SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY 1

Social Cognitive Theory

Your Name (First M. Last)

Name of School or Institution

Course Number and Name (for student papers)

Instructor (for student papers)

Date (for student papers)

SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY

2

Social Cognitive Theory

The study by Dennis et al. (2012) looked into how theory-based interventions could help college students avoid gaining weight. What interested them most about the study was how structured self-regulation training and social cognitive theory (SCT) might change the results. It was important to focus on this group because not many studies had looked at how to help them control their weight by teaching them self-control skills. The study looked at 45 first-year college students who lived on campus and were either a healthy weight or overweight or heavy weight.

There were both active (resident assistant participation) and passive (flyers) ways to find new students. It is important to remember that the study is happening on a college campus, which probably has facilities like gyms and dining halls that could change how healthy the people who are taking part are.

There was a set order to the study. One step was to test the people to find out their height, weight, body type, eating habits, and how much exercise they did. First, they were randomly split into two groups. One group did only SCT, while the other group did both SCT and self-regulation training (SCTSR). Both groups took lessons online twice a week, and each class had a different theme. If they kept their weight fixed, they could earn money. The information came from concrete measures of body composition, detailed food records, exercise logs, and studies that looked at how people's minds change when they change how they behave. The authors directly gathered this data. Studies used repeated measures ANOVA, bivariate correlational analyses, and independent sample t-tests. They looked at how changes in the SCT and SCTSR groups' bodies and habits might be connected to changes in their social and cognitive abilities.

There was some weight gain in both groups, but the SCT group kept their body fat percentage better than the SCTSR group. Everyone gained weight over the 14 weeks, but there

SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY 3

was no difference between the groups. Body fat went up in SCTSR but not in SCT (mean difference: 1.63 ± 0.52% for SCT and -0.25 ± 0.45% for SCT; P = 0.01). More than half of the SCTSR students who said the online tracking took "too much time" did not show up to class. A link existed between positive changes in social and cognitive factors and positive changes in body composition and health habits. They found that neither of the measures fully stopped this group of people from gaining weight. Even though they had some flaws, both ways could work, and students liked them. People who worked on the SCTSR approach may have had to spend too much time on it, which hurt its overall success.

It is important to remember that the results are harder to use in other scenarios because the study was short and had a small sample size. The students' attitudes toward the time commitment may have also affected how well the answer worked. We now know more about how to keep college students from gaining weight because this study shows how hard it is to do and how self-regulation training might help. This demonstrates how important it is to get feedback from students when planning solutions and how important it is to find the right balance between time demands and benefits. In the end, the study on social cognitive theory gives information that will help with future research and interventions.

SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY 4

References

Dennis, E. A., Potter, K. L., Estabrooks, P. A., & Davy, B. M. (2012). Weight Gain Prevention for College Freshmen: Comparing Two Social Cognitive Theory-Based Interventions with and without Explicit Self-Regulation Training. Journal of Obesity, 2012, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/803769