Report on the article Social cognitive theory of posttraumatic recovery the role

of perceived self-efficacy

I chose this topic because the problem of posttraumatic recovery is a relevant issue. All traumas
have their consequences and they concern not only the person himself, but often others. Post-
traumatic reactions are widespread in all spheres of human life. This article reflects the results
of various studies of traumatization on the role of perceived coping self-efficacy in recovery from
traumatic experiences within the framework of social cognitive theory.

The first scientist who formulated the term self-efficacy was Albert Bandura. The concept of self-
efficacy refers to the people’s ability to build behavior appropriate to a specific situation. From
the Bandura perspective, self-efficacy, or the conscious ability to cope with specific situations,
affects several aspects of psychosocial functioning. The way a person evaluates his own
effectiveness determines for him the expansion or limitation of the choice of activities, the efforts
that he will have to make to overcome obstacles and frustrations, the perseverance with the
help of which he will solve a case. To summarize, self-assessment of performance affects
behaviors, motivation, behavior formation, and the emergence of emotions. According to
Bandura, people who are aware of their self-efficacy make more effort to perform complex tasks
than people who have serious doubts about their abilities. And at the same time, high self-
efficacy, associated with expectations of success, usually leads to a good result and thus
contributes to self-esteem. In contrast, the low self-efficacy associated with the expectation of
failure usually leads to failure and thus reduces self-esteem. From this point of view, people who
consider themselves unable to cope with difficult or dangerous situations are likely to pay
excessive attention to their personal shortcomings and constantly exhaust themselves with self-
criticism about their own incompetence. Bandura says that those who consider themselves "
unable to succeed are more likely to mentally imagine a failed scenario and focus on the fact
that everything will be bad. Confidence in the inability to succeed weakens motivation and
prevents you from building behavior». On the other hand, people who believe in their ability to
solve a problem are likely to be persistent in achieving their goals, despite obstacles, and will
not be inclined to indulge in self-criticism. As Bandura also says , " those who have a
consciousness of high self-efficacy, mentally imagine a successful scenario that provides
positive guidelines for building behavior, and consciously rehearse successful solutions to
potential problems." Bandura hypothesized that the cognitive nature of self-efficacy affects
motor behavior, for example whether a stressful situation will stimulate attempts to master it,
how intense these attempts will be, and how long they will last. At the same time self-efficacy
can also affect the characteristics of the environment - the consequences of behavior. If, for
example, someone does not believe in his/hers attractiveness to the opposite sex and their self-
effectiveness in dating is low, then they will come to the party in a bad mood, spoil the mood of
others, and their attempt to meet someone will almost certainly fail. The negative consequences
of trying to get acquainted will be perceived in detail, which will further reduce self-efficacy. If the
self-efficacy is high, then the person will go to the party in a good mood, waiting for a fun time,
the attempt to meet will receive a positive development, which in turn will strengthen self-
efficacy in the field of dating and facilitate subsequent dating. In his concept of expectations,
Bandura distinguishes between the efficiency expectation and the expectation outcome
expectation. He defines the expectation of results as a person's assessment that a certain
behavior will lead to certain results. The expectation of effectiveness is an assessment of the
extent to which it is able to behave as it needs to in order to get some result. The difference is
that an individual may believe that some reaction can or will certainly lead to the desired result
(the expectation of results), but not believe that he himself is able to commit this behavior. The
effect of self-efficacy on behavior depends on its degree, generality, and strength. This influence
is diverse: self-efficacy affects the search for or avoidance of certain types of situations; the
choice of behavioral alternatives; the type, frequency and duration of attempts to master a
difficult situation; the attribution of success and failure. Although, of course, it is impossible to
underestimate the reverse effect on the self-effectiveness of the results of actions, models that
are available to observation. Bandura suggested that the acquisition of self-efficacy can occur in
any of the four ways or any combination of them: the ability to build behavior, indirect
experience, verbal persuasion, and states of physical emotional arousal.

The ability to build behavior. Bandura argues that the most important source of effectiveness is
past experience of success and failure in trying to achieve the desired results. Successful
personal experiences generate high expectations, and previous failures generate low
expectations.

Indirect experience. Although not as effective as actual behavior, indirect experience can also
be a source of high self-efficacy. That is, observing other people who successfully build
behavior can give a person hope for self-efficacy and confidence that such activities can be
completely handled.

Verbal persuasion. Effectiveness can also be achieved or changed through a person's belief
that they have the abilities necessary to achieve the goal.

Emotional uplift. Finally, since people compare their performance level with their emotional
stress level in the face of stressful or threatening situations, any method that reduces arousal
will increase their performance forecast.

So, I can note that the concept of Bandura, which he called self-efficacy, is a kind of scientific
interpretation of common sense, which is based on the power of positive thinking. Optimistic
self-confidence brings tangible results. People with high self-efficacy are more persistent, less
anxious, less prone to depression, and more successful in learning.

Most people recover from traumatic experiences, it means a significant resilience of the person.
Others remain chronically weakened. Most likely, the disorder is a combination of environmental
stress factors and psychosocial factors.

One version includes a mixture of the diathesis-stress model and the epidemiological risk buffer
model. The second version is based on the agent-based proactive causality of social cognitive
theory.

There are military traumatization, traumatization by natural disasters, terrorist attack,

interpersonal traumatizations, spousal bereavement.

People who believe that they can overcome their trauma are taking part in fixing their lives,
rather than having their lives dictated by adverse circumstances. The consistency of the results
for different types of traumas suggests a common stimulating and protective function of the
belief in personal effectiveness for managing the impact of catastrophic events. Traumatized
people avoid reality checks and thus isolate themselves from corrective experiences. Guided
mastery with inclusive coping tools restores corrective reality testing.

More importantly, it provides confirmatory performance tests that allow a person to have some
control over what they fear. Gradual mastery of trauma-related situations and actions in vivo
restores a sense of coping effectiveness with concomitant reductions in stress, anxious thinking,
and avoidance.
A significant body of research (Bandura, 1997) confirms that perceived self-efficacy is a
common mechanism by which the treatments, simulations, and persuasions described above
improve psychosocial functioning. The therapeutic application of this body of knowledge to the
treatment of PTSD is a fruitful area for future research.