Self-efficacy expectations and coping with career-related events

The process of self-efficacy expectation development, coping with a difficult task, and task performance is examined using a path analytic framework. A model of this process is examined with a job interview task as a way of assessing the generalizability of self-efficacy theory to career-related behavior. Results show that self-efficacy expectation theory generalizes to a career-related task, and that emotion-focused coping mediates the relationship between self-efficacy expectations and perceived performance, but not performance as assessed by the interviewer. The importance of self-efficacy expectations and emotion-focused coping as mediating the relationship of perceived past performance and pretask anxiety with subsequent behavior and outcomes is discussed.