The impact of self-efficacy on wealth accumulation and portfolio choice

Self-efficacy is a psychological construct based on the evaluations of one's ability to accomplish certain behaviours or achieve certain outcomes (Bandura, 1977 Bandura, A. 1977. Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84: 191–215. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Although self-efficacy has been linked to health, task accomplishment, greater socio-economic status and income (Seeman and Seeman, 1983 Seeman, M. and Seeman, T. E. 1983. Health behavior and personal autonomy: a longitudinal study of the sense of control in illness. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24: 144–60. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Stretcher et al., 1986 Stretcher, V., DeVellis, M., Becker, M. and Rosenstock, I. 1986. Self-efficacy and the Health Belief Model. Health Education Quarterly, 13: 73–92. [Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]; Gecas and Seff, 1990 Gecas, V. and Seff, M. A. 1990. Families and adolescents: a review of the 1980s. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52: 941–58. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Judge et al., 2002 Judge, T. A., Erez, A., Bono, J. E. and Thoresen, C. J. 2002. Are measures of self-esteem, neuroticism, locus of control, and generalized self-efficacy indicators of a common core construct. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83: 693–710. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Zagorsky, 2007 Zagorsky, J. L. 2007. Do you have to be smart to be rich? The impact of IQ on wealth, income and financial distress. Intelligence, 35: 489–501. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), there has been no study that investigates whether self-efficacy is also a predictor of greater wealth creation over a specific period of time. Applying a theoretical framework based on self-efficacy, this article investigates household financial behaviours using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) data-set. For the purpose of this study, change in wealth across time and financial market participation is modelled as a function of socio-economic and demographic variables drawn from prior literature. Findings from this research reveal that self-efficacy is indeed a predictor of investment for financial assets and is also a predictor of wealth creation across time.