The Moderating Role of Self-Efficacy Beliefs in the Relationship Between Anticipated Feelings of Regret and Condom Use1

This prospective study examined how the feelings of regret and self-blame one anticipates after engaging in unsafe sex affect condom use in new sexual relationships. The central theoretical question is whether self-efficacy perceptions can moderate the relationship between anticipated feelings and actual condom use. Consistent with theories of anticipated regret and social cognitive learning, participants were most likely to use condoms between the first and second waves of data collection when they anticipated negative feelings as a result of not using condoms (and positive feelings after having used condoms), particularly when they also believed that they had the power to exercise control over the sexual situation (high self-efficacy). The implications for interventions aimed at promoting safer sex are discussed.     

Predicting and understanding mothers' infant-feeding intentions and behavior: testing the theory of reasoned action

The present study examines the applicability of Fishbein and Ajzen's theory of reasoned action to the prediction and understanding of how primiparous and multiparous mothers intended to feed their infants and how they actually fed these infants during the 6 weeks following delivery. Measures of attitudes to behavior, subjective norms, and behavioral intentions were taken during the last trimester of pregnancy. Behavior was assessed by self-report 6 weeks postpartum. In most respects the findings supported the theory of reasoned action. However, attitudes to behavior were found to make an independent and significant contribution to the prediction of infant-feeding behavior, and the previous behavior of multiparous mothers explained an independent and significant proportion of variation in their behavioral intentions. The relative importance of the attitudinal and normative components of the theoretical model tended to vary according to whether the mothers had direct experience of the criterion behavior. Further analysis revealed that mothers who breast-fed during the 6-week postpartum period differed from those who bottle-fed exclusively during this period on a number of behavioral beliefs, outcome evaluations, and normative beliefs, and on one measure of motivation to comply. The implications of these findings for the theory of reasoned action are discussed.     

A contrast effect in judgments of own emotional state

Subjects rated their emotional responses to scenes from two contrasting types of audiovisual material (comedy and horror), the order or presentation being either comedy-horror or horror-comedy. Feelings of pleasantness and relaxation, together with ratings of the funniness of comedy scenes, were enhanced when subjects viewed the comedy scenes having previously viewed the horror scenes. Similarly, horror scenes were rated as more frightening and induced more unpleasant feelings when subjects had previously viewed the comedy scenes. This contrast effect in emotional response is discussed in relation to other studies of the effects of emotion on judgments. A number of theoretical approaches are considered in attempting to explain the findings.     

The beholder beheld: A study of social emotionality

The study reported in this paper is concerned with social emotions. These are defined as states which are experienced either exclusively or more intensively before a real or imagined audience. It is argued that when social emotions arise as a consequence of disrupting social rules, this is because the actor in question is aware of a discrepancy between his or her self-image, which is assumed to be neutral, and the image which he or she assumes to have conveyed to those who witness the incident, in a role-playing experiment, subjects were presented with four situations depicting disruptions of routine activity, two of which involved rule disruption. These situations were described from one of two perspectives (actor or observer) and set in one of two social contexts (public or private). Results confirmed the main predictions, which were (1) that in the case of rule disruptions, the emotionality attributed to the actor would be greater in public than in private; (2) that dispositional ratings of the actor would reveal a discrepancy between self image and public image, and that this discrepancy would covary with the actor's emotionality; and (3) that dispositional ratings of the actor would reveal a discrepancy between public image and subjective public image.     

False autonomic feedback: Effects of attention to feedback on ratings of erotic stimuli

This study examines the roles played by sound track type, attention to sound track, and meaning of sound track in mediating the effects of false autonomic feedback on attractiveness ratings of erotic stimuli. Male subjects were instructed either to ignore or to pay attention to a pulsed or continuous sound track that was described either as heart-rate feedback or as a neutral auditory stimulus while slides of nude females were shown. Slides associated with a change in either the pulsed sound track or the continuous-tone sound track (increase slides) were subsequently rated as significantly more attractive than those associated with steady sound (stable slides). This effect was contingent on the meaning given to the auditory stimuli, with subjects in the heart-rate condition showing a stronger tendency to rate increase slides more positively than stable slides, by comparison with subjects in the neutral sounds condition. Within the heart-rate condition, subjects told to pay attention to the feedback showed greater rating differences between these two types of slide than those told to ignore it. This pattern of findings contrasts with those of an earlier experiment (Parkinson & Manstead, 1981), where differential unpleasantness ratings of slides of skin diseases depended on the attention paid to the sound track but not on its meaning. It is concluded that the effects of false autonomic feedback are contingent upon the kind of emotional stimuli that are presented.This article is based on research supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Andrew Gregory, who was responsible for the computer program used in generating the sound track, and we would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous version of this paper.     

Distinguishing Between Perceived Behavioral Control and Self-Efficacy in the Domain of Academic Achievement Intentions and Behaviors

We examined whether perceived behavioral control (PBC) and self-efficacy (S-E) can be distinguished empirically, and whether they make different contributions to the prediction of intentions and behavior. The behavioral criterion was performance in 3 high-school examinations. Measures of attitude, subjective norm, PBC, S-E, and intention were taken before the examinations. Grade achieved served as the behavioral measure. Factor analysis of items intended to measure PBC and S-E extracted 2 factors: confidence in ability to achieve the behavioral outcome, and belief that the outcome can be influenced by own efforts. Scores on these factors were labeled S-E and perceived control, respectively. Behavior was predicted better by S-E than by intentions, and intentions were more closely related to S-E than to attitudes, subjective norms, or perceived control.     

Arousal and the Bakan vigilance task: The effects of noise intensity and the presence of others

The joint effects of social setting and loud noise on task performance are examined. In a modified version of the Bakan vigilance task subjects were required to detect a sequence of two identical even digits and to report the two digits preceding the signal. Two types of acoustic environment were compared: loud noise at 90 dBC and quiet noise at 60 dBC. Two types of social setting were employed: “pair” where two subjects worked in the same room on similar tasks, and “single” where a subject performed the task alone. The effects of noise and the presence of another did not interact. Loud noise increased the speed of responses to signals early in the task. This effect is attributed to noise-induced arousal. There was a higher incidence of recall errors in pre-signal digits when subjects were in pairs. This effect is attributed to distraction. This research was part of a series of studies sponsored by the Social Science Research Council (Grant HR 5563 awarded to Dr. A.J. Chapman and Dr. D.M. Jones).     

Children's sensitivity to traffic hazard in peripheral vision

Although children and adults have poorer peripheral vision than foveal vision there is contradictory evidence about the developmental changes that occur in peripheral sensitivity. Previous research on detections of traffic hazard has not, however, provided any evidence that peripheral vision is implicated in the particualr vulnerability of children to pedestrain accidents. In the absence of differences in peripheral detections it was hypothesized that children may nevertheless be less efficient than adults in utilizing information presented in the periphery. Road traffic scenes depicting vehicles in potentially hazardous and non-hazardous positions for road crossings were presented to adults and to childre, aged 7, 9, and 11. Results confirmed that children were relatively no poorer than adults at hazard detection in peripheral vision than in foveal vision, but indicated that they were marginally poorer at utilizing information presented in the periphery, as measured by a vehicle recognition test. Against expectd developmental trends 9-year-olds were as fast as adults at hazard detection, but no different from the other groups of children in recognition performance. Evidence that information detected and assimilated in peripheral vision does not contribute to the high pedestrian accident rates of children comes from the absence of any sex differences favouring girls. Since girls have considerably lower accident rates than boys, it would have been expected that both their detection and recognition performance would have been higher.