grades if they don ’t think it possible. Therapy clients are unlikely to stop
smoking, lose weight, or overcome a fear of flying if they don’ t believe they
are capable of doing so.
Where do efficacy expectations come from, and how can therapists
change these expectations in their clients? Bandura identifies four sources.
The most important of these is enactive mastery experiences. These are suc-
cessful attempts to achieve the outcome in the past. Sky divers suddenlystruck with fear before a jump may tell themselves that they ’ve done this
many times before without incident and therefore can do it again. On the
other hand, a history of failures can lead to low efficacy expectations. People
with a fear of heights who have never been able to climb a ladder withoutcoming back down in a fit of anxiety will probably conclude they can ’t per-
form this behavior.
Although not as powerful as actual performances, vicarious experiences
also alter efficacy expectations. Seeing other people perform a behavior with-
out adverse effects can lead us to believe that we can do it too. People who
are afraid to speak in front of an audience may change their efficacy expecta-tion from “I can’t do that ”to“maybe I can ”after seeing other members of a
public speaking class give their speeches without disastrous results. When you
tell yourself something like “If she can do it, so can I, ”you are changing your
efficacy expectation through vicarious experience.
A less effective way to alter efficacy expectations is through verbal per-
suasion. Telling someone who is reluctant to stand up to the boss “you can
do it”might convince the person to assert his or her rights. However, this ex-
pectation will be easily crushed if the actual performance isn ’t met with the
expected result.
Physiological and affective states can also be a source of efficacy expecta-
tions. A woman who has difficulty approaching men may find her heart beats
rapidly and her palms perspire as she picks up the phone to call a man to askfor a date. If she interprets these physiological responses as signs of anxiety,
she may decide she is too nervous to go through with it. However, if she no-
tices how calm she is just before dialing, she may decide she is more coura-geous than she realized.
The key to successful treatment programs is changing a client ’s efficacy
expectation through one or more of these means. In one study, therapistshelped snake-phobic people overcome their fear of the reptiles by taking
them through the process of touching and picking up snakes (enactive mas-
tery experience) and/or watching someone else go through this procedure (vi-carious experience). In nearly every case, whether the people believed they
could approach and touch the snakes was the best predictor of whether they
would actually do it (Bandura, Adams, & Beyer, 1977).
But if successful experiences are the most effective method for altering a
client’s efficacy expectations, this creates a bit of a problem. How can a thera-
pist provide the client with a mastery experience of overcoming a fear ofheights if the client is afraid to leave the first floor of a building? One answer
is a procedure known as guided mastery (Bandura, 1997). Using this proce-
dure, the therapist arranges the situation so that the client is almost guaranteedApplication: Behavior Modifi cation and Self-Efficacy Therapy 363