Abstract
Self-efficacy has been proposed as an important element of a successful cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT). Positive changes in perceived self-efficacy have been linked to an improved adaptive emotional and behavioral responding in the context of anxiety-provoking situations. Furthermore, a positive influence of increased self-efficacy on cognitive functions has been confirmed. The present study examined the effect of verbal persuasion on perceived self-efficacy and fear extinction. Healthy participants were subjected to a standardized differential fear conditioning paradigm. After fear acquisition, half of the participants received a verbal persuasion aimed at increasing perceived self-efficacy. The extinction of fear was assessed immediately thereafter on both the implicit and explicit level. Our results suggest that an increased perceived self-efficacy was associated with enhanced extinction, evidenced on the psychophysiological level and accompanied by more pronounced decrements in conditioned negative valence. Changes in extinction were not due to a decrease in overall emotional reactivity to conditioned stimuli (CS). In addition, debriefing participants about the false positive feedback did not affect the processing of already extinguished conditioned responses during a subsequent continued extinction phase. Our results suggest that positive changes in perceived self-efficacy can be beneficial for emotional learning. Findings are discussed with respect to strategies aimed at increasing extinction learning in the course of exposure-based treatments.
Highlights
The concept of self-efficacy refers to the individual’s perceived belief to cope effectively with upcoming situations and problems (Bandura, 1997)
The main objective of the present study was to examine the impact of an experimental manipulation aimed at increasing self-efficacy beliefs on the subsequent extinction of conditioned fear
Participants who received the experimental induction showed enhanced extinction, as evidenced on the level of psychophysiological responding. They showed a stronger reduction of conditioned negative valence after extinction relative to participants without the self-efficacy induction
Summary
The concept of self-efficacy refers to the individual’s perceived belief to cope effectively with upcoming situations and problems (Bandura, 1997). A higher level of self-efficacy can increase the individual’s belief that his/her behavior will more likely produce a positive outcome within a given situation (Bandura, 1997; Maddux, 1999). The beneficial impact of increased perceived self-efficacy on behavior has been confirmed across different domains of research. A positive relationship between the level of self-efficacy and sports performance (Moritz et al, 2000), the likelihood to engage in healthy behavior (Schwarzer and Fuchs, 1995), and the ability to cope adaptively with stressful. Self-efficacy has been linked to cognitive performance as demonstrated in different verbal, mathematical, and spatial tasks (Lent et al, 1997; Paunonen and Hong, 2010)
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