Imagery and Self-Efficacy, How They Shape an Individuals Performance

Performance can appear differently for all athletes depending on the task at hand, however peak performance or “an episode of superior functioning” shares similar characteristics independent of what is trying to be accomplished and has various influences. Imagery and self-efficacy are two psychological constructs that have been shown to be correlated to an individual’s performance. Imagery is often used as mode of mental rehearsal, where subjects can “use one’s senses to re-create or create an experience in the mind.” Additionally, self-efficacy can be viewed as “a more situation specific type of self-confidence and refers to one’s expectation of succeeding at a specific task or meeting a particular challenge.” Students in a sport psychology course completed a throwing task (making a tennis ball into a trash bucket) to see how self-efficacy and imagery use related to their performance success. Students completed the throwing task twice during two course times. At both times, students provided their efficacy in the total number of makes they believed they would make during the session (out of 15) and tracked their actual makes and misses. Additionally, prior to each throw, students evaluated how efficacious they felt to successfully make a basket with their next toss. For the second session, students completed the same task but were asked to incorporate imagery before each attempt (while still assessing their efficacy for making the next shot). The data from the study showed that when students used imagery, their performance increased from Time 1 to Time 2, suggesting that previous experience and visualization can help boost performance. However, even though they say an increase in performance, efficacy did not increase from Time 1 to Time 2 indicating that imagery did not appear to make a difference in the students’ efficacy with the task.