Health Psychology, 2nd Edition

The latter relationship arises because self-efficacy influences the degree to which an
individual pays attention to opportunities or impediments in their life circumstances.
For example, self-efficacious individuals intending to exercise might be expected to
focus on exercise cues in the environment such as running or cycling routes. This
component of the model incorporates perceptions of the environment as an important
influence on health behaviours. In overview, the SCT predicts that quitting smoking,
for example, is more likely for individuals who have a goal of quitting smoking, who
perceive that various positive physical (e.g. health), social (e.g. positive regard from
others) and self-evaluative (e.g. feeling good about yourself) outcomes will follow from
their quitting smoking and who perceive they have the confidence to quit smoking
in the face of various obstacles.
SCT has been successfully applied to predicting and changing health behaviours.
(e.g. Luszczynska and Schwarzer, 2005, 2015). However, unlike a number of the other
models we have considered, many of the applications of SCT only assess one or two
components of the model rather than all components. Self-efficacy and action-
outcome expectancies along with intentions have been found to be important
predictors of a range of health behaviours in a diverse range of studies (for reviews see
Bandura, 2000; Luszczynska and Schwarzer, 2005, 2015; see Chapter 8 on changing
self-efficacy).

Stage models of health behaviour

The models considered above assume that the cognitive determinants of health
behaviours act in a similar way during initiation (e.g. quitting smoking for the first

152 MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOUR

Self-efficacy

Outcome expectations:

Physical

Social

Self-evaluative

Socio-structural factors:

Facilitators

Impediments

Goals Behaviour

FIGURE 7.5Social cognitive theory.

Source: From Luszczynska and Schwarzer (2005), reproduced with permission from McGraw-Hill.