Generalization effects of coping-skills training: Influence of self-defense training on women's efficacy beliefs, assertiveness, and aggression

Concern for personal safety is a pervasive stressor for many women. Develop ing competencies in physical self-defense may empower women to engage more freely in daily activities with less fear. This study assessed the effects of physical self-defense training on multiple aspects of women's perceived self-efficacy and other self-reported personality characteristics. Training powerfully increased task-specific (self-defense) efficacy beliefs as well as physical and global efficacy beliefs. Training increased self-reported assertiveness, and posttraining decreases in hostility and aggression were found on several of the subscales of The Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Bu ss & M. Ferry, 1992), indicating that training did not have an aggression-d isinhibiting effect. In the experimental condition, most of the effects wer e maintained land some delayed effects appeared at follow-up.