Healthy living Psychology: Self-Efficacy (concept)

What is it?

It is a construct of social cognitive theory

Self-efficacy (SE) is a person's belief in his/her own competemce, I.e as the belief that one is capable of persorming in a certain manner to attain a certain set of goals. It is believed that our personalized ideas of SE affect our social interactions in almost every way. Bandura has defined SE as ones belief in ones ability to succeed in specific situations. One's sense of SE can play a major role in how one approaches goals, task's and challenges. According to Bandura's theory, people with a high SE believe they can perform well therefore when they are presented with a difficult task they see it as something to be mastered rather than something to be avoided. SE can be closely related to Locus of Control, but the two are different in so far as Locus of control is concerned with what/who produces a particular outcome, whereas SE is the conviction that one's own behaviour will influence that outcome.



How SE affects human function

Choices regarding behaviour

People will be more likely to take on a task if they believe they can succeed. People generally avoid tasks where there SE is low, but engage in them if its high. People who's Se is actually beyond there own abilities can overestimate the goals they are capable of achieving which can obviously lead to great difficulties. However people with a lower SE than there ability will not expand their skills or grow seen as they wont challenge many things. The ideal SE is the optimum level which is a little above their actual ability which will lead the too succeed.

Motivation

People with a high SE in a task are more likely to make more of a effort, persist longer than those with a low SE. the stronger the AW or mastery expectations, the more active the efforts. On the other hang, a low SE provides a incentive to learn more about the subject. As a result, someone with a high SE might not correctly prepare for a task.

Health behaviours

Health behaviours such as non-smoking, exercise, dieting, condom use, hygiene, seat belt etc are dependant on the persons perceived SE, SE beliefs are cognitions that determine whether the health behaviour change will be initiated, how much effort will be expended and how long it will be sustained in front of obstacles and failures. SE influences the effort one puts forth to change risk behaviour and the persistence to continue striving despite barriers and setbacks that may undermine motivation. SE is directly related to health behaviour, but it also affects health behaviour indirectly through its impact on goals. SE influences the challenges that people take on as well as how high they set their goals (e.g., "I intend to reduce my smoking," "I intend to quit smoking altogether")

Critisms

You can argue that it is merely a cause of behaviour not a predictor
This theory predicts that students interest in a subject will reflect their grades which is not always the case
Attribution theory