BSS: Understanding patient behaviour/ Personality, Mood, Emotion

Question 1

What internal and external factors can affect out behaviour?

Answer 1

-‘Self’, personality, emotions, mood and motivation
-Situation and environment

Question 2

What are the 3 selfs?

Answer 2

1- Self-concept
* Beliefs about ourselves & our characteristics
* Relatively stable although disability, ageing etc can lead to reassessment
2- Self-esteem
* How worthy we feel, tied to self-concept
* Affected by success/failure, rises through adulthood but declines around retirement
3- Self-image
* How we present ourselves – behaviour & appearance
* Actual vs. ideal image

Question 3

What is personality, is it stable what does it account for?

Answer 3

• Internal factors that make up the ‘self’
• Relatively stable over time
• Account for individual differences

Question 4

What is trait theories?

Answer 4

> Idea that personality consists of a number of underlying factors:
- everyone has all traits ( to greater or lesser extent)
– Traits are normally distributed .. extremes scores are rarer
- Biological in nature
e.g. Introvert: May have high cortical arousal and therefore won’t need much stimulating activity

Question 5

What is Eysencks traits?

Answer 5

• Too narrow

Question 6

What is the “Big five” types of personality?

Answer 6

OCEAN

Question 7

What are the 3 personality types? What illnesses are people more at risk of?

Answer 7

1- TypeA
* Competitive, ambitious, impatient, aggressive * at higher risk of CHD

2- Type B
* Relaxed, non-competitive

3- Type C
* ‘nice’, hard working, suppress emotion * at higher risk of cancer

Question 8

Relate these personality traits to health…
Neuroticism
Extraversion
Conscientiousness

Answer 8

Neuroticism: More consultations, symptom reporting, worries, health complaints
Extraversion: Less physical/psychological symptoms , better perceived health
Conscientiousness: Live longer

Question 9

How does our personality change as we age?
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

Answer 9

• Openness: desire to try new experiences declines slightly
• Conscientiousness: ability to handle tasks & organise
  improves
• Extroversion: need to seek social support declines slightly for women, but changes little in men
• Agreeableness: warmth, generosity & helpfulness make biggest improvement in 30/40s
• Neuroticism: Worry & sense of instability decrease for women – but not men

Question 10

What are emotions?

Answer 10

• Transient, subjective experiences
• Reaction to specific event/stimulus
• Involves physiological arousal & evaluation of arousal
• Evaluation influences our interpretation
• We ‘broadcast’ these to others

Question 11

What are the 4 components of an emotion?

Answer 11

1- Physiological
* Limbic system (ANS & endocrine) * Frontal cortex

2- Cognitive – appraisal, labelling , postive or negative emotion

3- Behaviour
* Actions, gestures, posture * Expressions

4- Conscious feeling – experienced emotion (everything above pulled together)

Question 12

What factors are needed in order to arouse emotion?

Answer 12

• Stimulus e.g. a dog
• Conscious feeling e.g. fear
• Autonomic arousal e.g. trembling
• Subcortical feeling - (emotion)
• Appraisal e.g. is the situation dangerous?

Question 13

In what ways can emotion affect health?
Extreme emotions..
Positive emotions..
Optimists…

Answer 13

• Extreme emotions can increase physiological arousal
• Positive emotions can benefit health outcomes e.g. patients are more likely to follow health advice
• Optimists can have a better physical recovery following surgery.

Question 14

How does ageing affect emotions?

Answer 14

• Older people experience less intense emotions
  MRI - Older adults are better at regulating emotion:
  
  • Favour positive stimuli relative to negative stimuli
  • Better at ignoring distracting negative stimuli
  • Favour suppression over reappraisal

Question 15

Define Mood.

Answer 15

• State of mind
• Relatively temporary ( influenced by internal+ external factors)

Question 16

Define motivation.

Answer 16

• Process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-orientated behaviours
  Internal factors that influence: needs, curiosity, personal fulfilment
  External factors : financial incentives , prestige

Question 17

What is Maslows hierarchy of needs?

Answer 17

Question 18

Internal factors such as ‘self’, personality, emotions, mood, and motivation can all influence behaviour; list some external influences that can also have an impact on behaviour.

Answer 18

-Sick role: may encourage subservient behaviour
- White Coat Syndrome: Patients may act differently in consultations
- Illness/disease: can alter a patient’s approach to life (in both positive and negative ways)
- Injury: Visible scars may reduce self-esteem

Question 19

How do we perceive other peoples behaviour?
Relate this to what Fundamental attribution error is.

Answer 19

• Assume all behaviour has a ‘cause’
• Can be internal or external factors

> Fundamental attribution error
* Overestimate internal (dispositional) factors & underestimate external (situational) factors in behaviour of others

Question 20

How do we perceive our own behaviour?
Relate this to Self serving attribution bias.

Answer 20

• Tend to attribute our behaviour as caused by internal factors but…

> Self serving attribution bias
* Attribute our positive behaviour
internally
* Attribute our negative behaviour externally

Question 21

List some common behaviours that can be considered ‘abnormal’.

Answer 21

• Compulsions e.g. constant cleaning
• Obsessions e.g. replaying embarrassing moment
• Delusions e.g. self-blame for illness/death
• Hallucinations e.g. seeing people who aren’t there
• Paranoia e.g. self-conscious about skin and feel like people are looking at it
• Phobias e.g. spiders, snakes

Question 22

What are the 5 ways we classify abnormalities?

Answer 22

1- Statistical infrequency: Deviation from statistical norm
2- Violation of social norm : deviate from unwritten social rules
3- Failure to function adequately
4- Deviation from ideal mental health: 6 characteristics necessary for ideal mental health
5- Clinical classifications : based on specific criteria listed in ICD-10