Feist−Feist: Theories of
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Companies, 2009watchful eye on unattended bags in airports and subway stations, or maybe it means
something more abstract like praying or taking some sense of comfort and security
in one’s religion.
Researchers Peter Fischer and colleagues were interested in investigating the
possible link between religion, self-efficacy, and coping with the threat of terrorism
(Fischer, Greitemeyer, Kastenmuller, Jonas, & Frey, 2006). To investigate the role of
religion, Fischer and colleagues used Gordon Allport’s Religious Orientation Scale
(ROS; Chapter 13). As you may recall, the ROS measures the degree to which peo-
ple are intrinsically versus extrinsically religious. Intrinsic religiosity is character-
ized by truly living your religion, not as a means to an end, but as a striving toward
meaning and value. Previous research has found that the use of prayer as a coping
mechanism is related to an increased feeling of internal control over events (Ai, Pe-
terson, Rodgers, & Tice, 2005), and so Fischer and colleagues (2006) predicted that
intrinsically religious people would experience a greater level of self-efficacy. This
enhanced self-efficacy would help them cope with the threat of terrorism as com-
pared to people who are not religious.
To test their prediction, Fischer and colleagues collected data from a German
sample in November 2003. During this month the salience of terrorism was very
high in Europe because on November 20 suicide bombers attacked two synagogues
in Istanbul, Turkey, and 5 days later the British Consulate in Istanbul and the Turkish
headquarters of a London-based bank were simultaneously attacked. In total, 38 peo-
ple lost their lives in these attacks and more than 500 people were injured.
With the threat of more terrorist attacks on the minds of everyone, the re-
searchers recruited participants to complete the ROS, a self-report measure of self-
efficacy containing items such as “Thanks to my resourcefulness, I know how to han-
dle unforeseen situations,” and a measure of mood. Two months later, as the salience
of terrorism waned, the researchers again administered these same measures to a new
sample of Germans.
The results mostly supported the researchers’ predictions. When the salience
of terrorism was high, intrinsically religious people were in a better mood and re-
ported greater self-efficacy than nonreligious people. Furthermore, the researchers
found that the better mood experienced by intrinsically religious people was due to
their increased feelings of self-efficacy. When the salience of terrorism was low,
however, there were no differences on mood or self-efficacy between intrinsically
religious and nonreligious people. So, when a person is faced with a threat, self-
efficacy is crucial to lessening the detrimental impact of the threat. Religiosity is
one, but probably not the only, way to derive a stronger sense of self-efficacy during
such threats. The threat of terrorism is not likely to decline anytime soon, but this re-
search from Bandura’s personality theory has demonstrated that the more we feel in
control and capable of handling unforeseen circumstances, the less the threat of ter-
rorism will negatively affect our well-being.
Self-Efficacy and Diabetes
One of the ways in which Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory has had the
greatest impact on the daily lives of many individuals is in the promotion of health
and the prevention of disease. Bandura himself has written about the usefulness of
Chapter 16 Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory 503