Nature Portfolio
No recent Nature Portfolio content available.
Self-Efficacy Dynamics in Adolescent Mental Health publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in self-efficacy dynamics in adolescent mental health across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Self-efficacy: Belief in one’s capacity to execute behaviours required to produce specific performance attainments.
Mastery experiences: Direct experiences of success in tasks, which serve as the most influential source of self-efficacy.
Emotion regulation: Processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them and how they experience and express them.
Social support: Perceived or actual assistance and encouragement received from peers, family or community.
Preventive intervention: Structured programme aimed at strengthening protective factors (such as self-efficacy) to avert the onset or escalation of mental health problems.
References
- Self‐Efficacy as a Positive Youth Development Construct: A Conceptual Review. The Scientific World JOURNAL (2012).
- The Prospective Associations between Self-Efficacy and Depressive Symptoms from Early to Middle Adolescence: A Cross-Lagged Model. Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2016).
- Explaining variance in self-efficacy among adolescents: the association between mastery experiences, social support, and self-efficacy. BMC Public Health (2023).
- Negative Parenting, Adolescents’ Emotion Regulation, Self-Efficacy in Emotion Regulation, and Psychological Adjustment. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2022).
- A call to create evidence-based mental health promotion interventions for youth that are equitable across ethnic/racial subgroups: Advocates 4-ALL Youth. Frontiers in Public Health (2023).
About these summaries
This Nature Research Intelligence Topic summary is created with the cited references and a large language model. We take care to ground generated text with facts, and have systems in place to gain human feedback on the overall quality of the process in line with our AI principles. We strive to create accurate and useful summaries for people unfamiliar with the research topic and that supports this goal. These pages are a beta release and will be updated as we learn how best to help people gain value from a research topic summary.
Turn complex research questions into confident strategic decisions
When you're under pressure to set direction, justify investment, or understand your competitive position, you need more than raw data — you need trusted insights you can act on.
Benchmark your performance against global peers using robust, methodologically sound analysis.
Combine quantitative metrics with qualitative expert insight to uncover strengths, gaps and emerging opportunities.
Gain tailored, decision-ready recommendations aligned to your strategic priorities.
Talk to us to learn more about our data dashboards and bespoke strategy reports.
Grow research skills, confidence and careers with training built for every stage of the research lifecycle.
Developed with Nature Portfolio journal Editors and internationally renowned experts. Discover three ways to learn:
Self-paced, online courses in convenient bite-sized units, covering key skills across scientific writing, publishing, grant writing, data analysis, and more.
Expert trainer-led workshops with hands-on exercises and real-time feedback across core research skills, delivered via interactive group sessions.
Editor-led workshops combining core principles in writing and publishing, personalised 1:1 feedback from Nature Portfolio Editors and hands-on exercises.
Explore course catalogues and workshop agendas, enquire about the options or request institutional pricing.