The self-efficacy/self-esteem

relationship in sport and at work

Abstract
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Although success in attaining set goals in any aspect of life is largely a
function of personal efficacy - a belief that they can actually be achieved - there is both anecdotal
and empirical evidence from sport that athletes and coaches assess their performance through
norm referencing and social comparisons, as well as basing it on specific, self-generated criteria.
Whether it is also true that high self-esteem is a prerequisite for the attainment of goals in the
form of production or sales targets, as well as improving performance in sport, remains to be
established. This discussion has described some of the concepts associated with the self which
are in frequent use today in sport and at work. It has been proposed that self-efficacy is
necessary for success, suggesting that in both areas a successful performance outcome leads to
enhanced self-esteem.

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Ian M. Cockerill: School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham,
UK
Hayley J. Pyle: School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham,
UK
Stephanie Read: School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham,
UK
Although success in attaining set goals in any aspect of life is largely a
function of personal efficacy - a belief that they can actually be achieved - there is both anecdotal
and empirical evidence from sport that athletes and coaches assess their performance through
norm referencing and social comparisons, as well as basing it on specific, self-generated criteria.
For example, players can often be persuaded by a coach that they played badly, even though
their own perception of performance was to the contrary, and Bandura (1990) has stated that: "It
takes a resilient sense of efficacy to override the numerous dissuading impediments to significant
accomplishments".
Mental toughness is frequently cited as a prerequisite for success in professional sport, and the
first author's work as a sport psychologist in professional football has reinforced the notion that

many good players become disillusioned and may even be lost to the game owing to a
lack of self-efficacy when their skill is called into question by managers or coaches. Part of the
work of the counselling sport psychologist is to promote self-efficacy, while Bandura (1990) has
argued that experience of threatening and taxing situations is a function of belief in the capacity
to cope with them.
For example, an athlete's appraisal of threats, and subsequent responses to them, is
dependent on a capacity to utilize an effective coping strategy. Counselling in sport is especially
relevant here in learning how individual athletes perceive their ability to cope,
based on subjective assessment of specific life events and daily hassles.
Career development
An important aspect of counselling in sport concerns career development for the athlete
approaching retirement from high-level competition. It is clearly evident that self-efficacy is
situationally dependent, because even international standard sportsmen and women may
express self-doubt about embarking on new careers that could provide satisfaction and financial
security, especially if it means obtaining further qualifications and acquiring new skills.
Bandura has referred to the work of Hackett and colleagues (Betz and Hackett, 1986; Lent and
Hackett, 1987) on career planning, which has shown that potentially difficult challenges can be
met successfully when self-belief is high. A career change may not actually be as difficult for the
athlete as those faced in sport, but one's cognitive appraisal of that challenge mediates the
level ofself-efficacy and the extent of confidence to proceed. Being able to forget about past
mistakes in a competitive sport situation may also be easier for the athlete than for that same
person to stop dwelling on errors made in other situations.
The efficacy within a team, often referred to as collective efficacy, is clearly of significance in
sport. Whereas mastery modelling is used frequently to promote self-efficacy in this domain, it is
likely that poor performances are also subject to modelling behaviour. Anecdotal evidence of this
occurred in a professional football club where injured players tended to congregate in a similar
place each day to commiserate and generally engage in pessimistic conversations about
recovery, their future in the game, and even the future success of the club.
When this behaviour was recognized by the manager, specific action was taken to ensure that
each player was integrated into team discussions and involved in training within the parameters
allowed by his injury. It was perceived that the intervention produced players who were more
optimistic about rehabilitation and made a complete recovery more quickly than hitherto.

Hodges and Carron (1992) have reported that, despite repeated failure in an experimentallymanipulated muscular-endurance task in the laboratory, groups which were told they had
superior strength to confederate control participants continued to improve on the task. It is
possible, therefore, that collective inefficacy is akin to learned helplessness and that modelling
inappropriate behaviour in sport is likely to lead to repeated failure, and vice versa.
It is perhaps not always fully recognized that self-efficacy is not merely telling oneself that
success is possible, it extends to a profound self-belief that it is so, based largely upon the
outcome of past similar experiences and associated cognitive appraisals. Here, then, may lie the
confusion that frequently exists in differentiating between self-efficacy and self-esteem, with the
strength ofthe latter being the product of the former. That is to say, self-efficacy is a prerequisite
for successful performance, while self-esteem tends tobe enhanced following that success.
Defining the concepts
It may be useful at this juncture to establish that the terms self-esteem and self-concept are
related, especially in sport, in that the latter reflects discrete perceptions of oneselfto form a
global self-awareness, whereas definitions of self-esteem usually refer to Gergen's (1971)
interpretation of it as being the evaluative aspect of self-concept. His much-quoted definition, "the
extent to which a person feels positive about himself", or herself, implies the
existence of an esteem continuum from low to high.
Sonstroem (1982, 1984) has presented an important review and critique of research supporting
the relationship that is deemed to exist between extent of exercise participation and level of selfesteem. The notion of a positive correlation between the two proffers attractive face validity, but
Sonstroem has cautioned that many of the supporting studies have obvious limitations. He has
highlighted these andhas suggested that they lead to unrealistic claims about the
existence of such acorrelation (see also Gruber, 1985).
Perhaps the appeal of the supposed relationship is that self-concept frequently refers
to perceptions of one's body shape and overall physical characteristics, in that it is probably rare
to find individuals with high self-esteem and low body image. Moreover, it is appropriate to
suggest that self-concept is likely to be multi-faceted; hence a high perceived level of physical
fitness, for example, is no more likely to generate a high self-concept than is, say, academic
ability or job status.
Sonstroem (1982) has cited Rosenberg's (1979) argument for the existence of three principal
components of self-concept, namely social identities, personal dispositions, and physical
characteristics, with fitness being part of the third component. There can be no doubt that over
the past decade much of the general advice and specific counselling designed to enhance

individual self-esteem has focused on health and fitness promotion. Because it appears that the
time and money spent on encouraging the nation to become healthier and fitter has met with only
limited success, it is important that other aspects of a person's life are channelled towards the
promotion of overall wellbeing and the enhancement of self-esteem, thus reinforcing the need for
a holistic approach to the study ofthe area. Sonstroem (1982) has advocated this philosophy and
endorsed taking into account the importance of success in different areas of life, while ensuring
the availability of socialsupport. He has also stated that we need to know more about the
stability ofself-esteem and how it is likely to be situationally-dependent and not a global concept.
Measurement
Reservations about methodological issues have prompted debate within self-esteem research,
also having important implications for research in sport psychology. Sonstroem (1984) has
reinforced Wylie's (1974) concerns which include: poor reporting of findings making replication
difficult, the use of non-validated measures of self-esteem, the absence of a control group and
the use of a pre-experimental design, merely implementing a pre-test/post-test procedure and the
recruitment of volunteers to a particular form ofphysical activity, inappropriate statistical tests and
subsequent overgeneralization of results, and finally, little replication of studiesto preclude the
possibility of results having occurred by chance.
However, from the evidence available it may be concluded that, although improved fitness is
unlikely to be associated with elevated self-esteem, there is evidence that exercise programmes
designed to promote fitness are a useful adjunct to its enhancement.
The most frequently-used procedure for measuring self-esteem and self-efficacy is through selfreport questionnaires, although whenever questionnaires are used to evaluate selfperceptions there is always the possibility of responses being distorted owing to participants
seeking to project the best possible self-image. This is especially true in sport
psychology, of course, if a questionnaire is used for team selection alongside other measures.
It is not surprising that some athletes will be predisposed to answer in a direction that shows
them to be positive, enthusiastic and keen to succeed, this being particularly true when
questionnaires are distributed at team meetings rather than during one-to-one counselling
sessions. Meeting the athlete on an individual basis and emphasizing the importance of honest
responses will go a long way to eliminating response distortion and the social- facilitation effect.
From what has been proposed thus far itis clear that the relationship between body image
and self-esteem is a close one. Secord and Jourard (1953) drew this to the
attention of psychologists many years ago and proposed the term body-cathexis, which refers to
the degree of satisfaction felt with body parts and their function. Their work suggested that

satisfaction with one's body is, indeed, commensurate with satisfaction with oneself generally,
and support for their hypothesishas remained robust over the years (Rosen and Ross, 1968).
Bruchon-Schweitzer (1987) extended this hypothesis by devising an instrument to measure the
multi-dimensional nature of body image, while Dukes (1990) focused specifically on subjective
body-image perceptions of the normal population and concluded that body image mediates
subsequent participation in exercise. He suggested that variables such as the media,
chronological age, and maturational age influence individual perceptions of the body and
predisposition to exercise.
When considering possible procedures for encouraging participation in exercise and sport as a
means for promoting self-esteem,it is appropriate to acknowledge the findings of Bandura et al.
(1980) that efficacy can be developed through covert, or cognitive, modelling. They utilized a
programme for eliminating phobic behaviours and showed that increased perceived
coping efficacy was instrumental in reducing emotional arousal as well as in eliciting effective
coping behaviours in fearful situations.
A highly practical approach to efficacy development in sport was presented by Feltz and Weiss
(1982), which they referred to as situationally specific self-confidence, in contrast with possessing
the more general trait of optimism about performance outcome. The familiar techniques of sound
instruction, goal setting using a process-focused approach, effective communication, modelling,
positive self-talk, and cognitive restructuring to reduce performance anxiety, were each identified
by these authors in the context ofBandura's (1977) theory. Thus, it is clear that redefining selfefficacy in physical activity as self-confidence illustrates nicely how this broad-based theory can
be applied specifically in several areas.
Sport and health
It has been shown by Gould et al. (1989)that the coaches of highly skilled athletesuse a
variety of self-efficacy, or confidence-building, strategies in their work and a study by Weinberg
and Jackson (1990) found that these procedures were used by high-school tennis coaches
irrespective of years of coaching experience or whether the coaches were men or women.
Of the 13 efficacy techniques used, positive self-talk, instruction and the use of drills and verbal
persuasion were perceived by coaches as being the most effective, whereas relaxation was felt
to be the least useful, followed by imagery and modelling. However, Weinberg and Jackson
(1990) argued that this may have been attributable to a relative lack of knowledge of relaxation,
imagery and modelling techniques by the coaches.

With respect to the relationship between exercise behaviour and self-concept, there have been a
number of social-cognitivemodels proposed, of which Bandura's(1977) self-efficacy theory is
probably the best known. The models have been used in various ways to investigate motivation
to exercise as a vehicle for preventing ill health and as a means of developing fitness, while
Maddux (1993) has produced a composite model of health and exercise based largely on selfefficacy and on the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1988; Ajzen and Madden, 1986; Madden
et al., 1992).
The essence of the theory proposed by Ajzen and his co-workers is that individuals choose to
perform difficult tasks according to their perceived self-efficacy for executing new, or changed,
behaviour. Maddux (1993) cautioned those who seek to establish new models that are little
different from several others and which deal with very similar concepts. He advocated a strong
focus on concept measurement and not merely on a description of concepts within the given
model.
Probably the greatest challenge for any teacher in school, club coach, or manager in industry is
to promote goal achievement, which leads to satisfaction and enhanced self-esteem, while
popular speculation and supposition concerning the importance of physical activity for
promoting self-esteem has been reviewed in an earlier paper (Cockerill, 1995).
Whether it is also true that high self-esteem is a prerequisite for the attainment of goals in the
form of production or sales targets, as well as improving performance in sport, remains to be
established. This discussion has described some of the concepts associated with the self which
are in frequent use today in sport and at work. It has been proposed that self-efficacy is
necessary for success, suggesting that in both areas a successful performance outcome leads to
enhanced self-esteem.
A further observation is that high self-esteem also promotes self-confidence, or self-efficacy, with
healthy and fit employees more likely to be consistently effective and productive than those who
are not. Finally, although criteria for health and fitness are well established in sport, they remain
to be identified sufficiently clearly at work and are invariably job-specific.
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