These findings also offer insight into the messaging strategies that may help individuals thrive in the face of challenges to their confidence in their ability. Given that such challenges are commonplace across diverse domains of functioning, there appear to be a host of fascinating applications for the study of task self-efficacy inoculation.

Ben Jackson, Josh Compton, et al.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0124886

Although inoculation messages have been shown to be effective for inducing resistance to counter-attitudinal attacks, researchers have devoted relatively little attention toward studying the way in which inoculation theory principles might support challenges to psychological phenomena other than attitudes (e.g., self-efficacy). Prior to completing a physical (i.e., balance) task, undergraduates (N = 127, Mage = 19.20, SD = 2.16) were randomly assigned to receive either a control or inoculation message, and reported their confidence in their ability regarding the upcoming task. During the task, a confederate provided standardized negative feedback to all participants regarding their performance, and following the completion of the task, participants again reported their self-efficacy along with measures assessing in-task processes. Findings supported the viability of efficacy inoculation; controlling for pre-task self-efficacy, task performance, and relevant psycho-social variables (e.g., resilience, self-confidence robustness), participants in the inoculation condition reported greater confidence in their ability (i.e., task self-efficacy) than those in the control condition at post-task. Relative to those in the inoculation condition, participants in the control condition also experienced greater concentration disruption and self-presentation concerns during the task.

Jackson, B., Compton, J., Whiddett, R., Anthony, D. R., & Dimmock, J. A. (2015). Preempting performance challenges: The effects of inoculation messaging on attacks to task self-efficacy. PLoS ONE 10(4): e0124886. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0124886