Abstract

Despite sport psychology’s efforts over decades to understand the relationship between self-efficacy evaluation and sports performance, the multivariate reality of sport does not make it possible to achieve universal and generalizable conclusions about competition diversity. The objective of this study was to analyze the consistency between the perception of behavioral success of a high-level water polo goalkeeper and their actual performance in competition. The self-efficacy achievement scale for water polo goalkeepers (Argudo, De la Vega, Tejero, Ruiz, 2013) was used in order to measure the perception of behavioral success. To measure performance, all throws received by the goalkeeper in a European Championship and a World Championship were analyzed. The results indicate low association between the perception of behavioral success stated by the goalkeeper and their performance in competition (p = ,34, p = ,035) which means the goalkeeper sees themselves as being more efficient than the data suggest (p = ,033, dc = 0,24). Finally, these findings are discussed.