General Self-Efficacy and Control in Relation to Anxiety and Cognitive Performance.

The present investigation employed a general measure of self-efficacy, a measure of perceived control, and items relating to expectation and evaluation (pre and post). The purpose was to determine whether general self-efficacy or perceived control best predicted the criterion variables of state anxiety and performance on a stressful cognitive task (solving anagrams) under conditions of high versus low control. These relationships were tested under the experimental conditions of high and low objective control (i.e., the actual control afforded by the situation). Results showed that general self-efficacy, relative to perceived control was a better predictor of state anxiety in the high and low control conditions but neither predicted actual performance. Participants' expectations of task difficulty, their own performance, and their performance relative to the performance of others taken before the task were compared with their evaluations of difficulty and performance after completing the task. Participants indicated that the task was easier than anticipated, but rated their own performance more poorly after completion of the task.

 
   Chronic beliefs about the self, control, and outcomes reflect key 
   components of an individual's view of the world and of his or her ability 
   to function successfully in that world and thus should be especially potent 
   in shaping reactions to stressful life events (Cozzarelli, 1993; p. 1224). 

A testing situation is a good example of a stressful life event that for most, is a manageable stressor. As Cozzarelli (1993) states earlier, beliefs about the self and control are two facets of an individual's experience that should be "potent" in predicting reactions to a stressful life event. We selected self-efficacy, or a belief in one's effectiveness, and the perception of control as the major predictors of anxiety and performance in the [within] study. It was our hope that questions that have been raised about whether self-efficacy and perceived control are separable constructs (Gerin et al., 1995; Litt, 1988; Manstead & van-Eekelen, 1998) could be answered. In support of the separability of constructs, a study by Terry and O'Leary (1995) found that efficacy predicted behavioural intention but not actual behaviour, whereas perceived control predicted behaviour, but not intentions. Based on this finding it may be that perceived control will predict actual performance behavior. If separable, it was also our hope to determine whether self-efficacy or perceived control accounted for more of the variance in anxiety and performance during a stressful cognitive task. All testing was done under one of two control conditions: high objective vs. low objective (i.e., participants were, or were not given the opportunity to control the testing situation).

The Multidimensionality of Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy, a construct which strongly hinges on judgements of personal capability, has been defined as the belief in one's ability to perform a task or to execute a specified behaviour successfully (Bandura, 1997). According to Bandura (1997), self-efficacy has three components: (1) magnitude, which refers to belief about performance in increasingly difficult aspects of the task; (2) strength, or the effort expended to maintain the behaviour in the face of obstacles; and (3) generality, or the broadness of the applicability of the belief. Bandura has previously discussed task-specific self-efficacy, but he has also discussed "domain-linked" (e.g., social skills or achievement), general, and even collective levels of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986).

Among the first to measure self-efficacy were Sherer et al. (1982). However, it has been suggested by Woodruff and Cashman (1993) that the Sherer et al. (1982) scale measures self-efficacy within the domains of achievement and social skills, a view which seems to accord with Sherer et al.'s own view (1982). For the purposes of this article, self-efficacy refers to the component of Sherer et al's (1982) measure dealing with general/achievement efficacy.

Perceived vs. Objective Control