Brian Bellew

I. Background

A. A significant population in the U.S. has multiple poor health behaviors.

B. Often times a relationship between risk factors.

C. Try to design multiple risk factor interventions.

D. Hypothesis: Participation in exercise may have a positive impact of smoking cessation.

II. Methods

A. Sample of 322 smokers.

B. Employed at government agency or a medical center.

C. Completed questionnaires about their smoking and exercise behaviors.

III. Results

A. Significant relationships between smoking variables and exercise variables.

B. The negative consequences of smoking were significantly associated with the positive benefits of physical activity.

C. Self-efficacy for one behavior was significantly associated with self-efficacy for the other.

D. Smokers who were contemplating a more active lifestyle reported the negative consequences of smoking to be significantly more important to them than the smokers who were not considering the adoption of a more active lifestyle.

E. Smokers who were exercising regularly reported significantly more confidence in their ability to refrain from smoking than smokers not exercising regularly.

F. Smokers preparing for quitting reported less confidence in their ability to exercise than smokers who had already taken action to change their smoking behavior. (Stage of change, and motivational mechanisms, gradually leads to action)

IV. Conclusions

A. Cognitive mechanisms associated with changes in smoking behavior are related to the cognitive variables which have been shown to predict changes in exercise behavior.

B. Decisional balance and self-efficacy between smoking and exercise provide preliminary information on how change in one risk behavior may relate to change in another.

C. These results have implications for future intervention research and for methods research on multiple risk factors interventions.

I. Overview: The Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) suggests that the adoption, initiation, and maintenance of health behaviors must be a process that has at least two stages; motivation and action.

A. Perceived self-efficacy plays a crucial role at all stages, if one doesn’t believe in one’s capability to perform a desired action, one will fail to adopt and maintain it.

B. Risk perceptions serve predominately to set the stage for a contemplation process early in the motivation phase.

C. Outcome expectancies are important to the motivational phase when individuals balance the pro’s and con’s of certain consequences of behavior. (They lose predictive power after decision has been made)

II. Motivation Phase

A. Person forms an intention to either adopt a precaution measure or change risk behaviors in favor of other behaviors.

B. Self-efficacy and outcome expectancies are seen as the major predictors of intentions.

C. Outcome expectancies can be seen as precursors of self-efficacy (People usually make assumptions about the possible consequences of behaviors before inquiring whether they can really take the action themselves)

D. Only after sufficient experience is attained does self-efficacy become more influential in forming an intention.

E. Past research overestimated risk perception, not of much importance. Self-efficacy and outcome expectancies dominate intention.

III. Action Phase

A. Most important thing are how hard people try and for how long they persist.

B. The action phase is hardly influenced by outcome expectancies, but more influence by self- efficacy.

C. Self-efficacy beliefs influence the cognitive construction of specific action plans, for example by visualizing scenarios that may guide goal attainment.

D. When an action is being performed, self-efficacy determines the amount of effort invested and the perseverance.

E. People with self doubts are more inclined to anticipate failure scenarios, worry about possible performance deficiencies, and abort their attempts prematurely.

F. People with an optimistic sense of self-efficacy visualize success scenarios that guide action and let them persevere in the face of obstacles.

G. Overall, the action phase contains action plans and action control and are both strongly influenced by perceived self-efficacy.