Social Cognitive Theory holds that the effects of self-efficacy have nearly uniformly positive relationships with important outcomes, such as performance. However, Control Theorists have recently challenged this notion, arguing that the relationship between self-efficacy and performance may be negative under some circumstances. Vancouver and colleagues (Vancouver, Moore, & Yoder, 2008) developed a Discontinuous Model of self-efficacy, where, within-individuals, people generally do not engage in tasks at low levels of efficacy, begin to engage and put forth maximal effort at moderate levels, and continue to engage but decrease effort at high levels of efficacy. This is an adaptive behavioral pattern. Building on that model, the present study examines the potential moderating effect of Goal Orientations on how individuals choose to engage in tasks across levels of efficacy by experimentally manipulating goal orientation in 312 university students. It was found that no difference between the orientations existed on what level of efficacy they would begin to engage in the task, but that differences do exist for how they allocate their resources once engaged. Specifically, learning oriented individuals conserve the greatest amount of resources as efficacy increases, and performance avoid the fewest. This helps show a further mechanism by which learning orientation leads to more adaptive behavioral patterns. However, it was also found that avoid individuals adopted a theoretically less adaptive behavioral when they were meeting their goals as opposed to failing them. This suggests avoid individuals may be better labelled as differentially adaptive instead of maladaptive. However, more research is needed to confirm these findings.
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