namely preventing premarital sexual behavior.
Strategies designed to prevent premarital sexual
behavior such as avoiding meeting in a quiet place
will determine what are the permitted and forbidden
behaviors in a relationship.
After setting goals and developing strategies in
achieving the goals, then individuals who have
effective self-regulation can also motivate themselves
in implementing strategies that have been prepared in
achieving their goals (self-motivation belief) (i.e.,
preventing premarital sexual behavior). Individuals
can motivate themselves when individuals believe in
their abilities, also called self-efficacy, where they
can implement strategies to prevent premarital sexual
behavior. Therefore, individuals who believe in their
abilities may differentiate the things that can and
cannot be done in a relationship. Besides, they will be
able to refuse their partner's invitation to meet in a
quiet place.
When individuals believe in their abilities to
implement strategies to prevent premarital sexual
behavior, they will be confident in obtaining the
expected results, in this case, preventing premarital
sexual behavior when meeting a partner. As a result,
individuals will then feel more valuable. It is
considered as beneficial to them as it makes them
motivated in implementing strategies that have been
prepared in achieving the goals which can prevent
premarital sexual behavior.
After individuals formulate strategies in achieving
their goals, the next thing is to implement the strategy
(performance phase). When they implement
strategies to regulate themselves to prevent premarital
sexual behavior, individuals control themselves by
focusing on the strategy in achieving the goal of
preventing premarital sexual behavior. As in the
forethought phase, the individual has devised a
strategy for not meeting in a quiet place. Thus, in this
case, when invited to meet in a quiet place, the
individuals still able to refuse the invitation from their
partner even though the partner is angry. This is
because the individual controls themselves by
focusing on strategies that have been developed in
achieving his goals, namely preventing premarital
sexual behavior.
After individuals conducted their actions in
preventing premarital sexual behavior, individuals
who have an effective self-regulation in preventing
premarital sexual behavior will monitor (self-
observation) the process of strategy implementation.
For example, an individual realizes that when
meeting with a partner in a crowded place, she or he
will avoid the invitation of his partner to engage in
premarital sexual behavior.
Based on the monitoring or observations,
individuals who have effective self-regulation will
conduct an evaluation of the achievements (self-
evaluation), strategies and actions that they do in
preventing premarital sexual behavior. For example,
individuals evaluate that not meeting their partner in
a quiet place is the right way to avoid premarital
sexual behavior.
This evaluation involves information obtained
from conducting monitoring that is associated with
certain standards. In addition to that, individuals also
evaluate the results obtained in preventing premarital
sexual behavior such as failure or success because of
their ability or because the effort they did was not
optimal (causal attribution). Based on the results of
the evaluation, individuals obtain new information
related to the process carried out in preventing
premarital sexual behavior. This then directs
individuals to recompile various alternative strategies
in an adaptive manner in developing self-regulation
to prevent premarital sexual behavior.
In addition, some individuals were found to have
effective self-regulation in preventing premarital
sexual behavior while others were not. As seen in table
4.2 which explains the picture of self-regulation is not
effective in preventing premarital sexual behavior.
It can be seen from the table that even if one of the
phases of self-regulation is ineffective, these
individuals fall into the ineffective self-regulation
category. This can be seen, first, the forethought and
performance phase are effective but self-reflection
phase is not effective. This illustrates that individuals
can determine a long-term goal specifically to prevent
premarital sexual behavior.
Individuals will not only able to determine long-
term goals but also the short-term ones such as
determining the limitations in a relationship. These
short-term goals are set up (proximal goals) to obtain
long-term goals that have been set by individuals.
Besides, these short-term goals are set because they
are more easily to be achieved by individuals. When
individuals can achieve short-term goals, they will be
excited to obtain the goals set (Zimmerman, 2000).
Furthermore, after setting the goals, to achieve
these goals, individuals may develop strategies that
they can be used in order to achieve these goals
(strategic planning). For instance, strategies designed
to prevent premarital sexual behavior is to choose a
crowded place to meet their partner. This suggests
that individuals can analyze the tasks that they can do
in preventing premarital sexual behavior. When
individuals can set goals and develop strategies in
achieving them, they will be more motivated in