1B. Health Beliefs and Behaviour Flashcards
Define “health behaviour”
Activity undertaken by someone BELIEVING himself to be healthy…
…to PREVENT disease…
…or DETECT it early
Define “self-efficacy”
Belief that one can execute the behaviour required to produce the outcome ie confidence that we have in ourselves to make the change/lifestyle change
Recall the 4 factors that can influence self-efficacy
Mastery Experience
Encouragement
Social Learning
managing Physiological arousal (you know that stress causes eating, so you avoid stress in the first place)
Recall the 6 stages of the transtheoretical model
Precontemplation Contemplation preparation Action Maintenance (permanent exit) Relapse
What does the “Health Belief Model” assess?
Likelihood of a behaviour change
What are the elements directly affecting the likelihood of a behaviour change in the Health Belief Model?
Perceived threat
Perceived benefit vs Perceived cost/ barriers
Recall the elements that influence the perceived threat of a health behaviour in the Health Belief Model
Perceived susceptibility
Perceived seriousness
Cues to action
What might affect an individual’s perception of their susceptibility to or the seriousness of a health problem?
Background variables sich as age/ sex/ personality/ ethnicity
What are the 3 drivers of intention in the Theory of planned behaviour?
- Attitude towards the behaviour
- Subjective norm
- Perceived behavioural control
What does an individual’s beliefs about the importance of other’s opinions affect in the Theory Of Planned Behaviour?
The subjective norm
What was the Nutbeam et al study (1993)?
Study on effect of smoking education in schools:
Educating about smoking increased student’s knowledge but it did not have an impact on the behaviour/habit
(shows that education is not effective for habitual behaviours and more is needed to change these behaviours other than just education)
Outline some methods of behaviour modification
- control the stimulus that triggers the bad behaviour
- counter conditioning (changing the response to the stimulus to a healthier response)
- contingency management (controlling the bad behaviour by rewarding incentives for achieving goals. eg praise or money etc)
what are the limitations of reinforcement programmes
Lack of generalization (only affects behaviour regarding the specific trait that is being rewarded) ie the money incentive only stopped smoking but not other unhealthy behaviours.
Poor maintenance (rapid extinction of the desired behaviour once the reinforcer disappears). After cash payment, the people will start gradually smoking again
Impractical and expensive.
does fear arousal work in changing behaviour? (ie trying to scare people so that they dont do it)
No. Janis and Fesbach(1953) showed that inducing maximal fear caused students to switch off and not look at the presentation on dental hygiene. Instead, low fear group had the biggest % change in behaviour
which group of people are susceptible to social influences on smoking?
Adolescents are particularly susceptible to social influences given their developmental stage and the importance of school and peer groups.
NB Best friends have the greatest influence on adolescent smoking, followed by the broader peer groups.
