(1) Background: Although social cognitive theory (SCT) has been widely tested and applied in numerous interventions aimed at optimizing physical activity behavior, the complete theory has rarely been tested in its entirety. Only selected elements have been tested, and specific samples, some of them pathological, have been studied rather than the general population, for whom a lack of physical activity is a huge problem. The present study addresses these two research gaps and tests the tenability of the theoretical assumptions of SCT to explain physical activity behavior in the general population. (2) Methods: A total of 194 German adults (109 male, 85 female) with a mean age of 26.03 years (SD = 10.33) completed two validated questionnaires concerning their expressions on SCT components (t1) and their physical activity (t2). SCT was modeled using a structural equation model with latent variables. (3) Results: The results showed the very good fit of the structural model, indicating that the theoretically stated relations between the constructs in SCT seem to be corroborated, despite some paths seeming to be more important than others. (4) Conclusions: The use of SCT to explain and predict behavior can be seen as justified, even though it once again appears that some aspects (i.e., self-efficacy) are more crucial than others.

Objective: Although sex differences in dietary habits are well documented, the etiology of those differences is still a focus of research. The present study examines the role of specific health beliefs regarding healthy amounts of food for food choice and its relation to sex, more specifically, the assumption that sex differences in food choices are mediated by differentiating health beliefs.Method: 212 German participants (44.3% female) aged 18–70 answered an online self-report questionnaire on their dietary habits and health beliefs, based on the recommendations of the German Nutrition Society.Results: Most of the anticipated sex differences in food choice and some differences in health beliefs were found. The mediation hypothesis was partly supported, as the relationship between sex and fruit, vegetable, and fish consumption was mediated by the respective health beliefs. However, no mediation effects were found for meat, egg, cereal, and milk product consumption.Conclusion: The support for the mediation hypothesis aligns with previous findings and indicates that health beliefs might be an important pathway to fostering healthier food choices, especially for men. Nonetheless, sex differences in food choice were only partially mediated by sex differences in specific health beliefs, indicating that future studies might benefit from parallel mediation analyses to reveal the impact of other relevant factors influencing sex differences in food choice.

While considerable research has centered on the concept of self-efficacy and its impact on behavior, relatively few studies have delved into the sources of self-efficacy beliefs. Bandura posited that the genesis of self-efficacy beliefs is based on the following four aspects: personal experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional state. The objective of this research paper is to ascertain the relative importance of each source concerning self-efficacy for physical activity to determine whether some sources should be accorded with greater emphasis than others in future studies aiming to foster self-efficacy beliefs for physical activity. An online study with 335 healthy German adults (162 men, 173 women) aged 18−68 was conducted. The sources of self-efficacy were compared by employing dominance analysis. This approach allows for the ordering of predictors according to their contribution to the explained variance, thereby providing more substantial insights and allowing for more concrete conclusions in comparison to the conventional multiple regression approach. As expected, mastery experience was shown to be the most important source of self-efficacy for physical activity, interestingly followed by verbal self-persuasion and positive affective state. Together, the sources of self-efficacy accounted for about 60% of the variance in self-efficacy. Overall, understanding the etiology of self-efficacy is essential for developing effective and sustainable interventions to promote healthy behaviors. By focusing on the specific sources of self-efficacy that are most pertinent, interventions can be designed to be more effective.

This study examines people's ability to fake their reported health behavior and explores the magnitude of such response distortion concerning faking of preventive health behavior and health risk be...

Introduction: Social cognitive theory is one of the most prominent psychological theories regarding human behavior. Previous research tested and confirmed parts of the theory concerning the explanatory and predictive value of the theory, both in specific populations and in selected domains of physical activity. However, the value of this research is limited as researchers often use their own item sets rather than validated scales. Therefore, comparability of the studies is restricted and the quality of the individual findings can often not be conclusively assessed as psychometric properties of the measurement are unclear. The goal of this research was to develop a parsimonious, reliable, and valid questionnaire to assess the elements of SCT in the context of physical activity.Methods: In total, 90 items were developed for the four factors of SCT, which were then examined by exploratory factor analysis and reduced to 18 items in total.Results: Cross-validation was successful. Internal consistency was good for the four subscales, test-retest reliability was satisfactory, as were indicators for convergent and divergent validity.Discussion: A short, reliable, and valid instrument was developed intended for use in the general adult population in Germany for research on theoretical assumptions and interventions based on social cognitive theory.

Retrospective self‐reports are commonly used to assess dietary intake. Yet, their use is criticized as it is unclear whether the underlying assumptions for valid self‐reports are met: Individuals have to consider the behavior of all days in the retention interval and weigh the behavior of all days equally. This study examines whether these assumptions for retrospective self‐reports are met and whether interindividual differences in self‐report performance are relevant regarding these assumptions. Ninety‐two participants aged 18–61 years participated in seven sequential 24‐h recalls and one retrospective 7‐day recall concerning their intake of fruit, vegetables, and eggs. A multiple linear regression approach was used to examine the relation between the daily reported dietary intake and the 7‐day recall. In the overall sample, the requirements for retrospective self‐reports were not tenable. Distinguishing good and poor self‐reporters based on a rational criterion showed that the requirements can be taken as given for good self‐reporters, whereas poor self‐reporters base their retrospective self‐reports mostly on recency effects. The underlying requirements for retrospective self‐reports appear to be met in two thirds of the sample, supporting the use of retrospective self‐reports to capture dietary behavior. Future research should investigate characteristics separating good from poor self‐reporters.