Abstract
Unintentional injury is a major global public health concern. The enormous economic and social impacts of unintentional injury make understanding the underlying etiology of injury-risk behaviors critical. Researchers have long advocated inquiry into injury etiology guided by a conceptual framework. The present study examined the relationship between experience and efficacy according to the Risk Appraisal Framework (RAF). RAF defines experience as the accumulation of successes and failures performing a given injury-risk behavior. Three behavioral tasks were manipulated to induce failure and success in task performance and to examine the relationship between experience and efficacy. Efficacy was measured using a self-report scale derived from the Guides for Constructing Self-Efficacy Scales. Results showed experience was related to efficacy in the failure condition as described by RAF and further revealed a pattern of interactions between experience and efficacy. Experiencing failure reduced participants sense of efficacy more drastically than an equal amount of success increased sense of efficacy on all three behavioral tasks. Furthermore, there was a decrease in participants perception of efficacy in the success condition of one task compared to the two where efficacy increased. Results were discussed within the context of RAF and injury prevention.