Question

Throughout life, there are “wins” and “losses.” Learning how to cope with loss can affect your health in various ways. For this week’s Discussion topic, you will identify a “loss” situation. This could be a loss of a job, pet, family member, etc.

Discuss how this “loss” could affect a person’s mental health, physical health, and the way they might be thinking about themselves (i.e., self-efficacy). What are ways in which the constructs of self-efficacy theory could be used to help cope with these types of losses? Within this week’s readings, you will find a figure on the self-efficacy theory that may help you formulate a response.

Answer 1

The basic life requirements are meet through various factors including job, family etc. The loss of any of this factors can affect one’s mental and physical health. The loss can lead to anxiety and depression, low self esteem etc. The physical health can also affected for example in case of unemployment particularly when efforts to locate work are met with failure over a long period of time. There are some physical illness originated from the stress. The hypothesis of increased heart disease in those who have face losses in their life is still existing.

Self efficacy is actually the ability of an individual to succeed in a specific situation. As the self efficacy theory focuses on role of observational learning and social experience in the development of personality, it will help an individual to cope up with any loss he or she have experienced in life. Self efficacy represents the personal perception of external social factors.