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Is the Effect of Self-Efficacy on Job/Task Performance an Epiphenomenon?

Timothy A. JudgeChristine JacksonJohn C. ShawBrent A. ScottBruce Louis Rich

University of Florida

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Self-Efficacy

Described as the “theory heard ‘round the world”

Albert Bandura deemed third most influential psychologist in history

Self-efficacy has been the subject of 8,944 studies

Has been applied to health, child development, sports, clinical psychology, education and, bien sûr, I-O psychology

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Learning in training (Martocchio, 1994) Naval performance and seasickness (Eden & Zuk, 1995) Volunteering for reenlistment (Eden & Kinnar, 1991) Speed of re-employment (Eden & Aviram, 1993) Sales performance (Barling & Beattie, 1983) Managerial performance (Wood et al., 1990) Academic performance (Wood & Locke, 1987) Reaction to stressors (Jex & Bliese, 1999) Success of collegiate hockey teams (Feltz & Lirgg, 1998) Salary negotiation (Stevens & Gist, 1997) Participation in union activities (Bulger & Mellor, 1997) Newcomer socialization and adjustment (Saks, 1995) Creativity (Redmond, Mumford, & Teach, 1993) Coping with career-related events (Stumpf et al., 1987) Skill acquisition (Mitchell et al., 1994) Adaptation to advanced technology (Hill et al., 1987)

Self-Efficacy in I-O/OB

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What Is Validity of Self-Efficacy?

Stajkovic and Luthans (1998) meta-analyzed the self-efficacy – performance relationship =.34

“…few cognitive determinants of behavior... have received as ample and consistent empirical support as the concept of self-efficacy” (p. 240)

However, with some exceptions (Chen, Casper, & Cortina, 2001; Phillips & Gully, 1997), most estimates do not take distal controls into account

ρ̂

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Role of Individual Differences

Self-efficacy is related to various individual differences Intelligence (Phillips & Gully, 1997) Personality (Judge & Ilies, 2002) Experience (Shea & Howell, 2000)

These individual differences are thought to be more distal than self-efficacy, and thus less direct

But, this has not been tested in a path model

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Conceptual Model

General mental ability

Conscien-tiousness

Emotional stability Extraversion Experience

Self-efficacy

Self-set goals

Job/Task Performance

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Method—Literature Search

In forming the correlation matrix that was used as input into the LISREL model, we took two steps where meta-analytic estimates were

available, we used these directly Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001; Judge & Bono, 2001; Judge

& Ilies, 2002; Ones, Viswesvaran, & Reiss, 1996; ; Quiñones, Ford, & Teachout, 1995; Schmidt & Hunter, 1998; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998

where meta-analytic estimates were unavailable (involving GMA and experience), we performed our own meta-analyses

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Method—Search Results

Relation Initial Abstracts Codeable

Samples

GMA-C 124 42 24 34

GMA-ES 760 136 37 38

GMA-E 580 60 34 35

GMA-Goals 188 15 5 8

GMA-SE 635 34 23 26

GMA-Exp 356 74 18 21

Exp-C 32 4 4 6

Exp-ES 55 5 2 2

Exp-E 41 4 3 3

Exp-Goals 221 12 2 2

Exp-SE 132 72 20 21

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Method—Moderator Coding

Several moderator variables were coded in the present study Type of measure: Likert scale or grid (self-

efficacy strength and magnitude) Job/task complexity Knowledge of results

Pending further analysis Feedback, performance measure, study

setting, sample Hierarchical moderator analyses (?)

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Meta-Analysis Procedures

Used procedures developed by Hunter and Schmidt (1990)

We corrected each primary correlation for attenuation due to unreliability, and then computed the sample-weighted average corrected correlation For studies that did not report reliabilities,

we used the mean of the reliabilities reported for the variables of interest

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Overall Correlation Matrix

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 Intelligence ---

2 Conscientiousness -.04 ---

3 Emotional stability .10 .26 ---

4 Extraversion .03 .00 .19 ---

5 Self-set goals .17 .28 .29 .15 ---

6 Self-efficacy .20 .22 .35 .33 .50 ---

7 Experience -.04 .02 -.03 -.22 .17 .24 ---

8 Performance .51 .31 .19 .12 .29 .34 .27

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Results: Full Mediation Model

.33**.35**.16** .23**

.16**

.50**.26**

.19**

General mental ability

Conscien-tiousness

Emotional stability

Extraversion Experience

Self-efficacy

Self-set goals

Job/Task Performance

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.33**.35**.16** .23**

.31**.16**.02.31**.54**

.02

.50**.02

.19**

General mental ability

Conscien-tiousness

Emotional stability

Extraversion Experience

Self-efficacy

Self-set goals

Job/Task Performance

Results: Full Model with Distals

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Role of Job Complexity

Low Medium High

Intelligence .36** .52** .63**

Conscientiousness .27** .31** .34**

Emotional stability -.02 .02 .06*

Extraversion .06 .15** .23**

Self-set goals -.05 .02 .08**

Experience .22** .31** .38**

Self-efficacy .33** .04 -.22**

R .66** .69** .77**

R2 .44** .48** .59**

Notes: Estimates are path coefficients. * p < .05. ** p < .01.

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Other Moderating Influences

Bivariate Multivariate

Measure

Grid .43** .16**

Likert .36** .04

Knowledge of Results

No .38** .13**

Yes .41** .08

Notes: ** p < .01.

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Results: SUMMARY

In the overall analysis, inclusion of distal variables undermines effects of self-efficacy on performance

Relative impact of self-efficacy, though, depends on situation Positive in low complexity jobs/tasks Nil in medium complexity jobs/tasks Negative in high complexity jobs/tasks Measure also matters

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Discussion

Why the negative effect in high complexity jobs? Resource allocation theory (Kanfer &

Ackerman, 1989) predicts that self-regulation “steals” valuable cognitive resources from complex skill acquisition

However, multiple-resource models have been criticized (Neumann, 1987) and it does not appear that self-regulation requires significant attentional resources (DeShon, Brown, & Greenis, 1996)

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Implications

Is self-efficacy epiphenomenal? In some situations, yes In some situations, no

Upshot Realize that in some situations self-

efficacy may be unimportant or even detrimental

Other moderators will be studied Feedback

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Ed’s Comments (E=Ed, T=Tim)

E Stajkovic has a new MA of group efficacy studies--they come out as well as the individual studies

T We did not study group efficacy (but could if there were a sufficient number of correlations)

E Logically, distal variables should work thru proximate variables--did you try actual mediation or partial r tests?

T This may seem logical, but our results support a partially mediated model (indirect and direct effects of the distal variables); a fully mediated model was not supported by the results

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Ed’s Comments (Continued)

E What does the model look like using only SE measured quantitatively (i.e., confidence summed over a series of performance outcomes after Ss had some task feedback)?

T These are the results for the grid measures (which indeed do suggest higher validities); if the point is that SE is only meaningful when a grid measure is used and with feedback, then one needs to confine the generalizations of SE to these situations

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Ed’s Comments (Continued)

E Did you only include studies that included ALL of your variables?

T There are no studies that include all these variables, which is why path analysis of meta-analytic data is used, as it has in many recent studies

E There are thousands of SE studies but you have only a very small sample (and dozens of studies showing actual causal effects)

T We include roughly the same number of SE-performance studies as Stajkovic and Luthans ; studies of causal effects do not have the same variables as this study

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Ed’s Comments (Continued)

E When you put goals and SE together in a model, they steal variance from each other because of being highly correlated

T This is certainly something we can look at (though shouldn’t both be in causal model?)

E The r's for the big 5 seem much higher than most meta analysis have shown (usually measn r is about .20 isn't it?)

T The personality validities are from a meta-analysis of existing meta-analyses (Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001); for conscientiousness, the validity is the same as Mount and Barrick (1995)

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Ed’s Comments (Continued)

E SE cannot have negative effects on complex tasks--this makes no sense--and goal effects are smaller on complex tasks not stronger--maybe due to inclusion of goals with SE

T There may be a suppression effect (we can eliminate goals from model)

E In your search results table, you only have SE-GMA, SE-Exp, and goals only once--how did you fill your  correlation matrix with so much data missing???

T We relied on existing meta-analyses for the other bivariate relations (see slide 7)

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Ed’s Comments (Continued)

E The self set goal perf. mean r is unusually low isn't it (see the meta analyses in our book)--this means it may not be a representative sample of studies

T We relied on the most thorough meta-analysis on the validity of self-set goals (Harkins & Lowe, 2000); the validity of self-set goals is lower than for assigned goals

We would be happy to use a different meta-analytic result if we felt it was more valid