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Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioural change?
Adv. Behav. Res. Ther. Vol. 1, pp. 211-215 @Pergamon Press Ltd. 1978. Printed in Great Britain.
SELF-EFFICACY:
TOWARD BEHAVIOURAL
A UNIFYING CHANGE?
THEORY
OF
John D. Teasdale* University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry, The Wameford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX, England (Received July 1978)
Bandura (1977) distinguishes two types of expectation which, he suggests, are important in determining whether a person performs an action. The first, action-outcome expectations, concern the outcomes a person anticipates will follow performance of the action. The second, which Bandura terms efficacy expectations, concern a person’s belief that he is actually able to perform the action. Bandura argues that efficacy expectations are potentially important determinants of behaviour, and, in particular, that psychological treatments, whatever their form, operate by modifying expectations of personal efficacy. The argument may be summarised by quotations from the paper: 1. “An outcome expectancy is defined as a person’s estimate that a given behaviour will lead to certain outcomes” (p. 193). 2. “An efficacy expectation is the conviction that one can SuccessjidIy execute the behaviour required to produce the outcomes” (p. 193). 3. “Outcome and efficacy expectations are dlflerentiated because individuals can believe that a particular course of action willproduce certain outcomes, but if they entertain serious doubts about whether they can perform the necessary activities such information does not inj7uence their behaviour” (p. 193). 4. “Given appropriate skills and adequate incentives, however, eflcacy expectations are a major determinant ofpeople’s choice of activities, how much effort they will expend, and of how long they will sustain eflort in deaIing with stressful situations” @. 194). 5. “The present theory is based on the assumption that psychological procedures, whatever their form, serve as means of creating and strengthening expectations of personal eflcacy” (p. 193). I believe that the distinction between action-outcome expectations and efficacy expectations is useful. However, this conceptual distinction is likely to prove most useful if the concepts are clearly discriminable. Bandura appears to blur this distinction in ways which I shall discuss. Once this ambiguity is recognized, a reconsideration of the role of efficacy expectations in psychological treatment is required. AN AMBIGUITY Table 1 shows the effects of varying combinations of efficacy and action-outcome expectations in determining performance of an action. Efficacy expectations refer to beliefs concerning the actual ability to perform the action, and action-outcome expectations refer to the anticipated consequences of the action. For simplicity, expectations are considered as all or nothing, and outcomes simply as good or bad. The table is constructed on two assumptions: (1) that an action is not performed if a person does not believe he can perform it and (2) an action is not performed if the expected overall outcome is bad. It can be seen that only in combination 4, when the person both expects that he can perform Y and that Y produces a good outcome, is action Y performed. The conviction that one has combination 4 constitutes Bandura’s definition of an efficacy expectation: “the conviction that one can successfuh’y execute the behaviour required to produce the outcomes”. By including the words “‘successfully” and “required to produce the outcomes” in his definition of efficacy expectations, Bandura combines beliefs about ability to make a response with expectations *The author is supported by a grant from the Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom. 211
212
J. D. Teasdale
concerning the outcome of the response, in particular, whether this will be positive. When it is recalled that Bandura argues for the conceptual separation of efficacy and action-outcome expectations, their combination in the definition of efficacy expectations might be considered a potential source of confusion and ambiguity. This confusion is not the result of Table 1 using the concepts of efficacy and action-outcome expectations in a way quite different to Bandura; in other parts of his paper, for example figure 1, p. 193, the two concepts are clearly separated and used in the same way as in Table 1. Table 1. Combinations of effkacy and action-outcome expectations as determinants of performance of action I’ Action+utcome expectations
Efficacy expectations Comnbination
No. 1 2 3 4
I cannot do r True True False False
Icando
Y
Y produces good outcome
Y produces bad
r
outcome
performed?
Tt-llC False False True
False True True False
No No No Yes
False False True True
There is nothing in principle wrong in combining the concepts as Bandura has done in his definition of efficacy expectations, and it is possible that it may be heuristic to do so. However, when considering phobias and their psychological treatment, which is one of Bandura’s main concerns, I believe there may be advantages in keeping the concepts separated as in Table 1.
PHOBIAS AND THEIR
TREATMENT
Consider a snake phobic subject who, in an experiment of the type described in the paper, fails the item “Place bare hand on wire cover of cage” in the pre-treatment behavioural test. This failure could result from any of combinations 1,2 or 3 in Table 1. That is, the person may not touch the cage cover because he does not believe he is able to make the necessary movements, because he believes that if he makes these movements something unpleasant will happen, or for both these reasons. Each possibility suggests different approaches to treatment. Thus, while attempts to modify a belief in the inability to make the response might be useful in combination 1, they would not be in combination 3. Conversely, attempts to modify the expectation that putting a hand on the cage produces a bad outcome might be effective in combination 3, but not in combination 1. Combination 2 would need attempts to modify both types of expectation. By combining action+utcome and efficacy expectations in his definition of efficacy expectations, and proposing that psychological treatments operate by modifying efficacy expectations, so defined, Bandura neglects other possible ways in which treatments could work by modifying expectations. In particular, he does not consider the possibility that treatments could operate solely by modifying action-outcome expectancies. In fact, Bandura proposes that treatments operate not by changing efficacy expectations for acts performed in their existing form, nor by changing action-outcome expectations for acts ‘performed in their existing form. Rather, he proposes that in psychological treatments subjects learn to use coping skills at the time they perform the action, and thereby both increase their expectation that they can perform the action in this way and reduce their expectation that the act will produce a bad outcome: “People fear and tend to avoid threatening situations they believe exceed their coping skills. whereas they get involved in activities and behave assuredly when they judge themselves Capable of handling situations that would otherwise be intimidating” (Bandura, 1977, p. 194), and “Until effective coping behaviors are achieved, perceived threats produce high emotionalarousaland various defensive
Unifying Theory of Bchavioural Change
213
maneuvers. But after people become adept at self-protective behaviors, they perform them in potentially threatening situations without having to befrightened Should their habitual coping devices fail, they experience heightened arousal until new defensive learning reduces their vufnerabiiity” (p. 209). It is of some importance to establish which of the alternative expectancy accounts offers the best explanation of the moditication of phobic avoidance by psychological treatment. Bandura presents evidence of an impressive degree of association between measures of expectation and subsequent performance in a behavioural avoidance test following a variety of psychological treatments. He suggests that these findings confirm his hypothesis that psychological treatments for phobias (and, he claims, for all conditions) operate by modifying efficacy expectations. Obviously, conclusions from these experiments depend crucially on the interpretation of the expectancy measures. Subjects, who had already experienced a behavioural avoidance test, were presented with a list of the behavioural test items and asked to indicate “the tasks you expect you could complete” and “how confident you are that you could complete them”. -Let us assume for the moment (1) that subjects interpret the instructions literally and (2) that self-report can provide accurate measures of the hypothesized expectancies. Then, when a subject indicates he expects he could “place bare hand on wire cover of cage” this can reasonably be interpreted as an indicator of his efficacy expectation for that action. Here, the concept of efficacy expectation is that used in Table 1. Note that in this usage, as in the expectancy measure, there is no mention of the outcome of the action in the sense of not being upset or being able to cope. Unfortunately, language is often not interpreted as precisely as the first of the above assumptions requires. In common usage, asking someone if they “could” do something is often equivalent to asking them if they “would” do something, especially in a context where they expect they may shortly be asked to perform the action (“Buddy, could you spare a dime?‘). In other words, the enquiry may be regarded as one concerning intention rather than capability. Thus, there is a distinct possibility that the subject, in answering that he expects he could place his hand on the cover, is actually indicating that he expects he would do this, if asked. In this case, the finding of a close association between expectancy measures and behavioural test performance might simply demonstrate that subjects are able to make good predictions of their future actions. This would not lend specific support to the hypothesis that psychological treatments operate by modifying self-efficacy expectations, rather than by any of the other ways which have been mentioned. The ambiguity inherent in the interpretation of these expectancy measures must render any support they give to Bandura’s hypothesis quite tentative. Is there other evidence that would allow a choice between the alternative hypotheses, and, indeed, are they actually discriminable? Before addressing this issue, it is necessary first to elaborate slightly the model illustrated in Table 1. There, for ease of exposition, efficacy expectations were treated as if they were all or nothing, and actions were expected to have either good or bad outcomes. In fact, of course, efficacy expectations will vary continuously from a probability of zero to complete certainty, and actions will be expected to have both positive and negative outcomes. A more complete statement of the model would probably look something as follows: Py=fEy[Z(VpPp)+Z(VnPn)J, where Py= probability of subject performing action Y, Ey= subject’s expectancy he is able to perform Y, VP= value of positive outcomes after performing Y, Pp= probability of positive outcomes after performing Vn= value of negative outcomes after performing Y, Pn= probability of negative outcomes after performing
Y,
Y.
Returning to the question of whether we have evidence to make a choice between the alternative expectation hypotheses, it appears that little that is relevant is at present available. In principle, two types of evidence might be of some use. The first is to study the JA.II 1/4-r
214
J. D. Teadale
effects on phobic behaviour of manipulations likely to have effects on only one type of expectation. For example, offering greater financial reward for performance of a behavioural test item would be expected to modify action-outcome expectations, leaving efficacy expectations unaffected, Two factors limit the usefulness of this approach. First, there are no obvious manipulations which would affect efftcacy expectations, leaving action-outcome expectations unchanged. Second, because a manipulation thought to be affecting only one type of expectation reduces phobic avoidance does not necessarily mean that effective psychological treatments operate in the same way. This would only be true if procedures thought to affect certain expectations consistently reduced phobic avoidance whereas those thought to affect other expectations consistently failed so to do. According to the elaborated model this might not often occur. Thus, manipulating action-outcome expectations in the appropriate direction will only fail to reduce phobic avoidance if efficacy expectations are zero. Manipulating efticacy expectations appropriately will always reduce phobic avoidance unless (1) efficacy expectations are already maximal or (2) the summed (action-outcome expectations X value) for negative outcomes exceed those for positive outcomes, According to the model, appropriate manipulation of both efficacy and action-outcome expectations will always reduce avoidance behaviour. Thus, this first approach may not be very fruitful in producing relevant evidence. The second approach, that taken by Bandura, is to examine directly the effects of psychological treatments on measures both of expectation and phobic avoidance. A strong association between the effects on the two variables would support the hypothesis that treatments operate by modifying the expectations measured. The problem here, of course, is how to measure the expectations. Self-report is the most common approach, and relies on the considerable assumption that subjects are consciously aware of and can report the state of the hypothesized expectations. Even accepting this assumption, can we avoid problems in interpretation of the type encountered with Bandura’s measures? To measure efficacy expectations we have to ask subjects to estimate the probability that they could perform an action irrespective of its outcome. Conversely, to measure action-outcome expectations we have to ask subjects to estimate the probability of an outcome following an action, irrespective of whether they believe they could make the action or not. These are not necessarily simple tasks and, while it is open to experimental test whether subjects can, in fact, validly make such reports at present we have no good evidence that they can. By comparison, asking subjects to estimate the probability that they could perform an action with a specified outcome (e.g. “touching the cover of the cage without getting particularly upset”) seems a simpler task. It may not be unrelated that Bandura’s definition of efftcacy expectations combines efficacy and action-outcome expectations in a similar way. At present we have no unambiguous evidence to decide between the alternative expectation accounts of the action of psychological treatments for phobias. My own belief is that it is unlikely that psychological treatments “whatever their form” all operate by the same mechanism. Even within the treatment of phobias, I suspect that different procedures have their effects in various ways. Thus, while it seems likely that treatments which specifically teach coping skills, such as Meichenbaum’s stress inoculation procedure (Meichenbaum, 1977) may operate in ways similar to those Bandura suggests, treatments which rely more on exposure to phobic stimuli, without teaching any new form of response, may not. I believe that the latter, by providing repeated evidence that no adverse consequences follow approach or exposure to the phobic stimuli, have their effect primarily by modifying action+utcome expectations. (It should be noted that this suggestion is quite different from the “dual-process theory’* account which Bandura criticizes in his paper.) As we have no evidence against which to examine these hypotheses, it is premature to neglect the possibility that treatments operate solely by modifying action-outcome expectations. The ambiguity in Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy might lead us to do this. Finally, I would like to say that while I have some reservations about Bandura’s account of the way existing treatments for phobias work, I share his belief that further developments in treatment aimed at teaching subjects coping skills for dealing with fearful situations offer considerable promise.
Unifying Theory of BchaviouralChange
215
SUMMARY
1. Bandura presents the concept of efficacy expectations ambiguously; at times they are discussed as if they include action-outcome expectations, at other times they are contrasted as distinct from these. 2. It is helpful to keep action-outcome expectations and efficacy expectations conceptually distinct. Failure to do so does not allow consideration of the possibility that psychological treatments for phobias operate by modifying action-outcome expectations, without altering efficacy expectations. 3. There is no firm experimental evidence to support Bandura’s contention that “psychological procedures, whatever their form, serve as means of creating and strengthening expectations of personal efficacy”, or to decide between alternative expectation accounts of the action of psychological treatments. Acknowledgement - The author is grateful to Professor Albert Bandura for very kindly making available copies of the expectation measures used in his studies.
REFERENCES Bandura, A. (1977) Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioural change. Psychoi. Rev. 84, 191-215. Meichenbaum, D. H. (1977) Cognitive-Behuviour Modificclrion. Plenum, New York.
SELF-EFFICACY:
TOWARD BEHAVIOURAL
A UNIFYING CHANGE?
THEORY
OF
John D. Teasdale* University of Oxford Department of Psychiatry, The Wameford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX, England (Received July 1978)
Bandura (1977) distinguishes two types of expectation which, he suggests, are important in determining whether a person performs an action. The first, action-outcome expectations, concern the outcomes a person anticipates will follow performance of the action. The second, which Bandura terms efficacy expectations, concern a person’s belief that he is actually able to perform the action. Bandura argues that efficacy expectations are potentially important determinants of behaviour, and, in particular, that psychological treatments, whatever their form, operate by modifying expectations of personal efficacy. The argument may be summarised by quotations from the paper: 1. “An outcome expectancy is defined as a person’s estimate that a given behaviour will lead to certain outcomes” (p. 193). 2. “An efficacy expectation is the conviction that one can SuccessjidIy execute the behaviour required to produce the outcomes” (p. 193). 3. “Outcome and efficacy expectations are dlflerentiated because individuals can believe that a particular course of action willproduce certain outcomes, but if they entertain serious doubts about whether they can perform the necessary activities such information does not inj7uence their behaviour” (p. 193). 4. “Given appropriate skills and adequate incentives, however, eflcacy expectations are a major determinant ofpeople’s choice of activities, how much effort they will expend, and of how long they will sustain eflort in deaIing with stressful situations” @. 194). 5. “The present theory is based on the assumption that psychological procedures, whatever their form, serve as means of creating and strengthening expectations of personal eflcacy” (p. 193). I believe that the distinction between action-outcome expectations and efficacy expectations is useful. However, this conceptual distinction is likely to prove most useful if the concepts are clearly discriminable. Bandura appears to blur this distinction in ways which I shall discuss. Once this ambiguity is recognized, a reconsideration of the role of efficacy expectations in psychological treatment is required. AN AMBIGUITY Table 1 shows the effects of varying combinations of efficacy and action-outcome expectations in determining performance of an action. Efficacy expectations refer to beliefs concerning the actual ability to perform the action, and action-outcome expectations refer to the anticipated consequences of the action. For simplicity, expectations are considered as all or nothing, and outcomes simply as good or bad. The table is constructed on two assumptions: (1) that an action is not performed if a person does not believe he can perform it and (2) an action is not performed if the expected overall outcome is bad. It can be seen that only in combination 4, when the person both expects that he can perform Y and that Y produces a good outcome, is action Y performed. The conviction that one has combination 4 constitutes Bandura’s definition of an efficacy expectation: “the conviction that one can successfuh’y execute the behaviour required to produce the outcomes”. By including the words “‘successfully” and “required to produce the outcomes” in his definition of efficacy expectations, Bandura combines beliefs about ability to make a response with expectations *The author is supported by a grant from the Medical Research Council of the United Kingdom. 211
212
J. D. Teasdale
concerning the outcome of the response, in particular, whether this will be positive. When it is recalled that Bandura argues for the conceptual separation of efficacy and action-outcome expectations, their combination in the definition of efficacy expectations might be considered a potential source of confusion and ambiguity. This confusion is not the result of Table 1 using the concepts of efficacy and action-outcome expectations in a way quite different to Bandura; in other parts of his paper, for example figure 1, p. 193, the two concepts are clearly separated and used in the same way as in Table 1. Table 1. Combinations of effkacy and action-outcome expectations as determinants of performance of action I’ Action+utcome expectations
Efficacy expectations Comnbination
No. 1 2 3 4
I cannot do r True True False False
Icando
Y
Y produces good outcome
Y produces bad
r
outcome
performed?
Tt-llC False False True
False True True False
No No No Yes
False False True True
There is nothing in principle wrong in combining the concepts as Bandura has done in his definition of efficacy expectations, and it is possible that it may be heuristic to do so. However, when considering phobias and their psychological treatment, which is one of Bandura’s main concerns, I believe there may be advantages in keeping the concepts separated as in Table 1.
PHOBIAS AND THEIR
TREATMENT
Consider a snake phobic subject who, in an experiment of the type described in the paper, fails the item “Place bare hand on wire cover of cage” in the pre-treatment behavioural test. This failure could result from any of combinations 1,2 or 3 in Table 1. That is, the person may not touch the cage cover because he does not believe he is able to make the necessary movements, because he believes that if he makes these movements something unpleasant will happen, or for both these reasons. Each possibility suggests different approaches to treatment. Thus, while attempts to modify a belief in the inability to make the response might be useful in combination 1, they would not be in combination 3. Conversely, attempts to modify the expectation that putting a hand on the cage produces a bad outcome might be effective in combination 3, but not in combination 1. Combination 2 would need attempts to modify both types of expectation. By combining action+utcome and efficacy expectations in his definition of efficacy expectations, and proposing that psychological treatments operate by modifying efficacy expectations, so defined, Bandura neglects other possible ways in which treatments could work by modifying expectations. In particular, he does not consider the possibility that treatments could operate solely by modifying action-outcome expectancies. In fact, Bandura proposes that treatments operate not by changing efficacy expectations for acts performed in their existing form, nor by changing action-outcome expectations for acts ‘performed in their existing form. Rather, he proposes that in psychological treatments subjects learn to use coping skills at the time they perform the action, and thereby both increase their expectation that they can perform the action in this way and reduce their expectation that the act will produce a bad outcome: “People fear and tend to avoid threatening situations they believe exceed their coping skills. whereas they get involved in activities and behave assuredly when they judge themselves Capable of handling situations that would otherwise be intimidating” (Bandura, 1977, p. 194), and “Until effective coping behaviors are achieved, perceived threats produce high emotionalarousaland various defensive
Unifying Theory of Bchavioural Change
213
maneuvers. But after people become adept at self-protective behaviors, they perform them in potentially threatening situations without having to befrightened Should their habitual coping devices fail, they experience heightened arousal until new defensive learning reduces their vufnerabiiity” (p. 209). It is of some importance to establish which of the alternative expectancy accounts offers the best explanation of the moditication of phobic avoidance by psychological treatment. Bandura presents evidence of an impressive degree of association between measures of expectation and subsequent performance in a behavioural avoidance test following a variety of psychological treatments. He suggests that these findings confirm his hypothesis that psychological treatments for phobias (and, he claims, for all conditions) operate by modifying efficacy expectations. Obviously, conclusions from these experiments depend crucially on the interpretation of the expectancy measures. Subjects, who had already experienced a behavioural avoidance test, were presented with a list of the behavioural test items and asked to indicate “the tasks you expect you could complete” and “how confident you are that you could complete them”. -Let us assume for the moment (1) that subjects interpret the instructions literally and (2) that self-report can provide accurate measures of the hypothesized expectancies. Then, when a subject indicates he expects he could “place bare hand on wire cover of cage” this can reasonably be interpreted as an indicator of his efficacy expectation for that action. Here, the concept of efficacy expectation is that used in Table 1. Note that in this usage, as in the expectancy measure, there is no mention of the outcome of the action in the sense of not being upset or being able to cope. Unfortunately, language is often not interpreted as precisely as the first of the above assumptions requires. In common usage, asking someone if they “could” do something is often equivalent to asking them if they “would” do something, especially in a context where they expect they may shortly be asked to perform the action (“Buddy, could you spare a dime?‘). In other words, the enquiry may be regarded as one concerning intention rather than capability. Thus, there is a distinct possibility that the subject, in answering that he expects he could place his hand on the cover, is actually indicating that he expects he would do this, if asked. In this case, the finding of a close association between expectancy measures and behavioural test performance might simply demonstrate that subjects are able to make good predictions of their future actions. This would not lend specific support to the hypothesis that psychological treatments operate by modifying self-efficacy expectations, rather than by any of the other ways which have been mentioned. The ambiguity inherent in the interpretation of these expectancy measures must render any support they give to Bandura’s hypothesis quite tentative. Is there other evidence that would allow a choice between the alternative hypotheses, and, indeed, are they actually discriminable? Before addressing this issue, it is necessary first to elaborate slightly the model illustrated in Table 1. There, for ease of exposition, efficacy expectations were treated as if they were all or nothing, and actions were expected to have either good or bad outcomes. In fact, of course, efficacy expectations will vary continuously from a probability of zero to complete certainty, and actions will be expected to have both positive and negative outcomes. A more complete statement of the model would probably look something as follows: Py=fEy[Z(VpPp)+Z(VnPn)J, where Py= probability of subject performing action Y, Ey= subject’s expectancy he is able to perform Y, VP= value of positive outcomes after performing Y, Pp= probability of positive outcomes after performing Vn= value of negative outcomes after performing Y, Pn= probability of negative outcomes after performing
Y,
Y.
Returning to the question of whether we have evidence to make a choice between the alternative expectation hypotheses, it appears that little that is relevant is at present available. In principle, two types of evidence might be of some use. The first is to study the JA.II 1/4-r
214
J. D. Teadale
effects on phobic behaviour of manipulations likely to have effects on only one type of expectation. For example, offering greater financial reward for performance of a behavioural test item would be expected to modify action-outcome expectations, leaving efficacy expectations unaffected, Two factors limit the usefulness of this approach. First, there are no obvious manipulations which would affect efftcacy expectations, leaving action-outcome expectations unchanged. Second, because a manipulation thought to be affecting only one type of expectation reduces phobic avoidance does not necessarily mean that effective psychological treatments operate in the same way. This would only be true if procedures thought to affect certain expectations consistently reduced phobic avoidance whereas those thought to affect other expectations consistently failed so to do. According to the elaborated model this might not often occur. Thus, manipulating action-outcome expectations in the appropriate direction will only fail to reduce phobic avoidance if efficacy expectations are zero. Manipulating efticacy expectations appropriately will always reduce phobic avoidance unless (1) efficacy expectations are already maximal or (2) the summed (action-outcome expectations X value) for negative outcomes exceed those for positive outcomes, According to the model, appropriate manipulation of both efficacy and action-outcome expectations will always reduce avoidance behaviour. Thus, this first approach may not be very fruitful in producing relevant evidence. The second approach, that taken by Bandura, is to examine directly the effects of psychological treatments on measures both of expectation and phobic avoidance. A strong association between the effects on the two variables would support the hypothesis that treatments operate by modifying the expectations measured. The problem here, of course, is how to measure the expectations. Self-report is the most common approach, and relies on the considerable assumption that subjects are consciously aware of and can report the state of the hypothesized expectations. Even accepting this assumption, can we avoid problems in interpretation of the type encountered with Bandura’s measures? To measure efficacy expectations we have to ask subjects to estimate the probability that they could perform an action irrespective of its outcome. Conversely, to measure action-outcome expectations we have to ask subjects to estimate the probability of an outcome following an action, irrespective of whether they believe they could make the action or not. These are not necessarily simple tasks and, while it is open to experimental test whether subjects can, in fact, validly make such reports at present we have no good evidence that they can. By comparison, asking subjects to estimate the probability that they could perform an action with a specified outcome (e.g. “touching the cover of the cage without getting particularly upset”) seems a simpler task. It may not be unrelated that Bandura’s definition of efftcacy expectations combines efficacy and action-outcome expectations in a similar way. At present we have no unambiguous evidence to decide between the alternative expectation accounts of the action of psychological treatments for phobias. My own belief is that it is unlikely that psychological treatments “whatever their form” all operate by the same mechanism. Even within the treatment of phobias, I suspect that different procedures have their effects in various ways. Thus, while it seems likely that treatments which specifically teach coping skills, such as Meichenbaum’s stress inoculation procedure (Meichenbaum, 1977) may operate in ways similar to those Bandura suggests, treatments which rely more on exposure to phobic stimuli, without teaching any new form of response, may not. I believe that the latter, by providing repeated evidence that no adverse consequences follow approach or exposure to the phobic stimuli, have their effect primarily by modifying action+utcome expectations. (It should be noted that this suggestion is quite different from the “dual-process theory’* account which Bandura criticizes in his paper.) As we have no evidence against which to examine these hypotheses, it is premature to neglect the possibility that treatments operate solely by modifying action-outcome expectations. The ambiguity in Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy might lead us to do this. Finally, I would like to say that while I have some reservations about Bandura’s account of the way existing treatments for phobias work, I share his belief that further developments in treatment aimed at teaching subjects coping skills for dealing with fearful situations offer considerable promise.
Unifying Theory of BchaviouralChange
215
SUMMARY
1. Bandura presents the concept of efficacy expectations ambiguously; at times they are discussed as if they include action-outcome expectations, at other times they are contrasted as distinct from these. 2. It is helpful to keep action-outcome expectations and efficacy expectations conceptually distinct. Failure to do so does not allow consideration of the possibility that psychological treatments for phobias operate by modifying action-outcome expectations, without altering efficacy expectations. 3. There is no firm experimental evidence to support Bandura’s contention that “psychological procedures, whatever their form, serve as means of creating and strengthening expectations of personal efficacy”, or to decide between alternative expectation accounts of the action of psychological treatments. Acknowledgement - The author is grateful to Professor Albert Bandura for very kindly making available copies of the expectation measures used in his studies.
REFERENCES Bandura, A. (1977) Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioural change. Psychoi. Rev. 84, 191-215. Meichenbaum, D. H. (1977) Cognitive-Behuviour Modificclrion. Plenum, New York.