Accuracy of efficacy and outcome expectations in predicting performance in a simulated assertiveness task

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Bandura's (1977) self-efficacy theory proposes that the central determinants of behavior are afficacy expectations, which are specific beliefs about ones ability to perform particular behaviors. Others have argued that expectancies concerning outcome are of equal or perhaps greater importance in determining ones behavior. In the present study, both efficacy expectations and outcome expectations for particular behaviors were obtained and compared as predictors of subsequent performance. The experimental task involved responding verbally to a range of social situations presented as role-plays, and 40 female psychology students participated. It was found that each predictor individually was highly correlated with performance, but that efficacy measures were somewhat better predictors than the outcome measure. Regression analyses combining the predictors did not account for more of the variance than did efficacy measures alone. These data support the contention that efficacy measures are more important in predicting outcome than are outcome expectancy measures, but they do not reflect on the question of whether efficacy expectations are causally related to behavior. © 1984 Plenum Publishing Corporation.