Effect of General Self-Efficacy Expectancies on Performance Attributions

Abstract

Self-efficacy is usually conceived of as specific to a situation; however, it has been proposed that self-efficacy across the individual's entire history of achievement experiences contributes to a general set of expectations of competence—general self-efficacy expectancy. Shelton suggested in 1990 that high general self-efficacy expectancy is the product of a history of more self-attributed successes than failures. Because attributions made for causes of performance can be biased by expectations, it is suggested here that level of general self-efficacy, as an expectation of personal competence, may be conserved through the attributionsl process. In a 2 × 2 group experimental design, 60 subjects received nonveridical feedback of either success or failure for a computer-generated response-latency task and then rated attributions for the cause of their performance against the Causal Dimension Scale, providing data for attributions on three dimensions. Perceived performance influenced attributions for both forms of self-efficacy, indicating that a self-serving bias operated in the attributional process to maintain high self-efficacy. The results confirm the basic assumption that there is a substantial, positive relationship between general and specific self-efficacy and shed some light on the processes of forming such judgments.