How does self-efficacy affect interest? The interest-and-interests model assumes that factors that induce interest—novelty, complexity, conflict, and uncertainty—do so non-linearly. Self-efficacy should thus affect interest quadratically, because it reflects uncertainty about an activity’s outcome. When self-efficacy is low, interest is low because the activity’s outcome is certain. When self-efficacy is moderate, the person’s success on the task seems likely, but not inevitable. But as self-efficacy becomes very high, success seems completely certain, and the task is thus uninteresting. Two experiments tested these predictions. Experiment 1 asked people to rate the interestingness of differentially difficult activities; Experiment 2 manipulated self-efficacy regarding a fuzzy dart game. In both experiments, interest was a quadratic function of self-efficacy. Implications for theories of vocational interest development and change are considered.
Beliefs about personal agency are foundational to motivated activity (Bandura, 1997). Self-efficacy plays an important role in many theoretical issues, such as when people feel their lives are meaningful (Feldman & Snyder, 2000), how people cope with traumatic events (Snyder, 2000), and when people take responsibility for failure instead of blaming others (Duval and Silvia, 2001 and Duval and Silvia, 2002; Silvia & Duval, 2001). Vocational interest research has long explored the conceptual possibilities of self-efficacy theory (Hackett & Betz, 1981). Indeed, self-efficacy appears to be one of the major variables in modern vocational psychology (Betz, 2000; Betz & Borgen, 2000).
Self-efficacy theory has impacted vocational psychology so much because agency beliefs seem to promote interest development. Quite a lot of research, both experimental and correlational, finds that self-efficacy increases interest and performance (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). These effects of self-efficacy are distinct from effects of abilities, personality variables, and outcome expectancies (Bandura, 1997; Donnay & Borgen, 1999). Apart from providing a foothold into understanding how interests develop—a historically obscure issue (Savickas, 1999)—this work has clarified why people often do not enact vocational interests (Betz, 1999) and explained some important gender and ethnic differences (Hackett & Betz, 1981).