Day-to-day mastery and self-efficacy changes during a smoking quit attempt: Two studies.

This article demonstrates that mastery experiences and self-efficacy show a reciprocal relationship within smokers during a quit attempt in a day-to-day design, as well as contagion effects in couples when both partners try to quit simultaneously. Statement of Contribution What is already known on this subject? Self-efficacy is one of the strongest correlates of quitting smoking. Despite the assumptions on how self-efficacy is built formulated by Bandura two decades ago, there is only little empirical evidence on the origins of self-efficacy. The open research questions for these two studies were whether mastery experiences (experiencing success with the new behavior) and vicarious experiences (seeing others succeed) facilitate the smoking cessation process, whether mastery experiences and self-efficacy affect one another reciprocally and whether intimate partners serve as role models for each other. What does this study add? Mastery experiences and self-efficacy are mutually depended on a day-to-day basis within the smoking cessation process. Effects of mastery experiences fade rapidly, indicating that constant successes are needed to keep up self-efficacy. Dual-smoker couples show similar changes in a contagious way - if mastery experiences increase in one person, mastery experiences increase in the partner; if self-efficacy increases in one person, self-efficacy increases in the partner, too. No support for vicarious experiences (mastery experiences in one person affecting self-efficacy in the partner and vice versa) as sources of self-efficacy in the quitting process was found.