6. Promoting Good Behaviour: Factors in Change Flashcards
Health Tips?
- Change is possible (but difficult).
- Doing it on your own isn’t easy.
- Believe in yourself, prepare for lapses - and you might just succeed.
Who is most
often targeted by primary
prevention programs and
campaigns?
Generally speaking there are two populations that are targeted:
- Young people (depending on the behavior ranges from children to adolescents/university students)
- Parents by extension - Vulnerable people (whoever is identified to be at a heightened risk for developing certain health problems)
- People who smoke, children of parents with cancer history
U.S. CDC’s Anti
Smoking Campaign (Spring, 2012)
- Cost $54 million.
- Ran for 12 weeks.
- Aimed to get 500,000
people to try to quit,
50,000 to quit long term.
Initial impact of campaign?
Ads generated 192,000 extra
calls to CDC toll free quit line
and 417,000 new visitors to CDC
website (triple previous traffic).
Anecdotal evidence that ads had
range of responses.
But 2 largest U.S. tobacco companies reported no impact on 2012 earnings.
CDC’s Final Report on Campaign (2013)
Based on survey of 1000s of adult smokers and non smokers before and after?
80% of smokers and 75% of non smokers recalled seeing at least one of the ads during the 3 month campaign.
An estimated 1.6 million smokers attempted to quit smoking based on the national ad campaign.
More than 200,000 Americans quit smoking immediately following the campaign, with 100,000 likely to quit permanently.
What really works?
Durkin et al. (2009) found that the most successful anti smoking ads are…?
emotionally evocative and contain personalized stories
Health agencies and medical professionals, the mass media , news outlets, and the internet play…?
an important role in disseminating health related information.
Methods for Promoting Change - Providing Information?
The way in which health related information is delivered can play an important role in whether or not it is effective (i.e., persuasive and/or results in actual change).
Methods for Promoting Change - Educational Appeals?
Provide general information (vs. tailored content); assume that people will be motivated to improve a health behaviour if they have the correct information.
Educational Appeals - Not always successful; many
factors that must be considered…?
- Colour & vividness of ad.
- Expertise, likeability, and
relatability of messenger. - Avoidance of jargon & stats.
- Length of message.
- Placement of strong arguments.
- Presentation of both sides.
- Clarity of conclusions.
- Avoidance of extremes.
Message Framing?
Refers to whether the information emphasizes the benefits
(gains) or costs (losses) associated with a behaviour or decision.
Gain framed messages focus on?
Gain framed messages focus on experiencing desirable consequences and/or avoiding negative ones.
E.g., “If you exercise, you will
become more fit and less likely to
develop heart disease
Gain framed messages work best for motivating behaviours that serve to prevent or recover from illness or injury (e.g., using condoms, performing physical therapy).
Loss framed messages focus on?
experiencing undesirable consequences and/or avoiding positive ones.
E.g., “If you do not get your blood pressure checked, you could increase your chances of having a heart attack or stroke , and you won’t know that your blood pressure is good.
Loss framed messages seem to work best for behaviours that occur infrequently and serve to detect a health problem early (e.g., drinking and driving, getting a mammogram).
What would you expect to work best for motivating vaccination behaviour, gain or less framing? The COVID 19 vaccine specifically?
Gain frame is best for preventative measures. Also there is more to gain than positive outcomes for yourself, consider your community.
Yet, some studies indicate other results. There is a lot of inconsistencies. It could be that for different demographics benefit more form gain vs. loss framing.
Methods for Promoting Change - Fear Appeals?
Message framing that assumes instilling fear will lead to change.
Fear Appeals effects tend to be transient (they have an initial impact or motivation but it does often not last long enough to see a flood-though). But more persuasive if?
- Emphasize consequences.
- Include personal testimonial.
- Provide specific instructions.
- Boost self efficacy (feel empowered) before urging them to change.
Fear Appeals - Too much fear can also be problematic why?
Might just turn away from the message, stop listening.
Challenge is when you are delivering a message to the entire population everyone has different thresholds.
Methods for Promoting Change - Behavioural and Cognitive Methods
Behavioural methods focus on helping people manage the antecedents (things that led to the behaviour) & consequences of a behaviour.
Cognitive methods focus on changing people’s thought processes.
Behavioural and Cognitive Methods - One popular intervention?
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - Definition?
Evidence based psychotherapeutic intervention that promotes self observation and self monitoring to increase awareness and control of negative thoughts and harmful behaviours.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) - Goal?
Goal:
Regulation of thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, emotions, and behaviours through personal coping strategies.
Self management:
clients can eventually apply these methods themselves.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Applied to Alcohol Abuse?
Identify unhelpful/unrealistic thoughts and beliefs that contribute to the problem behaviour…
“I can’t relax without my alcohol.”
“My friends find me boring when I’m sober.”
Identify triggers (internal/external) that cause you to drink… and removing them!
Negative experiences (or positive like celebrations), specific social situations, locations, etc.
Engage in more realistic and helpful thoughts…
“I know I can’t stop drinking once I start.”
“Lots of people have fun without alcohol.”
“My friends like me for my personality, not my drinking.”
Maintaining health behaviour changes can be difficult… Lapse definition?
An instance of backsliding which does not indicate failure (e.g., a person who quits smoking has a cigarette).
Maintaining health behaviour changes can be difficult… Relapse definition?
Falling back to one’s original pattern of undesirable behaviour; very common when people try to change long term habits (e.g., eating and smoking behaviours).
Maintaining health behaviour changes can be difficult… Abstinence Violation Effect definition?
For some, experiencing a lapse can destroy one’s confidence in remaining abstinent and precipitate a full relapse.
See themselves as a failure can have a full-on relapse.