choice of activities and behavioral

choice of activities and behavioral settings, how much effort they expend,
and how long they will persist in the face of obstacles and aversive experiences.
The stronger the perceived self-efficacy, the more active the coping
efforts. Those who persist in subjectively threatening activities will
eventually eliminate their inhibitions through corrective experience, whereas
those who avoid what they fear, or who cease their coping efforts prematurely,
will retain their self-debilitating expectations and defensive
behavior.
In this social learning analysis, expectations of personal efficacy stem
from four main sources of information. Performance accomplishments
provide the most influential efficacy information because it is based on personal
mastery experiences. The other sources of efficacy information
include the vicarious experiences of observing others succeed through their
efforts, verbal persuasion that one possesses the capabilities to cope successfully,
and states of physiological arousal from which people judge their
level of anxiety and vulnerability to stress.
Empirical tests of this theory (Bandura, Adams, & Beyer, 1977), confirm
that different treatment approaches alter expectations of personal efficacy,
and the more dependable the source of efficacy information, the
greater are the changes in self-efficacy. Thus, treatments based on performance
accomplishments through the aid of participant modeling
produce higher, stronger, and more generalized expectations of personal
efficacy than do vicarious experiences alone. Results of a microanalysis of
the congruence between self-efficacy and performance reveal that behavioral
changes correspond closely to level of self-efficacy whether instated
enactively or vicariously.
As a further test of the generality of this theory, an experiment was
conducted of efficacy expectations instated by systematic desensitization,
which is aimed at eliminating emotional arousal. Social learning theory and
the dual-process theory of anxiety, on which the desensitization approach is
based, posit different explanatory mechanisms for the changes produced by
this mode of treatment.
The standard desensitization approach is based on the assumption
that anxiety activates defensive behavior (Wolpe, 1974). According to this
view, association of neutral events with aversive stimulation creates an
anxiety drive that motivates defensive behavior. The defensive behavior, in
turn, is reinforced by reducing the anxiety aroused by conditioned aversive
stimuli. Hence, to eliminate defensive responding it is considered necessary
to eradicate its underlying anxiety. Treatment