Congruence of Efficacy Beliefs and the Prediction of Performance in Military Teams

Abstract

Military teams work together in high-pressure environments where performance is an overall evaluation of success. The Army remains committed to improving team effectiveness in the military and this study supports how psychological factors that may impact team performance may support this aim. Bandura (1986) developed Social Cognitive Theory to better understand why individuals behave the way that they do. Stemming from this research self-efficacy was introduced as a key psychological predictor of performance. Later on, the Estimation of Other’s Self-Efficacy (EOSE) was developed as an extension, to better understand how one individual may perceive another’s self-efficacy (Lent & Lopez, 2002). While both of these efficacy beliefs are individually relevant to group performance, understanding how they align within teams may optimize team performance. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine how the congruence of self-efficacy and EOSE predict performance in military teams. It was hypothesized that pairs with congruence of self-efficacy and EOSE at a moderate-to-high level would perform better compared to dyads who are congruent at low levels or not congruent at all.

Participants of this study included 80 members of a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program performing in 40 pairs consisting of one higher rank and one lower ranked cadet. Pairs worked together to complete a rope-pull task where they were instructed to pull as hard as they could for 5 seconds against an anchored column. Efficacy was measured directly before each pull; self-efficacy was reported by the lower ranked cadet and EOSE was reported by the higher ranked cadet. After each pull, subjective performance was reported by both cadets. Objective performance (i.e., Force; n/kg) was also recorded by a dynamometer attached to the rope. In line with previous research (Stephen et al., 2022; Habeeb et al., 2024; Shanock et al., 2010) a five-phase analysis was used, mainly focusing on a polynomial regression and surface response plots of interaction, utilizing force, collective performance of the higher ranked cadet, and collective performance of the lower ranked cadet as performance outcomes. For all three performance outcomes, performance was greatest when dyads were incongruent compared to when they were congruent. It was observed that subjective and objective performance was highest when EOSE was reported higher than self-efficacy, meaning that EOSE was observed as an over estimator of self-efficacy. Previous research has demonstrated that congruence of efficacy beliefs is better for performance in trained pairs. In the current study incongruence was associated with greater performance. Such findings suggest that approaches to optimizing team assignment may require different strategy and consideration for teams are untrained versus when they are trained teams.