Self-Efficacy In Sports

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Self-efficacy, as described by Bandura (1977), is the belief one has about being able to execute a specific task successfully to obtain a desired outcome. It is a situation specific confidence; this means that an athlete can have high self-efficacy in performing a task related to their chosen sport, whilst having a low self-efficacy regarding a similar task in a sport they are not familiar with. There are a number of sources of self-efficacy and these are: previous performance, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, imaginal experiences, physiological states and emotional states. It is suggested that there is a reciprocal between efficacy and behaviour; these sources affect self-efficacy and can then lead on to affecting the choices, effort …show more content…

This source of self-efficacy is not as important as previous performance as it does not show direct evidence of personal achievements (Bandura, 1977). It is worth noting that this source of self-efficacy works best when showing the person observing clear success or failure, i.e. they need to see that the task was completed successfully otherwise it is not effective. A recent example of this is Cristiano Ronaldo, arguably one of the greatest living footballers, having missed his last 54 free kick attempts, a person watching his free kick attempts as inspiration would have a lowered self-efficacy. However it is worth noting that many footballers grow up watching footballers before expressing a desire to follow the same career path. Vicarious experiences has four stages, these are: attention, retention, motor reproduction and motivation. The first stage requires actually looking at the skill being observed; secondly the skill then has to ingrained in the memory i.e. the subject must remember the skill they have just observed. For motor reproduction, the subject has to practice the skill until they are able to produce it at a consistent level. The last stage, motivation, must be present at all stages otherwise there is no reason for the subject to even observe the skill closely. (Weinberg and Gould, 2011). Therefore the best way to use this source of self-efficacy to improve performance is to watch elite performances and learn from them, including any mistakes

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