Will You Be a Hit or a Miss?
The Expectancy for Success Scale
Life is filled with opportunities and obstacles. What happens when you are faced with a difficult challenge? Do you rise to meet it, or do you back off? Social-cognitive theorists note that our self-efficacy expectancies influence our behavior. When we believe that we are capable of succeeding through our own efforts, we marshal our resources and apply ourselves.
The following scale, created by Fibel and Hale (1978), can give you insight as to whether you believe that your own efforts are likely to meet with success. You can compare your own expectancies for success with those of other undergraduates taking psychology courses by turning to the scoring key at the end of the chapter.
Directions: Indicate the degree to which each item applies to you by circling the appropriate number, according to this key:
1_Highly improbable
2_Improbable
3_Equally improbable and probable, not sure
4_Probable
5_Highly probable
In The Future I Expect That I Will:
1. Find that people don’t seem to understand what I’m trying to say: 4-Probable
2. Be discouraged about my ability to gain the respect of others: 3-Not sure
3. Be a good parent: 1-Highly improbable
4. Be unable to accomplish my goals: 2-Improbable
5. Have a stressful marital relationship: 5-Highly probable
6. Deal poorly with emergency situations 5-Highly probable
7. Find my efforts to change situations I don’t like are ineffective: 4-Probable
8. Not be very good at learning new skills: 1-Highly Improbable
9. Carry through my responsibilities successfully: 5-Highly probable
10. Discover that the good in life outweighs the bad: 3-Not sure
11. Handle unexpected problems successfully: 4-Proabable
12. Get the promotions I deserve: 3-Not sure
13. Succeed in the projects I undertake: 4-Probable
14. Not make any significant contributions to society: 1-Highly Improbable
15. Discover that my life is not getting much better: 2-Improbable
16. Be listened to when I speak: 5-High Probable
17. Discover that my plans don’t work out too well: 3-Not sure
18. Find that no matter how hard I try, things just don’t turn out the way I would like: 3-Not sure
19. Handle myself well in whatever situation I’m in: 4-Probable
20. Be able to solve my own problems: 4-Probable
21. Succeed at most things I try: 5-Highly Probable
22. Be successful in my endeavors in the long run: 5-Highly Probable
23. Be very successful working out my personal life: 5-Highly Probable
24. Experience many failures in my life: 5-Highly Probable
25. Make a good first impression on people I meet for the first time: 4-Proabable
26. Attain the career goals I have set for myself: 4-Probable
27. Have difficulty dealing with my superiors: 2-Improbable
28. Have problems working with others: 3-Not sure
29. Be a good judge of what it takes to get ahead: 4-Probable
30. Achieve recognition in my profession: 3-Not sure
Note: Reprinted with permission from Fibel and Hale (1978), p. 931.
I cannot honestly say that I think this test helped determine if a person would really be a success or not. These tests potential benefits are good to give an idea about the persons want or drive to reach the goal they want or not, but not actually determine the outcome of that person’s ability to succeed or not. When a person creates a test, they use a generalization of questions to test people with. They could be great when giving a test that may be good at helping the person decide what they want to be like an aptitude test. Those tests are pretty valid. They help you get a general idea of what you might be interested in. There are test out there that jobs require you to take before you are hired, like Wal-Mart or even Home Depot. These tests are supposed to help determine if you are a honest, hard-working person, or if you might not work out. The test given at Home Depot has a math section in it to see if you are good with numbers or not. Some people are just not so good at taking tests, so they might freeze up when they take a test and fail it even thought they could be the best person for the job. I would not consider any test like this valid for that reason. That would also be one of the drawbacks that the test provides.
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