resulting from systematic (central route) processing is more likely to be stable and to
influence behaviour. Consequently, health promoters should ensure they use strong
evidence-based arguments, encourage systematic processing by ensuring appropriate
prior knowledge, emphasizing personal relevance, providing distraction-free pres -
entations, using repetition and encouraging confidence in people’s own judgement.
Having facilitated systematic processing we must ensure that our persuasive messages
are easily understood if we are to change attitudes.
ENHANCING SELF-EFFICACY
Perhaps you have not changed the health-related behaviour you thought of earlier
because you think it would be too difficult to change. Self-efficacy (SE) is the belief
that one has the ability and resources to succeed in achieving a goal despite environ -
mental barriers. Perceived behavioural control and SE are important prerequisites of
intention (see Chapter 7). SE promotes intention and performance so consideration
of SE enhancement bridges our discussion of changing motivation (this chapter) and
behaviour (Chapter 9). SE is important to many areas of health psychology. For
example, in Chapter 3 we discussed how secondary appraisals determine our experience
of stress. When we believe we can competently manage an environmental demand it
becomes a challenge, otherwise it is a stressor. SE can sometimes depend on perceived
social support (see Chapter 5), that is, we believe we can competently manage an
environmental demand because we know others will help us.
Self-efficacy and performance
SE is correlated with performance across a range of behaviours from academic
performance to health-related behaviours (Bandura, 1997). For example, in a meta-
analysis (see Research methods 8.1) of 114 studies of SE and work-related performance,
Stajkovic and Luthans (1998) found an equivalent effect size of d= .82, which
corresponds to an increase of 28 per cent in performance due to higher SE. This is an
impressive effect size. Such findings recommend SE-enhancing interventions to
improve work performance. However, SE varies across behaviours. For example,
DiClemente (1986) noted that the correlation between SE for stopping overeating and
quitting smoking was small (r= .21) (Bandura, 1997), emphasizing that interventions
designed to enhance SE need to be behaviour-specific.
While there is little evidence for distinct stages of behaviour change (see Chapter
7), people face different challenges as they progress from action (e.g. jogging for the
first time) through to maintenance (e.g. habitually jogging regularly three times a
week). Thus SE-enhancing interventions should target challenges relevant to particular
target audiences (Abraham, 2008). To facilitate this, different types of SE measures
have been defined. For example, Schwarzer (2008) distinguishes between action
SE (believing one can succeed in completing a planned behaviour), maintenance SE
(believing one can maintain the action over time) and recovery SE (believing one can
adopt the behaviour again after a relapse).
Those who believe they can succeed set themselves more challenging goals. They
exert more effort, use more flexible problem-solving strategies and are more persistent
180 MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOUR