UC Berkeley

Momentum and efficacy are important forces to understand for performance-related outcomes in a variety of contexts, from athletic contests to mental challenges to day-to-day tasks. This dissertation explores perceptions and consequences of those forces, in three chapters.

In Chapter 1, which includes seven total experiments (N = 3,052), I find that the experience of gaining momentum leads to increased performance expectations (and losing momentum to decreased expectations), but that these expectations are often miscalibrated as compared to actual performance. I further find that participants will bet on their performance expectations when they experience gaining momentum, even though experiencing momentum does not consistently lead to actual performance increases commensurate with expectations.

In Chapter 2, I discuss the results of four experiments (N = 1,347). I replicate the findings from Chapter 1 that perceived momentum leads to performance expectations, but I find that link only exists if the performer is judged to have control over the outcome of the contest (i.e., perceiving that the performer has efficacy). When efficacy is either attenuated or not present (e.g., in games of chance), observers no longer believe that gaining momentum will lead to improved performance.

In Chapter 3, I present nine experiments (N = 2,729) which uncover and then correct a misprediction about the effect of task ordering on performers’ efficacy. I find that people predict that completing tasks in increasing-difficulty (vs. decreasing-difficulty) order will lead to greater felt efficacy and that people consequently prefer to complete tasks in increasing-difficulty order. I then expose that misprediction and find instead that there is either no effect of task ordering on efficacy, or that the opposite is true: completing tasks in decreasing-difficulty order leads to more reported efficacy. Finally, I explore a potential mechanism to correct the misprediction: clearer simulation of the actual experience of completing tasks in different orders.

Across these three chapters and 7,128 total participants, I demonstrate a strong link between momentum perceptions and performance expectations but find that these expectations are often miscalibrated as compared to reality. I also show that perceived momentum must signal efficacy in order to affect performance expectations. Finally, I present evidence that efficacy can be generated by completing tasks in decreasing-difficulty order, despite people’s expectations that completing tasks in increasing-difficulty order will increase perceived efficacy and their preferences for starting with their easiest task.