An empirical ranking of the importance of the sources of self-efficacy for physical activity

While considerable research has centered on the concept of self-efficacy and its impact on behavior, relatively few studies have delved into the sources of self-efficacy beliefs. Bandura posited that the genesis of self-efficacy beliefs is based on the following four aspects: personal experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional state. The objective of this research paper is to ascertain the relative importance of each source concerning self-efficacy for physical activity to determine whether some sources should be accorded with greater emphasis than others in future studies aiming to foster self-efficacy beliefs for physical activity.

An online study with 335 healthy German adults (162 men, 173 women) aged 18-68 was conducted. The sources of self-efficacy were compared by employing dominance analysis. This approach allows for the ordering of predictors according to their contribution to the explained variance, thereby providing more substantial insights and allowing for more concrete conclusions in comparison to the conventional multiple regression approach.

As expected, mastery experience was shown to be the most important source of self-efficacy for physical activity, interestingly followed by verbal self-persuasion and positive affective state. Together, the sources of self-efficacy accounted for about 60% of the variance in self-efficacy.

Overall, understanding the etiology of self-efficacy is essential for developing effective and sustainable interventions to promote healthy behaviors. By focusing on the specific sources of self-efficacy that are most pertinent, interventions can be designed to be more effective.