Research report Nutrition self-eﬃcacy is unidirectionally related to outcome expectations in children ☆ Andrew L. Larsen a, *, John J. McArdle a , Trina Robertson b , Genevieve F. Dunton a a University of Southern California, 3620 S. McClintock Ave, SGM 501, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1061, USA b Dairy Council of California, 2151 Michelson Drive, Suite 235, Irvine, CA 92612-1339, USA ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 9 March 2014 Received in revised form 15 September 2014 Accepted 7 October 2014 Available online 18 October 2014 Keywords: Social-cognition Attitudes Diet School-based research Health A B ST R AC T Objective: To clarify the underlying relationship between nutrition self-eﬃcacy and outcome expecta- tions because the direction of the relationship (unidirectional vs bidirectional) is debated in the literature. Methods: Secondary data analysis of a 10-week, 10-lesson school-based nutrition education interven- tion among 3rd grade students (N = 952). Nutrition self-eﬃcacy (7 items) and nutrition outcome expectations (9 items) were measured through student self-report at intervention pre- (time 1) and post- (time 2) assessments. A series of two time point, multi-group cross-lagged bivariate change score models were used to determine the direction of the relationship. Results: A cross lag from nutrition self- eﬃcacy at time 1 predicting changes in nutrition outcome expectations at time 2 signiﬁcantly improved the ﬁt of the model (Model 3), whereas a cross lag from nutrition outcome expectations at time 1 to changes in nutrition self-eﬃcacy at time 2 only slightly improved the ﬁt of the model (Model 2). Fur- thermore, adding both cross lags (Model 4) did not improve model ﬁt compared to the model with only the self-eﬃcacy cross lag (Model 3). Lastly, the nutrition outcome expectations cross lag did not signiﬁ- cantly predict changes in nutrition self-eﬃcacy in any of the models. Conclusions: Data suggest that there is a unidirectional relationship between nutrition self-eﬃcacy and outcome expectations, in which self- eﬃcacy predicts outcome expectations. Therefore, theory-based nutrition interventions may consider focusing more resources on changing self-eﬃcacy because it may also lead to changes in outcome ex- pectations as well. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Self-eﬃcacy and outcome expectations (and conceptually similar constructs with alternate labels) are key components of several prom- inent models of self-regulation, including: Social Cognitive Theory (SCT; Bandura, 1997, 2004), the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA; Schwarzer, 1992), the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991), and Protection Motivation Theory (PMT; Maddux & Rogers, 1983; Rogers, 1975). Self-eﬃcacy is described as a person’s perceived competency in a given domain (Bandura, 1997). Outcome expectations are antici- pated outcomes that people expect their actions to produce, such as the belief that eating healthy food will make your body feel better (Bandura, 1997). Outcome expectations and self-eﬃcacy are explic- itly included in the SCT and HAPA models, and similar constructs are included in the TPB and PMT, such as response eﬃcacy, perceived be- havioral control, and attitudes (Bandura, 1997; Conner & Norman, 2005). Social cognitive theories of self-regulation hypothesize that people with high self-eﬃcacy and high positive outcome expectations are more likely to successfully self-regulate their behavior in a given domain (Bandura, 1997). However, the relationship between self-eﬃcacy and outcome ex- pectations (as well as similar constructs from other models) is debated (Fishbein et al., 2000). SCT posits a unidirectional relation- ship from self-eﬃcacy to outcome expectations, HAPA posits a bidirectional relationship, and other models (e.g., PMT, TPB) fail to specify speciﬁc relationships (Bandura, 1997; Conner & Norman, 2005; Schwarzer, 1992). The direction of the relationship is inte- gral for understanding processes of behavior change, which the social cognitive self-regulation literature has been criticized for failing to do in research (Leventhal & Mora, 2005). Additionally, understand- ing processes of change helps to determine which constructs to prioritize in interventions, particularly minimalist interventions and interventions with limited resources. If a unidirectional relationship exists in which self-eﬃcacy predicts changes in Abbreviations: SCT, Social Cognitive Theory; HAPA, Health Action Process Ap- proach; TPB, Theory of Planned Behavior; PMT, Protection Motivation Theory; SEM, structural equation modeling; df, degrees of freedom; dχ 2 , change in chi-square; ddf, change in degrees of freedom; CFI, comparative ﬁt index; TLI, Tucker–Lewis index; RMSEA, root mean square error of approximation. ☆ Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Dairy Council of Califor- nia and the American Cancer Society (118283-MRSGT-10-012-01-CPPB). The study was funded by the Dairy Council of California. This manuscript is based on data in a previously published report (Dunton et al., 2012). * Corresponding author. E-mail address: allarsen@usc.edu (A.L. Larsen). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2014.10.013 0195-6663/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Appetite 84 (2015) 166–170 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Appetite journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/appet