Abstract
Interactive effect of self-efficacy and incentive value on peripheral physiological reactivity before and during cognitive task performance.The aim of present experiment was to determine if both sel-efficacy and incentive value exert their effects on autonomic and somatic physiological reactivity in an interactive manner. 32 subjects were assigned to 4 groups resulted by combining two conditions of self-efficacy manipulation (high and low) with two conditions of incentive value manipulation (high and low). All the subjects did an computer aided words concatenation task, which implied verbal responses. 4 physiological variables were measured: respiratory and heart rate, electrodermal resistance and electromiography of frontalis muscle. Results suggest that both self-efficacy and incentive value partially determine autonomic reactivity implicated in situations of active coping, exerting their effect interactively. It also seems reflect that incentive value modulates the functional relationship between self-efficacy and autonomic reactivity. Despite, such cognitive variables determine somatic activity (in this study, represented by frontalis electromiography) in a non-interactive manner.
