The Interrelations among Self-efficacy, Happiness, Individual Values, and Attractiveness Promoting Behavior

The paper aims to investigate the associations among self-efficacy, happiness, individual values and attractiveness promoting behavior. The impact of self-efficacy and happiness on individual values and attractiveness promoting behavior is analyzed through the partial least squared structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings provide important implications that both self-efficacy and happiness are important in one’s life but they play different and independent roles. The results found that individual values and attractiveness promoting behavior are independent and they have no significant association with each other. In essence, there is no one perfect solution for all quests. In order for an individual to attain higher level of individual values, psychological and mental factor like happiness should be paid much more attention than perceived ability like self-efficacy. However, self-efficacy is the key factor for an individual to engage oneself in behavior that promote his/her attractiveness.


Introduction
The paper aims to investigate the associations among self-efficacy, happiness, individual values and attractiveness promoting behavior.Firstly, it proposes significant impact of self-efficacy and happiness on individual values.Secondly, it tests whether self-efficacy and happiness lead to attractiveness promoting behavior through the interaction effect with individual values.The impact of self-efficacy and happiness on individual values and attractiveness promoting behavior is analyzed through the partial least squared method performed and cross-checked in WARPLS and R programs.

The importance of Attractiveness
Attractiveness is the perception of the physical traits of an individual human person as pleasing or beautiful.It can include various implications, such as sexual attractiveness, cuteness, similarity and physique.Judgment of attractiveness of physical traits is partly universal to all human cultures, partly dependent on culture or society or time period, partly biological, and partly subjective and individual (Hönekopp, 2006).
Although attractiveness seems to be subjective, contrary to popular belief, societies generally agree on who is and who is not attractive, even across different cultures.According to several studies, individuals that are more attractive are perceived to be healthier, having better genes, more persuasive, more intelligent, and more successful.In essence, attractiveness is rewarded by societies.
Attractiveness is not just given by nature but it can be self-developed.Behaviors that can promote attractiveness include doing exercise, having healthy food, using skin lotion, using proper perfume, putting on make-up, or having good personalities.This led to the motivation of this study, to determine the factors associated with behaviors that promote attractiveness in an individual.
Numerous research studies disclose that attractiveness delivers a surplus in terms of advantageous interview and resume evaluations, and ensuing opportunities to get employed including income and financial stability.Although outstanding qualifications are believed to be the most significant criteria in the employment procedure, good-looking individuals with average resumes are more frequently offered an interview than the unappealing individual.Hence, attractiveness seems to have an important influence on selection when several applicants have comparable qualifications.(Beehr & Gilmore, 1982;Judge, Hurst, & Simon, 2009;Mobius & Rosenblat, 2006;Riggio & Throckmorton, 1988;Watkins & Johnston, 2000;Jawahar & Mattsson, 2005).They are more persuasive, in part, because they also possess or develop key personality traits like intelligence and social skills.They are also perceived as more likable and trustworthy.
Possessing personality traits that are attractive may be causal in making a face attractive (Little, et al., 2006).Abel, et al. (2009) reported that attractive people are surrounded by pleasant assumptions, for example, having more prominent careers, being more socially expert and intelligent, and better-off in general with their lives.Meta-analyses support the strong effect of physical attractiveness on positive impressions and the "what is beautiful is good" phenomenon (Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972;Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991;Feingold, 1992;Hosoda, Stone-Romero, & Coats, 2003;Langlois et al., 2000) with the power of the influence apparently similar for both men and women (Langlois et al., 2000).The theory suggested to account for the "what is good is beautiful" phenomenon and with most support is the implicit personality theory (Eagly et al., 1991).Implicit personality theory proposes that people stereotype others on the basis of definite assumptions associated to physical appearances, and so, attractiveness is consequently connected to other positive dimensions of personality such as being more socially adept, interpersonally and occupationally successful, and intelligent.In addition, others seem to respond more positively to physically attractive individuals with subsequent positive outcomes."(Abel et al., 2009).Hosoda et al., 2003 revealed that there was a significant association between attractiveness and task-related outcomes in both research laboratory and field settings, for both men as well as women, and for both human resource professionals and college students in research laboratory settings.Furthermore, a work by Marlowe et al. (1996) showed that unattractive women are the most disadvantaged on evaluations of job hiring process and possibility of development toward an executive level organizational position which is opposite to the concept of "beauty is beastly" effect suggested by Heilman and Saruwatari (1979).Additionally, Jawahar and Mattsson (2005) showed that a more attractive applicant irrespective of sex is more likely being employed regardless of whether the occupation is male-dominated or female-dominated.In essence, behaviors that promote attractiveness are fruitful and rewarded by societies.
1.2 Self-efficacy Bandura (1997) formally defined perceived self-efficacy as personal judgments of one's capabilities to organize and execute courses of action to attain designated goals, and he sought to assess its level, generality, and strength across activities and contexts.Strength of perceived efficacy is measured by the amount of one's certainty about performing a given task.These properties of self-efficacy judgments are measured using questionnaire items that are task specific, vary in difficulty, and capture degrees of confidence."Self-efficacy is the extent or strength of one's belief in one's own ability to complete tasks and reach goals" (Ormrod, 2006).
According to Caprara et al. (2006), "perceived self-efficacy has proved to play a pivotal role in self-regulation processes" "The findings from diverse lines of research have documented the influential role of self-efficacy beliefs in various domains of functioning such as learning, work, sports, health, social adjustment, and well-being" (Bandura, 1997;2001).

Happiness
Happiness is one among the most essential elements in life and also this fact has been confirmed by a number of researchers (Aumeboonsuke, 2017).Some of these research studies are the followings.Chida and Steptoe (2008) found that "positive moods such as joy, happiness, and energy, as well as characteristics such as life satisfaction, hopefulness, optimism, and sense of humor, were associated with reduced risk of mortality in healthy populations, and predicted longevity, controlling for negative states" (Diener & Chan, 2011).Brummett et al.'s (2006) investigation of 4,989 students revealed that optimistic individuals had higher longevity rates compared with pessimistic individuals.Guven and Saloumidis's (2009) "panel study found that the impact of marriage on longevity appeared to be mediated by happiness" (Guven & Saloumidis 2009).Diener and Chan's (2011) research, entitled "Happy people live longer: Subjective well-being contributes to health and longevity," provided extensive reviews on a number of studies about the benefits of happiness and concluded that there now are sufficient studies about the influence of happiness on health.The effect sizes of subjective well-being are large and therefore happiness should be worthy of attention.Numerous studies found the relationship between happiness and health.This research expands the field of studies on happiness by providing the model that relates happiness with self-efficacy, individual values, and behaviors that promote attractiveness.

Individual Values
Important theorists in a variety of fields have emphasized the importance of people's value priorities in understanding and predicting attitudinal and behavioral decisions.For example, Gordon Allport (1961) suggested that value priorities were the "dominating force in life" (p.543) because they directed all of a person's activity toward their realization (Rohan, 2000).See Appendix A for a selection of values definitions.
According to Rohan (2000), " Schwartz (1992) identified a comprehensive set of basic values that are recognized in all societies and defined basic values as trans-situational goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or group.He theorized that basic values are organized into a coherent system that underlies and can help to explain individual decision making, attitudes, and behavior.This coherent structure arises from the social and psychological conflict or congruity between values that people experience when they make everyday decisions (Schwartz, 1992(Schwartz, , 2006)).The 10 basic values identified in the theory are self-direction, stimulation, hedonism achievement, power, security, conformity, tradition, benevolence, and universalism.(see Appendix B for definitions of each one)".These values are likely to be universal because they are grounded in one or more of three universal requirements of human existence with which people must cope: needs of individuals as biological organisms, requisites of coordinated social interaction, and survival and welfare needs of groups.Each value is grounded in one or more of these three universal requirements of human existence.All of the studies that employ the theory of basic values treat the 10 values as discrete entities.
This research measured value in each aspect regarding previous literatures and tested the impact of individual's happiness and self-efficacy on one's value, and also whether individual values encourage him/her to engage in behaviors that promote his/her attractiveness (see figure 1).

Values
Attractiveness promoting behavior

Happiness Figure 1. Research Model
In addition, the analysis of whether the individual values contribute to the moderating effect between each predictor and attractiveness promoting behavior was also examined.
Control variables include physical background, demographic background and geographic background such as age, gender, type of city where participant grows up, academic grade, and weight-height ratio.
Hypotheses in this study were the followings: Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between self-efficacy and individual values.
Hypothesis 2: There is a positive relationship between happiness and individual values.
Hypothesis 3: There is a positive relationship between self-efficacy and attractiveness promoting behavior.
Hypothesis 4: There is a positive relationship between happiness and attractiveness promoting behavior.
Hypothesis 5: There is a positive relationship between values and attractiveness promoting behavior.

Data
The participants of this research are undergrad students from several leading universities in Thailand whose age range between 18 to 24 years old.The data were collected through self-administered questionnaires survey.The total of 360 usable questionnaires were obtain.Descriptive statistics of demographic information of the sample are reported in Table 1.Height/weight ratio Mean: 3.17 Standard deviation: 0.62

Measures
Behaviors that promote attractiveness was measured by asking the respondents to indicate how often they are engaged in a set of twelve items of behaviors.The level of frequency in each item was measured using an ordinal scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 5 (everyday).The sample items included "How often do you engage in doing exercise?","How often do you engage in eating healthy food?", "How often do you use skin lotion?", "How often do you use body freshener/perfume?", and "How often do you put on make-up?".
Individual values were measured by asking the respondents to indicate the level of their values on a set of twenty items.The level of values in each item was measured using an ordinal scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much).The question was "How much each aspect is important for you?" and the sample aspects included having good looks, being beautiful, being sexy, being talented, having a good personality, having a sense of humor, having good social skills, and having close friends you can confide in.
Self-efficacy was measured by asking the respondents to indicate the level of their self-efficacy on a set of eighteen items based on Bandura (2006).The level of self-efficacy in each item was measured using an ordinal scale ranged from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very well).The sample items included "How well can you bounce back after you tried your best and failed?,""How well can you overcome discouragement when nothing you try seems to work?," "How well can you develop good communication and social skills?,""How well can you exercise to be healthy and full of energy?," "How well can you maintain a sincere/true relationship with your friends?," and "How well can you maintain a close relationship with your parents?" Happiness was measured by asking respondents to indicate how happy they are with several aspects in their lives by using a set of sixteen items, including "I have a happy family," "I have close friends that understand me," "I am healthy," "I am proud of what I have achieved," "I am happy with my job prospects,"and "I am liked by the people around me."They were scored on seven-point frequency scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very much).
The items in each factor were used to construct a reflective latent variable of their construct and were tested for reliability and validity.

Statistical Analysis
The impact of self-efficacy and one's happiness on individual values and attractiveness promoting behavior was analyzed through the partial least squared structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).The PLS-SEM analysis was performed by using the R program.
PLS-SEM is a causal modeling method with the objective to explain variance of the dependent latent constructs.
There are two components in the PLS-SEM Algorithm.The first component is the structural model (the inner model) that expresses the relationships (paths) between the latent constructs which can be exogenous or endogenous constructs.Exogenous describes latent constructs that are explained by other constructs via structural model relationships.The second component comprises the measurement models (the outer model) which include the unidirectional predictive relationships between each latent construct and its associated observed indicators (Hair et al., 2011).
PLS was appropriate for the data used in this research because of three reasons.First, the independent variables and dependent variables in the study are latent variables that quantify attitudes and the PLS-SEM analysis is suitable to perform path model on cause-effect relationships among latent constructs (Hair et al., 2011).Second, it is not the requirement for PLS-SEM to have a large sample size, unlike other SEM techniques (Chin, 1998;Goodhue et al., 2006).And third, PLS-SEM does not assume that the data is normally distributed (Bovaird et al., 2007).

Findings & Discussions
The first and the second model analyzes the relationship among the variables without interaction terms.Convergence validity was analyzed by using factor loadings.Hair et al. (2006) suggested that the value of factor loadings should be higher than 0.5.The results shown in Table 2 to Table 4 indicate that all factor loadings except for one item of self-efficacy and two items of value were above the minimum requirement.The three items that had low loading were removed from the analysis.Table 5 indicates that three factor loadings were above the threshold requirement so these three items were included in the analysis.Fornell and Larcker (1981) suggested that the square root of the AVE must be greater than correlations between the constructs in order for discriminant validity to be satisfied.The results shown in Table 6 indicate that all the values of the square root of the AVE (values in the main diagonal line) were greater than the correlations between the constructs except for one case in p1 where the difference was trivial.Construct validity was analyzed by applying Cronbach's alpha coefficients and Dillon-Goldstein's rho.The minimum requirement for these two indicators was 0.7.The results shown in Table 7 show that the reliability indicators of all latent variables were acceptable according to Nummally (1978).The results from the PLS analysis of the first model are summarized in Table 8.Standardized path coefficients and p-values are reported.Table 8 and table 9 report the results from model one and model two, respectively.Model one focuses on the impact of self-efficacy and happiness on individual values whereas model two emphasizes on the impact of self-efficacy and happiness on attractiveness promoting behavior.The results show that happiness has a significant positive association with individual values whereas self-efficacy has a significant positive association with attractiveness promoting behavior.The third model analyzed the associations among variables with interaction terms.Convergence validity and discriminant validity were analyzed in a way similar to that in the first model.Most of the factor loadings were satisfactory and the items that had a low loading were removed from the analysis.Construct validity was analyzed using Cronbach' s alpha coefficients and Dillon-Goldstein' s rho.The results indicate that the reliability indicators of all latent variables were satisfactory.
The results from the PLS analysis on the third model are presented in Table 10.Standardized path coefficients and p-values are described.Table 10 illustrates the results of the third model that simultaneously analyzed the impact of self-efficacy and happiness on individual values and attractiveness promoting behavior.The empirical hypothesis examined under the third model is summarized in the following section: Hypothesis 1 predicted that self-efficacy increases individual values.The results from the PLS estimation indicated that the association these two variables were statistically insignificant (beta=0.0895;p=0.3256 for the first model and beta=0.0631;p=0.4888 for the third model).Thus, hypothesis 1 was not supported.
Hypothesis 2 predicted that happiness increases individual values.The results from the PLS estimation indicated that these two variables were positively related; the association was also statistically significant (beta=2.2421;p=0.0092 for the first model and beta=0.2826;p=0.0022 for the third model).Thus, hypothesis 2 was supported.
Hypothesis 3 predicted that self-efficacy increases attractiveness promoting behavior.The results from the PLS estimation indicated that these two variables were positively related; the association was also statistically significant (beta=0.2370;p=0.0015 for the second model and beta=0.1646;p=0.0352 for the third model).Thus, hypothesis 3 was supported.
Hypothesis 4 predicted that happiness increases attractiveness promoting behavior.The results from the PLS estimation indicated that these two variables were statistically insignificant (beta=-0.0597;p=0.4057 for the second model and beta=-0.0821;p=0.2990 for the third model).Thus, hypothesis 4 was not supported.
Hypothesis 5 predicted that individual values increases attractiveness promoting behavior.The results from the PLS estimation indicated that these two variables were statistically insignificant (beta=0.0985;p=0.1335 for the third model).Thus, hypothesis 5 was not supported.
The results show that happiness has strong significant positive impact on individual values but not on attractive promoting behavior.Whereas self-efficacy has strong significant positive impact on attractive promoting behavior but not on individual values.
The findings provide important implications that both self-efficacy and happiness are important in one.slife but they play different and independent roles.The results found that individual values and attractiveness promoting behavior are independent and they have no significant association with each other.In addition, in order for an individual to achieve higher level of individual values, psychological and mental factor like happiness should be paid much more attention than perceived ability like self-efficacy.However, in order for an individual to engage oneself in behaviors that promote his/her attractiveness, perceived ability like self-efficacy is the key factor.In other words, a person who is happier but has lower level of self-efficacy tend to have more value in oneself.Whereas a person who has higher level of self-efficacy but is less happy tend to involve more in behaviors that promote his/her attractiveness.

Concluding Remarks
The objective of this research was to investigate the role of self-efficacy and happiness in promoting individual values and how one engages in behaviors that promote attractiveness.The author proposed that self-efficacy and happiness would contribute to individual values and individual's engagements in behaviors that promote attractiveness.In addition, the author also proposed that there is interrelationship between individual values and engagement in behaviors that promote attractiveness.The statistical evidence revealed that happiness had a strong positive impact on individual values whereas happiness was not significantly related to one's engagement in attractiveness promoting behavior.On the contrary, self-efficacy had a strong positive impact on one's engagement in attractiveness promoting behavior whereas self-efficacy was not significantly related to individual values.In addition, individual values and engagement in behaviors that promote attractiveness are independent to each other.
In conclusion, the results from this research provide some recommendations for individuals regarding the approach to individual values and engagements in behaviors that promote attractiveness.The results indicated that both self-efficacy and happiness are significant factors but they play different roles and they are independent.A person who is happy tend to have more value in oneself even though he/she has low self-efficacy.Whereas a person who is less happy tend to involve more in behavior that promote attractive, given that he/she has higher level of self-efficacy.It can be seen clearly that there is no one perfect answer for all quests.In essence, individuals who emphasis more in one's value should pay more attention to how to make oneself be happy while individuals who emphasis more in engaging oneself in behaviors that promote attractiveness should focus on improving their self-efficacy.

Table 2 .
Factor Loadings for Eighteen Items in Self-Efficacy (x1) Diagnostic tests have been performed by discriminant validity, construct validity, and reliability.Discriminant validity was analyzed by comparing the average variance extracted (AVE) to the squared correlation coefficient.

Table 6 .
Squared Root of the AVE and Correlations Between the Constructs

Table 10 .
PLS Results on Model Three