Attitudes and Health Flashcards
what are attitudes?
relatively stable predispositions towards socially significant ideas, people, and events to guide decision making
what can attitudes be divided into?
emotonal, behavioural, and cognition
how are attitudes learned?
through early socialisation
anderson’s information integration theory
information is weighed up to see if it is consistent with existing attitudes, or whether attitudes must change to accommodate this
measuring attitudes
- thurston (1928)
- likert (1932)
- guttman (1944)
thurston 1928
gives participants hundreds of statements to categorise as favourable, and those with the highest agreement are used to form scales to give to other participants
likert 1932
participants respond to statements on a scale to calculate attitude scores
guttman 1944
neither approach captures unique meaning, and unidimensional traits should be measured by selecting statements along a continuum
alternative measures of attitude
- bias in language
- attitude priming (implicit association task)
bias in language
discourse analysis observed more concrete language is used for socially desirable attitudes, and abstract language for socially undesirable opinions
attitude priming (implicit association task)
faster judgement responses are made when these are consistent with participant attitudes
davidson and jacard (1979) found…
the specificity of attitudinal measures are more useful at predicting use, but general attitudes are still useful for looking at collections of behaviour
acquiescence response set
tendency to agree
traditional approach
believes public health interventions can spread health risk information to result in behaviour
what do public health interventions target?
three different levels
- primary
- secondary
- tertiary
attitudinal models of behaviour
provider information on health risk and beliefs about message and behaviour
this results in internal and external motivation change (enjoyment of activity and reward) leading to mobilisation of skills and behaviour change
protection motivation theory
rogers (1975) based on cognition, assessment, and appraisal as people go through various stages after being presented with potential health risks
stages of protection motivation theory
- simultaneous experience of appraisals
a. threat appraisal (perceived susceptibility
and severity)
b. coping appraisal (response efficacy and
self-efficacy) - protection motivation (planning to deal with the threat)
- leads to either adaptive or maladaptive coping response
benefits of protection motivation theory
- offers hypotheses about health beliefs
- interventions with successful applications
limitations of protection motivation theory
- ignores social pressures and motivation
- believes fear is an ethical and motivational tool to initiate the process
theory of planned behaviour
azjen and madden (1986) based on social and cognitive factors, believe people are more likely to engage in behaviour and attitude change if they feel responsible for these
what three factors influence behavioural intention and behaviour, in the theory of planned behaviour?
- behavioural attitude
- subjective norms
- perceived behavioural control
intention-behaviour gap
considers that intention does not always lead to a behaviour
benefits of theory of planned behaviour
- assessing health-related behaviours
- proposes people have the necessary resources to complete this
limitations of theory of planned behaviour
- does not account for fear, threat, or mood
- assumes linear decision making and instant behavioural change
the stages of change model
prochaska and diclemente (1983) goes through steps between intention behaviour change
stages of intention behaviour change, within the stages of change model
- precontemplation
- contemplation
- preparation
- action
- maintenance
- termination
benefits of the stages of change model
- successfully applied to health-related behaviour
- focuses on the process of change to tailor interventions
limitations of the stages of change model
- oversimplification of the complex external process of behaviour
- assumes people make stable plans for change
- behaviour change occurs in discrete stages
