BEHAVIOR THERAPY 12, 436--439 (1981)

BRIEF REPORT

The Influence of Self-Efficacy Reports on Performance

J. GAUTHIER

R. LADOUCEUR

Department of Psychology, Laval University

The present study was examined if stating level of self-efficacy judgments can in itself affect performance, and if such an effect can be enhanced by voicing these judgments publicly. Forty snake fearful undergraduates were assigned to one of four experimental conditions on the basis of their scores on a behavioral avoidance measure. Two experimental groups were asked to state on a Self- Efficacy Questionnaire how close they expected to approach the snake. However, one group was required to record their level of self-efficacy expectations privately while the other was urged to voice them publicly. Another two groups were instructed to fill out a Semantic Differential rating scale under the same conditions in order to control for the effects of completing the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire privately and publicly. Performance on the behavioral avoidance test was not influenced by requiring subjects to make their expectancy judgments explicit. Also the degree of congruence between level of perceived self-efficacy and overt behavior was not influenced by privately recording or publicly voicing the per- ceived self-efficacy ratings.

Recen t ly , B a n d u r a (1977) has p r o p o s e d self-efficacy as a unifying m e c h a n i s m that a c c o u n t s for the effects o f m a n y different the rapy tech- niques. A n interest ing feature o f this cons t ruc t is its re la t ionship to be- hav io ra l change . Co r r e l a t i ons b e t w e e n se l f - repor t q u e s t i o n n a i r e re- sponses and p e r f o r m a n c e in a s i tuat ion where subjects in terac t with the feared objec t (a snake) show that individuals can predic t h o w well they will do when placed in the actual s i tuat ion (Bandura & A d a m s , 1977; Bandura , A d a m s , & Beyer , 1977). In an analysis o f B a n d u r a ' s theory , Kazd in (1978) and Poser (1978) out l ined several reasons w h y one would expec t a high corre la t ion be tween the a s ses smen t p r o c e d u r e s for self- efficacy. A m o n g o thers , they raised the possibi l i ty that stat ing eff icacy j u d g m e n t s can in i tself affect pe r fo rmance .

The present s tudy evalua ted the ex ten t to which undergo ing assessment for the level o f self-efficacy expec ta t ions pr ior to a behav io ra l test m a y influence subsequen t over t behavior . Be c a use these rat ings m a y " c o n -

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SELF-EFFICACY 437

stitute a commitment to the experimenter, a possible source of cognitive dissonance, goal setting behaviour--in short, a process variable like any other" (Poser, 1978, p. 196), an attempt was also made to assess the influence of rating the level of perceived self-efficacy privately and pub- licly. It should be noted that the strength of self-efficacy was not studied.

METHOD Subjects

Forty subjects (12 males and 28 females) were selected from volunteer undergraduates who obtained a score of 5 or higher on the Fear Survey Schedule II snake item (Geer, 1965) and were unable to touch a covered glass cage containing a live 5-ft. boa constrictor snake even when they were urged to do so. Ten matched blocks of subjects were formed on the basis of their scores on a behavioral avoidance measure. The members of each block were then randomly assigned to one of the four experi- mental conditions resulting in the allocation of ten subjects to each group. Males and females were equally represented in each group.

Assessment and Procedures A Behavioral Avoidance Test (BAT) required subjects to approach the

snake, with subject's approach being described by an arbitrarily defined measurement scale (see Table 1). The score on the BAT represented the closest approach point that the subject reached. The behavioral assess- ment was completed by an independent assessor before matching the subjects and again 1 week later, immediately after the experimental pro- cedure was carried out.

All subjects were given a rationale which emphasized the need to repeat the BAT on at least two occasions to have a more accurate measure of their level of fear. Just before the second administration of the BAT, two groups of subjects were asked to state on a Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (SEQ) (Bandura, 1977) how close they expected to approach the snake. All of the BAT items were listed on the SEQ. Both groups were advised that the measure was routinely administered prior to the BAT but had been omitted by mistake the week before. However, one group of sub- jects was instructed to record their ratings privately while the other was instructed to voice their ratings publicly. To record ratings "privately" meant filling out the SEQ in the absence of the BAT assessor in one room and joining him into another room for the administration of the BAT; to voice ratings "publicly" meant telling the BAT assessor how to fill out the SEQ and then accompanying him into another room for the admin- istration of the BAT.

Two groups of subjects who did not complete the SEQ were asked to complete a Semantic Differential (SD) rating scale in order to control for the effects of completing the SEQ privately and publicly. The SD was administered under the same conditions as those for the SEQ. Thus, the SD ratings were recorded privately by one group of subjects and voiced publicly by the other,

438 GAUTHIER AND LADOUCEUR

TABLE 1 DESCRIPTION OF THE BEHAVIORAL AVOIDANCE TEST

BAT score Subject's behavior

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Standing 16 ft. from the cage Standing 11 ft. from the cage Standing 7 ft. from the cage Standing 4 ft. from the cage Standing 2 ft. from the cage Standing 1 ft. from the cage Looking down at the snake through the top screen Placing hand against the glass of cage nearest the snake Lifting top screen of cage a couple of inches Removing top screen altogether Looking down at snake with top screen removed Putting a pointer into cage Touching snake with the pointer Putting a gloved hand into cage Touching snake briefly with gloved hand Putting a bare hand into cage Touching snake briefly with bare hand Petting snake with bare hand Lifting or moving any part of snake with whole hand Picking up snake with both hands

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A single factor analysis of variance showed that there were no differ-

ence between groups on the BAT before the experimental conditions were introduced. A two factor analysis of variance for mixed design (one between- and one within-subjects variable) revealed a significant "occa- sions" effect for the BAT [F(1,36) = 37.64, p <.001]. No effects for "groups" or "groups x occasions" were found.

Correlational analyses were applied to the SEQ ratings and the BAT scores to measure the degree of relationship between the level of per- ceived self-efficacy and subsequent approach behavior. The correlation coefficients for those whose SEQ ratings were recorded privately and voiced publicly were 0.80 and 0.91, respectively.

According to Bandura (1977), correlation coefficients do not fully re- veal the degree of correspondence between the level of self-efficacy and performance on the BAT. This is why he suggests that a more precise index relationship can be provided by a microanalysis of the congruence between self-efficacy and performance at the level of individual tasks. This measure was obtained by computing the percentage of accurate cor- respondence between efficacy judgment and actual performance for all items on the BAT. The degree of congruence between the level of per- ceived self-efficacy and subsequent behavior was uniformly high regard- less of whether the SEQ ratings were recorded privately (85% of congru- ence) or voiced publicly (82% of congruence).

SELF-EFFICACY 439

Contrary to predictions, the present results show that the level of per- formance on the BAT was not influenced by requiring subjects to make their expectancy judgments explicit even when they were voiced publicly. Possibly the effects of repeating the BAT were strong enough to obscure the possible sensitization effects that completing the SEQ might have had on overt behavior. Perhaps, completing the BAT beforehand contrib- uted to reduce reactivity effects to minimal by sensitizing subjects to the paper-and-pencil measure of self-efficacy. Indeed, evidence has shown that undergoing assessment of overt behavior alters the level of self-ef- ficacy (e.g., Bandura & Adams, 1977; Bandura et al., 1977). However, there are some data suggesting that both these explanations are quite unlikely. In a recently completed study by Brown and Inouye (1978), subjects were asked to voice self-efficacy judgments publicly while they had no explicit knowledge of the relative difficulty of the task they would be required to solve. They found that the level of persistence to work on tasks for which no solution could be found was the same regardless of whether subjects did or did not express expectancy judgments. There- fore, it would seem that the results of this study could suggest that the correspondence between self-efficacy ratings and overt behavioral per- formance may have little to do with the properties of the assessment procedure for self-efficacy. However, since our subjects were not re- quired to rate the strength of their self-efficacy expectations on the SEQ as those in Bandura's studies (Bandura & Adams, 1977; Bandura et al., 1977), it is possible that the influence of self-efficacy reports on perfor- mance in the present study was not fully maximized. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the present study used subjects who were fearful of snakes just as did Bandura and Adams (1977) and Bandura et al. (1977) in order to parallel their research. And whether these findings would still hold in individuals clinically disabled by phobic anxiety or other anxiety- based disorders remains a question to be explored.

REFERENCES Bandura, A. Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological

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change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1977, 35, 125-139. Brown, 1., & Inouye, D.K. Learned helplessness through modeling: The role of perceived

similarity in competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1978, 36, 900- 908.

Geer, J .H. The development of a scale to measure fear. Behaviour Research and Ther- apy, 1965, 3, 45-53.

Kazdin, A.E. Conceptual and assessment issues raised by self-efficacy theory. Advances in Behaviour Research and Therapy, 1978, 1, 177-185.

Poser, E .G . The self-efficacy concept: Some theoretical, procedural, and clinical impli- cations. Advances in Behaviour Research and Therapy, 1978, 1, 193-202.

RECEIVED; July 8, 1980; REVISED: November 5, 1980 FINAL ACCEPTANCE: November 24, 1980