Question One
The Social Cognitive Theory incurs to play a significant role associated with behavior change in sport and exercise. The theory holds that portions of a person's acquired knowledge can be directly related to the observation of other people through social interactions, influences from the media, and experiences. The concept efficacy belief in the social cognitive theory is used to determine individuals' behaviors on who to engage in sports. The sources of efficacy beliefs in sports and physical activities incur to reflect as similar include experience and mastery, goals achievement, social support, mental and physical preparation, imagery, and vicarious experiences. In sports, the specific source of beliefs includes situation favorableness, coaches' leadership, physical self-presentation, and environmental comfort. These aspects are essential in determining an individual's behavior in the activity because they determine the self-efficacy levels of the person.
When determining participatory behavior in sports through the Social Cognitive Theory, self-efficacy beliefs play a significant role. An individual's efficacy level influences the activity one would choose to engage in or participate in. It also determines the kind of goals that the person would set. Individuals with healthy levels of self-efficacy beliefs tend to set goals that are challenging but realistic. Conversely, according to studies, people with low self-efficacy tend to perform poorly in their sporting activities because they set low expectations for themselves and put in less than the required effort and time to succeed. Therefore, individuals with overly high self-efficacy levels tend to set unrealistic goals for their abilities and skills. These tendencies lead the individual to be set up to fail and discouraged and thereby fail to participate and develop their skills in the given sport. Conversely, people with optimal or healthy levels of self-efficacy have the behavior of striving to improve their abilities and skills and continue to work hard and participate even when adversity comes along.
The Social Cognitive Theory also determines the behavior in performance among sports individuals. Individuals who have healthy or optimal levels of self-efficacy are likely to perform at higher levels than those with very low or very high self-efficacy levels. The social cognitive theory plays a huge part in performance because of evidence of goal-oriented behaviors present in performance levels. For example, individuals with high self-efficacy beliefs can still focus on their goals to perform well or pass a given challenge even if they are faced with internal emotions and thoughts. On the other hand, individuals with low self-efficacy beliefs would be easily distracted to focus on their problems and worries about losing, stress, getting hurt, and pressure. The loss of focus is detrimental to performance in sports. Low self-efficacy can also lead to increased anxiety and low self-confidence, contributing to low performance in sports.
Question Two
Psychological testing is a type of testing designed to show a person's personality, mental ability, and opinions. Companies usually apply this type of test to decide whether a potential employee should engage hired or not. There are several examples of psychometric tests all over the employment field. Examples of psychometric tests are personality tests, skills tests, and aptitude tests. Under the aptitude tests, there are also several other types of tests: numerical reasoning tests, inductive reasoning tests, logical reasoning error checking tests, diagrammatic reasoning tests, and verbal reasoning tests.
One of the advantages of psychometric tests is that it is usually accurate and appropriate. In the conduction of psychometric tests, the obtained results are usually more accurate and appropriate than other testing methods. During the test, the candidates answer the question of what they are good at, explicitly helping determine the accurate abilities and capabilities of the participants. Another advantage is that it is highly cost-saving. During psychometric tests, companies tend to reduce the number of costs incurred in terms of losses. As a result, it nob-performance by staff and higher turnover rates. Therefore, psychometric type of test encourages effective recruitment, reducing the chances of underrated recruitment, resulting in higher costs. Psychological tests also apply an unbiased approach. For example, when conducting psychological tests, there are lower changes or favoritism and biased conclusions involved. These testing methods involved selecting candidates who can answer questions correctly, promoting a fair and straightforward system. Therefore, it ensures that candidates are only selected according to merit and without any favoritism.
Apart from the advantages psychometric tests offer, some disadvantages come along with them. One disadvantage of psychological tests is that the method is incompatible with other testing methods. This because psychological testing cannot be used in conjunction with other tests and information. These other tests cannot produce the exact result, making them incompatible with psychological testing. Additionally, it also tends to make a candidate more nervous when conducting the test. For example, during the onset of the tests, some candidates might develop nervousness hence fumbling the tests right from the beginning to the end of the test. It, therefore, affects the accuracy and dependency of the test results.
Additionally, it can lead to the sudden collapse of an interview process hence creating complications in a hiring process. Moreover, the test also susceptible to false answers leading to inaccurate results. This because in psychometric tests, employees tend to take answers to appear correct and please the interviewer. Additionally, potential employees can also find such a problem during interview periods, giving answers that the employees desire to hear rather than the correct answers.
Question Three
Self-confidence incurs to represent an individual concept related to having an attitude towards a person's abilities and skills. Therefore, it is crucial in performance and engaging in certain activities, including working and challenging tasks. For example, the concept relates to the belief that a person has regarding accepting and trusting that they have control over their lives. In this case, the person can evaluate themselves and compare with others to understand their strength and weakness. It means that it is a self-evaluation concept that is crucial in helping one to develop a positive perception concerning their abilities. For instance, people with high self-confidence can develop self-efficacy to perform specific tasks, meaning that person can take tough challenges compared to individuals who don’t believe in their abilities (Williams et al. 2021, p864).
The concept of self-confidence relates to Albert Bandura’s Self-efficacy theory that encompasses social cognitive theory in 1986. The theory mediates individuals’ thought patterns, processes, motivations, reactions, and emotions critical to behaviors. In this case, self-confidence affects a person’s behaviors, such as making choices. For example, a smoke can decide to quit smoking if they develop high self-confidence that they can do without smoking. Likewise, a person can decide to engage in acceptable healthy behaviors such as exercising due to their cognitive patterns, making them believe that it is necessary to live healthily. Therefore, a high level of self-confidence relates to superior performance. For instance, athletes who perform better relate their performance with having confidence in their abilities through their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Another common concept that relates to performance includes stress, anxiety, and arousal. Anxiety and stress are among the concepts related to arousal, especially in performance in settings like sports and work environments. These two directly impact an individual's performance as they affect the nervous system that directly impacts the psychological status. In this case, they adversely impact the ability of a person to think and concentrate, which reduces their performance. Also, stress and anxiety contribute to cognitive patterns such as worries, apprehension, and nervousness linked to arousal and nervous system activation. Therefore, if the stress is positive, the performance will likely have positive outcomes (Williams et al. 2021, p864).
However, in many cases, the stress and anxiety levels are always harmful, contributing to low performance due to lowered motivation. Drive theory is among the model related to stress, anxiety, and arousal as they are concepts that relate to motivation. According to this model, a person's motivation to get engaged in specific tasks or take certain actions to perform better reduces the internal tension resulting from stress and anxiety. Therefore, people focus on better performance to avoid stress and anxiety to help the body maintain its homeostasis level for better functioning. Zone of optimal functioning is another model related to stress, anxiety, and arousal about performance. The model outlines that better performance is due to having pre-competition anxiety and stress near the zone optimal for a person. It means that when the anxiety and stress fall outside the optimal level, the performance deteriorates.
Question Four
Exercise has significant benefits to a person’s well-being as it facilitates various human aspects that are necessary. Among the general benefits of exercise include helping to lower the risks of developing chronic diseases related to health issues. For instance, a person that regularly gets engaged in physical activities and exercises is likely to have a healthy body. It is due to the ability of exercises enabling the person to control their body weight. For example, lack of exercise contributes to the weight that can result in diabetes and other conditions such as obesity and hypertension. In addition, exercise enables the body to burn excess body fats and cholesterol that can build up in the body contributing to the development of these chronic diseases.
Furthermore, exercise is crucial to a person’s well-being by helping a person to regulate the body sugar level. In addition, exercise improves the ability of the body to remove waste products in the body such as through sweating. Increasing such body reactions contributes to the release of excess salts in the body that improves the functioning of the body system like the kidney. Also, another general benefit of exercising is improving the mental status and well-being of a person. For example, through exercising, a person can refresh and release negative mental energy to build up stress and anxiety. Stress and anxiety hurt the well-being of a person, but with exercise, such issues are lowered. In this case, it means that exercise helps to improve the mental state of a person, which improves cognitive abilities such as thinking and judgmental skills (Serra et al., 2017, pp3).
Lastly, exercising is fundamental for keeping them fit, relates to strengthening the heart and improving blood circulation. In this case, there is enough supply of nutrients and oxygen to the entire body, which improves the body's functioning. For example, such activities enhance the oxygen level in the body muscles, which is crucial for bodies, such as giving the person the strength to walk. In addition, aging people need to exercise to lower the chances of developing weak muscles to make them immobile. For example, through exercise, the body's metabolic reactions in the muscles increase, reducing issues such as cramps that can limit a person's ability to walk.
However, there are several barriers to exercising that contributes to people not participating in such activities. Among the barriers include having limited time due to spending most of their time at work. In this case, the person doesn’t get time to exercise as they have many work activities that they need to finish within specific deadlines. Another barrier is the lack of equipment to exercise, including instructors giving the person appropriate exercise and physical activities. Also, many people lack the motivation to exercise due to insufficient information concerning the benefits of engaging in exercises (Serra et al., 2017, pp5).
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Reference List
Serra, R., Saavedra, F., Garrido, N., Cardoza, D., Jotta, B. and Novaes, J., 2017. Resistance training and its impact on psychological health in participants of corporate wellness programs. International Journal of Sport, Exercise and Health Research, 1(1), pp.1-6.
Williams, S.E., Quinton, M.L., Veldhuijzen van Zanten, J.J., Davies, J., Möller, C., Trotman, G.P. and Ginty, A.T., 2021. Mastery Imagery Ability Is Associated With Positive Anxiety and Performance During Psychological Stress. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, p.864.
