When and Why Does Self-Efficacy Impair Performance?

虽然相当多的研究表明，自我效能感（即感知能力）对绩效有有益的影响，但最近的工作表明，自我效能感实际上可能对绩效有害。 这些研究结果提出了一个挑战，现有的知识状态，并提出了问题，旨在促进自我效能感的干预措施的可行性。 这个研究项目的目标是了解自我效能感何时以及为什么会损害而不是促进任务绩效。 具体而言，它提出，自我效能将有一个不利的影响，当（1）有模糊的真实水平的一个人的表现，（2）竞争的要求，一个人的时间激励个人，以尽量减少花费在任务上的时间。 有人认为，当性能是模糊的，个人从他们的自我效能的信念，以估计他们的表现如何，更高的效能导致高估的性能。 这些过高估计的表现可能会导致随后的时间和努力的投资不足，以实现目标（从而导致更差的表现），特别是当有竞争的需求争夺一个人的时间和注意力。由于存在明显的竞争性需求，预计个人会依赖于他们对绩效的估计，只分配被认为是实现主要目标所必需的最小时间和努力，从而最大限度地将时间花在剩余的活动上。 正是在这些条件下，自我效能感预计会损害性能。 然而，如果没有相互竞争的需求，预计个人将投入比被视为最低限度必要的更多的资源。 反过来，这被预测为否定高估的性能的性能假设，从而减少或消除自我效能对性能的负面影响。 通过这项研究获得的知识可能会促进更有效的实际应用的发展，包括确定的情况下，膨胀的自我效能应加以防范，并应谨慎对待提高效率的干预措施。

While considerable research indicates that self-efficacy (i.e. perceived competence) has beneficial effects on performance, recent work suggests that self-efficacy may actually be detrimental to performance. These findings present a challenge to the existing state of knowledge, and raise questions concerning the advisability of interventions designed to facilitate self-efficacy. The goal of this research project is to understand when and why self-efficacy impairs, rather than facilitates, task performance. Specifically, it is proposed that self-efficacy will have a detrimental effect on performance when (1) there is ambiguity regarding the true level of one's performance, and (2) competing demands on one's time motivate individuals to minimize the time spent on the task. It is posited that, when performance is ambiguous, individuals draw from their self-efficacy beliefs to estimate how well they are performing, with higher efficacy leading to overestimates of performance. These overestimates of performance may result in subsequent underinvestment of time and effort towards goal completion (thus leading to poorer performance) particularly when there are competing demands vying for one's time and attention. With salient competing demands, individuals are predicted to rely upon their estimates of performance to allocate only the minimum time and effort believed to be necessary to meet the primary goal, thus maximizing the time spent on remaining activities. It is under these conditions that self-efficacy is expected to impair performance. However, without competing demands, individuals are predicted to invest more resources than seen as minimally necessary. This, in turn, is predicted to negate the performance detriments of overestimated performance and thus reduce or eliminate the negative effects of self-efficacy on performance. The knowledge gained through this research may foster development of more effective practical applications, including identification of contexts in which inflated self-efficacy should be guarded against, and where efficacy-enhancing interventions should be approached with caution.