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This study examined the generalization of self-efficacy to additional stressors upon mastery of a high-risk task (i.e., rappeling). A secondary purpose was to determine if reductions in the psychophysiological anxiety response would occur to controlled laboratory challenges as a result of any psychological changes derived from the mastery experience. To investigate these issues, the researchers assigned college-age males (N=34) to treatment, consisting of participant-based modeling with self-directed mastery, or control. Self-efficacy was enhanced toward the rappel situation after treatment and the perceived increase was generalized to the area of high-risk activities. State anxiety was significantly reduced toward the treatment situation (i.e., rappel) at posttest, but no parallel change in stress reactivity or self-reported anxiety generalized to the laboratory stressors. This finding was expected, as no changes were noted in self-reported efficacy to accomplish the laboratory challenges. These results support the generalization of self-efficacy to relatively similar situations.

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This article examines the sporting discourses that surrounded Michael Sam’s attempt to play in the National Football League (NFL). It argues that Sam would inevitably be described as a failure because of his inability to exist within the logics of heteronormativity and situates his experience within the framework of neoliberalism and Whiteness to better understand how both function as mediating factors in his ability to attain success. Rather than dismissing Sam’s story as abject failure, this article instead reevaluates his journey within the lens of queerness. It discusses how we might look to queerness as a mode of being, which allows a refocusing of the story from Sam’s individual failure to the institutions which fail to include queer bodies in their vision of success.

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