Confidence and Self-Efficacy in Sports Performance

• Vealey's self confidence is 'the belief a person has in their overall capability.'
• Bandura's self efficacy is 'the belief that a person has in their capability of performing a particular task.'
• Bandura's theory of self efficacy states that performance accomplishments, verbal persuasion, emotional arousal, vicarious experiences influence efficacy expectations which effects athletic performance.
• Performance accomplishments are prior successes.
• Verbal persuasion are comments used to convince athletes that they can complete a task. The more high status the persuader, the greater number of persuaders and the clearer the message, the better the chance of self efficacy being raised.
• Emotional arousal is finding the performer's zone of optimal arousal to enhance performance by psyching up or calming down as necessary.
• Vicarious experiences are observing another person of similar standard accomplishing the skill can raise self efficacy.
• Efficacy expectations determine the choice of the activity, level of effort, and actual performance of the skill. The higher your self efficacy the more likely you are succees at a skill.
• Vealey's model of sports confidence includes: sportin context; trait sports confidence; competitive orientation; state sports confidence; behavioural response; and subjective perceptions of outcomes.
• Sport confidence is 'the belief in your ability to be successful at sport in general.'
• The sporting context is the objective situation, the current sport situation and facts you know are true.
• Trait sports confidence is an innate, stable level of sports confidence, and a level of competitiveness.
• Competitive orientation is the perceived opportunity to achieve a goal, can also be influenced by whether the performer is a risk taker.
• Trait sports confidence and competitive orientation influence state sports confidence.
• State sports confidence is the level of self belief that is shown in a specific situation in sport, this level is changeable in different situations.
• The level of state sports confidence then influences the behavioural response which is the performance that is shown and the skill level.
• Subjective outcome is how the performer interprets their outcome and either satisfaction or dissappointment will occur. These emotions will in turn affect the trait sports confidence and competitiveness of the athlete in future performances.
• Those who have low sports confidence might not take part in activities and may shy away from activities and avoid situations related to competition.
• Sports confidence can have an impact on performance. Hight sports confidence can help athletes to succeed at skills.
• Sports confidence can affect levels of self-esteem. Self-esteem is 'the feeling of self-worth that determines how valuable and competent we feel.'