Sequence Anchoring and Self-Efficacy: Primacy Effects in the Consideration of Possibilities

This research attempts to clarify the relation between self-efficacy and action by influencing self-efficacy judgments without providing subjects with performance-related experiences or information. Sequence anchoring, the methodology introduced to obtain this effect, involves the consideration of an identical range of potential outcomes in different orders. Judgments are shown to be biased in the direction of the first values that are presented, resulting in a primacy effect in the consideration of possibilities. An initial experiment examines this judgmental bias in estimates of factual information. A second experiment demonstrates that this same process can affect individuals' judgments of self-efficacy and subsequent behavior on a cognitive task. A final experiment shows that these behavioral effects do not depend on subjects publicly indicating self-efficacy judgments.