Hi Interweb People
This week I will be continuing my posts on how to increase your self- efficacy (SE) to be physically active. As I mentioned last week, the strongest way to increase your SE is to engage in mastery experiences. You can read more about that by clicking here.
However, there are also several other suggested (e.g., Bandura, 1975) sources of one’s SE to initiate and maintain physical activity. I will focus on two more today, which will include (a) vicarious experiences and (b) verbal persuasion.
In this post I will explain how each of these dimensions can potentially affect your SE in regards to physical activity, and how to use them to your advantage!
1. Vicarious Experiences:
Let’s face it people, we all engage in some form social comparison on a daily basis. Usually, the idea of “comparing yourself to other people” is looked down upon within society and is typically viewed, in general, as almost a sin.
However, SE theorists suggest that one can increase their confidence to perform a given task (i.e., SE) through positive comparison with other people.
Now, this can be a slippery slope (in my opinion) as too much comparison or comparison with the wrong perspective can actually de-motivate you. So, as always, I have some tips to help you utilize this construct effectively.
A) Compare yourself with people who are similar to you: When looking to increase you SE through comparison, look to those you consider ator below your physical level. For example, if you see a co-worker of yours that you would consider in equal or less shape than you successfully going to the gym 3 times a week, use this as motivation that you can do this too. Essentially, don’t compare yourself to your neighbour triathlete if you are just starting out.
B) Keep comparisons positive: This sounds almost counterintuitive because of the bad rap social comparison gets from positive/holistic psychology. However, there is a way to socially compare with good intentions.
Take the above situation in point a). First, you could view the situations as negative (e.g., “oh my gosh my co-worker is so fat and lazy, if theycan do it, then I must be able to go to the gym”). I would not recommend this for several reasons.
First, although social comparison can increase you SE, it can also set you up for psychological failure if you view the person of interest through negative eyes. For example, if you end up not achieving your goal, the negative way you view the other person may actually de-motivate you to continue.
Second, when we think negative things about people around us, we typically become negative ourselves. With a negative viewpoint, it’s really hard to get anything done effectively. For example, during your workout if you are comparing yourself to everyone in the gym with a negative tone, you will likely have a crap workout.
Finally, it has been shown that if you voice negative comparisons to other people you actually project those negative things onto yourself in others eyes. What does this mean? Well if you tell your friend, Sarah, that you think you can go to the gym because your co worker does and they’re soooo lazy, Sarah will then likely (subconsciously) project laziness onto you!
So try and keep your comparisons positive. For example, if I see a climber in the gym who started only 6 months ago bustin’ out hard, I say to myself when roping up “if they can work as hard as they do only 6 months in, you can too Robyn!” Try this out, and see if it works for you :)
2. Verbal Persuasion
Although this is my favourite source of SE, it is its weakest predictor. Those of you that know me in person know that I like to talk.... a lot. So naturally, while in my little world of trying to help people become active I’d like to hope that my relentless verbal persuasion is going to change people’s lives....unfortunately, this is so not true.
I’m bringing this up essentially for those of you who are instructors/personal trainers/physicians or have a significant other (or are one) who likes to nag you about “working out more”. It is shown that trying to persuade someone to become physically active is weak at best at increasing someones SE.
You might be saying, crap, I’m a fitness professional/work out all the time, how am I going to get people to become physically active if I can’t talk them into it (Essentially, this is the goal of my blog, how deflating). Well, there are 3 things that make people more likely to increase their SE if they are being verbally persuaded.
These are if the source of verbal persuasion/message sender is perceived as (a) trustworthy, (b) an expert, and (c) attractive (not esthetically as I’ll explain) to the message receiver.
A) Trustworthiness: Essentially, if the person you are trying to persuade to become physically active does not view you as trustworthy, they are less likely to buy into what you are saying. This is if a person views you to be giving them accurate and truthful information with their best interest in mind.
This is why it is important for fitness professionals to be certified by reputable organizations and have a background in exercise psychology. When counselling people in behaviour change, the communication of what you know and how you know it is imperative to someone believing what you are saying as true.
B) Expert: This ties into point A). The message receiver must view the message sender as an expert in the area of behaviour adoption. This can be for anything really (e.g., smoking cessation, drug rehabilitation, physical activity). The long and the short of it is, if the person doesn’t view you as knowledgeable then you’re out of luck trying to get them to change by this method.
This is how the caring spouse trying to get their partner to become physically active often gets into trouble. Unfortunately, in this situation the spouse is likely to be viewed from a psychological reactive stance.
What this means is, the message receiver will react negatively to the persuasion (because they may view their partner as being condescending or a know it all) and will be more likely to do the opposite or worse (depending on their emotional state).
Because of this phenomena, I advice partners to use mastery experiences or vicarious experiences (e.g., continue to workout yourself and set a good example) than trying to persuade your partner (although this can be hard).
C) Attractiveness: This isn’t how hot the message sender is (although some social psychologist would argue this plays an important role). What SE theorists mean by the attractiveness of the message sender is whether the receiver views where the message is coming from as a valuable source. Again, this ties into the first two points. For example, someone may view a message for increasing their physical activity as more attractive coming from someone of a similar shape, size, sex, and background as them then someone they cannot relate to.
So there you have it! Hopefully there is some valuable information you can use as a fitness professional or as someone on the road to changing their life. As I always say, we can’t change what we do not understand.
Any questions/comments/concerns are always welcome.
Stay Strong
Byn
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