The Science of Sticking to Your New Year’s Resolution - You can do it!
Welcome back.
This week we continue our look at the science of New Year’s Resolutions (well, technically the science of behaviour change but you get the point).
Last week we spoke about our social world can really influence our success in changing our behaviours. The first theory we will look at is called Social Cognitive Theory which is really just a fancy away of how people around us change the way we think.
Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) proposes that the main thing that causes us to change our behaviour is self- efficacy.[i] Self-efficacy describes how confident we are in our ability to do a particular thing.[ii] This differs from self-esteem which is more general. For example, a highly skilled mathematician might be very confident in his/her ability to solve maths problems, but not confident in their ability to dance or play football. Therefore, they would have high self-efficacy regarding maths but not sport.
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How confident we are in our ability to do a particular thing (self-efficacy) is said to be shaped by
Watching people do that thing (social modelling),
Seeing the what happens to others when they do that thing (vicarious experience), and
How much the people around us encourage us (persuasion).[iii]
Let’s use the mathematician as an example.
Social Modelling
If our mathematician was to see his fellow mathematicians out playing football and having fun, they might feel more confident to try and join in and play, too. This is called social modelling. This is where we learn behaviours by watching others.
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Vicarious Experience
Vicarious experience is where our emotions are conditioned by watching others. It wouldn’t be very good if we had to learn that it hurts when fire burns us by having to touch fire and burning ourselves! If at some point we see someone burn themselves and become scared of touching a flame, we too can become fearful. This process is very quick to occur which is probably a good thing in terms of not touching fire!
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Social Persuassion
Lastly social persuasion is when our social group encourages us. When we have people around us that persuade us we can do it, it really helps us to feel that we can actually do it. Do you notice how much more confident you feel in your abilities when you are around people who believe in you rather than people that doubt you. We are more likely to be influenced by those we are close to and trust and thus social support has been found to help with maintaining good new health behaviours.[iv] It also appears to be more important for younger people than adults.[v]
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Application in the Real World
For these reasons, SCT has helped healthcare providers to understand what makes us exercise and how to increase our exercise activity by using video tapes of models doing exercise, having role models do group exercise and arranging for social support.[vi]
Conclusion
Social Cognitive Theory would suggest that our success in our New Year’s Resolutions is largely reliant on our confident we are in doing that particular resolution. If we want to exercise more, we could get a friend to exercise with us giving us social modelling, seeing others successfully going to the gym and getting fitter/stronger (vicarious experience) and getting encouragement from those around us.
Good luck and we will at more theories next week.
[i] Michie, 2011
[ii] Allen, 2004
[iii] Michie, 2011
[iv] Kwasnicka, Dombrowski, White & Falko Sniehotta (2016)
[v] Theodorakis, 1994
[vi]Allen, 2004