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 at
or 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 they
can 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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