Cardiovascular effects of experimentally induced efficacy (ability) appraisals at low and high levels of avoidant task demand.

Subjects were led to believe they had low or high ability with respect to a scanning task and then given the chance to avoid a noise by attaining a low (easy) or high (difficult) standard on a version of the task. Performance period measurements indicated that heart rate reactivity was greater in the difficult than easy condition for high-ability subjects but greater in the easy than difficult condition for low-ability subjects. Furthermore, whereas heart rate responses tended to be greater for low- than for high-ability subjects when the standard was low, they were greater for high- than for low-ability subjects when the standard was high. Results for blood pressure reactivity were comparable, although pairwise comparisons were not as consistently reliable. The main findings conceptually replicate and extend effects from previous studies; they also call further into question conventional conceptions that intimate an inverse relation between perceived self-efficacy and physiologic responsivity in the face of threat.