In the past decade, the military has deployed approximately 1 million members into combat, and a factor that plagues the military veterans returning from combat is the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A factor to examine is preparedness training before combat because the research has shown that postcombat resilience training has been effective in reducing symptoms of PTSD. Using the social cognitive theory, the purpose of this study was to determine whether self-reported preparedness training before deployments was related to lower severity of self-reported PTSD. Based on prior research, age and gender are other variables that this study examined. Participants were a sample population of veterans who completed a quantitative survey, which included demographics, the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Check List, and the Training and Deployment Preparation survey, Section H of the DRRI-2. Data collected from the survey were input into the SPSS program and analyzed using multiple linear regressions. Results reflected that preparedness training had an inverse correlation relationship to self-reported PTSD severity, age had a predictive relationship, and gender did not show a significant relationship. It appears that preparedness training for combat does help reduce self-reported severity of PTSD in veterans returning with PTSD symptoms. Providing preparedness training before combat may help in reducing this phenomenon. The results of the present study, developing procedures and therapeutic measures to help veterans in need can be generalized into the mainframe of social and behavioral change for all individuals dealing with PTSD, including first responders.

This study examined the social cognitive theory factors of home availability of fruits and vegetables, nutrition knowledge, food preparation ability, and cooking self-efficacy and the demographic factors of race/ethnicity, age, gender, marital status, living situation, and meal plan participation in relation to college students' fruit and vegetable consumption. The study sample was comprised of students attending on-campus classes at Utah State University during spring semester of 2009. Data were collected via traditional pencil-and-paper surveys distributed during classes with students in varying stages of their college education and from different fields of study. In total, 207 surveys were used for the linear regression analysis. Race/ethnicity was not included in the regression model due to lack of sufficient racial/ethnic diversity. Of the remaining variables, availability of fruits and vegetables in the home, cooking self-efficacy, and meal plan participation were found to be significant predictors of college students' fruit and vegetable consumption. Availability in the home was the strongest predictor of fruit and vegetable intake in this sample.

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<p>Fitspiration (also known as fitspo) is a popular online trend particularly on Instagram and is often credited for the rapid growth of contemporary fitness culture and the fitness industry in general. This dissertation evaluates the central thesis that fitspiration messages may have utility in health promotion by influencing muscle-strengthening exercise behavior among viewers and that this influence can be explained, in part, through the application of social cognitive theory’s (SCT) framework for health behaviors. These potential effects were examined among a population of emerging adults (i.e., 18 – 25 years of age) in the context of (1) encouraging the adoption of muscle-strengthening exercise behavior among individuals who have never performed such exercises before and (2) increasing and/or sustaining adherence among those who have but may not be doing so regularly.</p><p>Using a 2 x 2 between-subjects experiment involving 315 undergraduate students at Purdue University, this study was guided by two research aims. Research Aim 1 was to further understand the mechanisms through which fitspiration messages could influence exercise behavior by examining the structural paths of influence between core constructs within the SCT framework. Research Aim 2 sought to examine the effects of specific fitspiration message features on the SCT determinants of exercise behavior.</p><p>This study extends SCT in several ways. First, this study provides support for conceptualizing self-efficacy as a multidimensional construct and that different types of self-efficacy influence exercise behavior differently. Second, the findings in this study assessed the mediational pathways within the SCT framework when conceptualizing self-efficacy and outcome expectations multidimensionally.</p><p>Although the manipulations in this study did not produce significant findings in terms of the effects of fitspiration message features, the findings do suggest that these effects occur in subtle ways that warrant further examination in future studies.</p>

Emergency medical services personnel work in a fast-paced, stressful environment requiring rapid, efficient response to critical situations, creating unique safety considerations within the workforce. With an occupational fatality rate notably higher than average, most of which are attributed to vehicular crashes, compounded by risks faced on rural roadways, rural EMS personnel face unique driving challenges that may be exacerbated by the very traits, self-efficacy and risk propensity, that may have initially drawn them to the profession. The purpose of this study was to identify the extent to which rural EMS personnel engage in off-duty, risky driving behaviors and to examine the relationship between these behaviors and their levels of risk propensity as well as their self-efficacy relative to driving. A cross-sectional, quantitative study was conducted to explore the relationship between the variables. A 63-item survey was completed by 227 rural EMS personnel. The statistical model resulting from this study identifies risky-driving self-efficacy and risk propensity as significant predictors of engaging in risky driving behaviors, with self-efficacy emerging as the strongest predictor. The predictive model fit well within the Social Cognitive Theory construct of triadic reciprocity, providing a platform from which to develop mitigating strategies to foster systemic as well as behavioral changes, while tailoring interventions to highly self-efficacious, risk-taking individuals who gravitate toward risky professions, including rural EMS personnel.

This dissertation aims to shed light on the ways in which our affective responses and subjective beliefs shape our reasoning about social events and targets. The human ability to reason about other people’s minds, and the social world in which we live, has been central to the field of psychology. However, that ability to make sense of the social world does not exist in isolation. Each social perceiver has idiosyncratic beliefs and identities. Perceivers also affectively respond to events and people in the world around them. Historically, the processes underlying affective processing, social cognition, and formed beliefs, have been studied in isolation, leading to a gap in our knowledge about their interactions. We conducted a set of experiments combining fMRI and behavioral methods to address this gap. The experiments used naturalistic stimuli, which allow related processes to co-occur in an ecologically valid way. The results of the experiments are described in three chapters, following a general introduction (Chapter 1). In Chapter 2, we show that the mentalizing regions of the brain represent a continuous affective response to social targets, and demonstrate a link between that response and the impression perceivers formed of those targets. In Chapter 3, we demonstrate that when presented with conflicting accounts of the same events, the subsequent event representation in participants medial prefrontal cortex is in concordance with perceivers’ beliefs about the events. In Chapter 4, we describe a cross-disciplinary study, informed by political scientific theories about the roots of polarization. In this study, we challenged partisan’s political beliefs and identities. We found that affective responding brain regions showed an effect of partisan information processing for both ideological beliefs and identity challenges. In addition, using two functional localizer tasks, we identified two sets of regions with differing functional profile within the mentalizing network. One set of regions showed the effect of partisan information processing only when perceivers’ ideology was challenged, while the other set showed the effect only when perceivers’ identity was challenged. Taken together, the results from these three studies expand our understanding of the mentalizing regions by suggesting that they represent not only the mental states of others, but also an affective response towards them. This work also reinforces our understanding of the differences in level of abstraction of the representation between prefrontal and parietal mentalizing regions. Lastly, the finding of different yet consequential activation profiles within the mentalizing network opens the door for further inquiries into the functional organization and representations within its constituting regions.

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Gender, minority, and regional-related disparities have been documented in diabetes management. Self-efficacy, the belief in one's ability to carry out the actions mandated by a task, has been identified as a key predictor in glycemic control; however, it has not been investigated in rural, female populations. This cross-sectional, correlation investigation examined the relationships among self-efficacy, depression, and diabetes self-care management in women living in Appalachia with type 2 diabetes. Using Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory, 85 women ages ≥ 21 with type 2 diabetes for a minimum of 6 months who were residents in Appalachia completed the 1) Diabetes Self-Efficacy Scale, 2) Beck Depression Inventory-II, 3)Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities, and a 4) Diabetes Health-Related Demographics tool. Descriptive statistics detailed the sample characteristics. ANOVA, chi-square, and independent t-tests were computed for between group differences as they related to depression, various physiologic states, presence of self-efficacy sources, and glycosylated hemoglobin. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to describe the relationships between self-efficacy, depression, and self-care management. Multiple linear regression analyses examined prediction models for glucose control while controlling for potential confounders. Eighty-four Caucasian and one African-American enrolled in the study with a mean age of 61. The mean time since diabetes diagnosis was 7 years with a mean glycosylated hemoglobin value of 6.9% (SD=1.3). Higher self-efficacy scores were associated with a lower glycosylated hemoglobin (r-.30, p=.005) and ability to choose foods best to maintain a healthy eating plan(r-.415, p=.001). The sources of self-efficacy associated with enhanced self-care management were mastery experience and vicarious experience. There were no significant relationships between self-efficacy and depression or depression and glycosylated hemoglobin. The diabetes self-care management regression model resulted in self-efficacy and education accounting for 7.5% of the variance in glycosylated hemoglobin. Study findings support the social cognitive theory and the utility of self-efficacy as a predictor of glycemic control. Depression was not found to be a significant obstacle in this Appalachian population. Comprehending the significant relationship between self-efficacy and diabetes self-care management allows providers to modify their interventions when caring for women type 2 diabetes in the region.

The aim of the current study was to investigate the way teen pregnancy is portrayed in Seasons 1 and 2 of the television drama The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Framing theory and social cognitive theory were used as guiding frameworks for exploring the way the main character’s pregnancy was presented and the way this presentation may influence the ideas and behaviors of viewers. A qualitative content analysis was conducted to examine portrayals in the first 23 episodes. Results indicated that teen pregnancy was portrayed in five major ways: as Dramatic, as Identity, as Manageable, as Transformative, and as Serious. Overall, the findings suggest that teen pregnancy was presented in ways that encourage viewers to perceive this issue as positive and negative, with clearly positive outcomes.