BSS: Understanding patient behaviour/ Personality, Mood, Emotion Flashcards
What internal and external factors can affect out behaviour?
-‘Self’, personality, emotions, mood and motivation
-Situation and environment
What are the 3 selfs?
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
What is personality, is it stable what does it account for?
- Internal factors that make up the ‘self’
- Relatively stable over time
- Account for individual differences
What is trait theories?
> 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
What is Eysencks traits?
- Too narrow
What is the “Big five” types of personality?
OCEAN
What are the 3 personality types? What illnesses are people more at risk of?
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
Relate these personality traits to health…
Neuroticism
Extraversion
Conscientiousness
Neuroticism: More consultations, symptom reporting, worries, health complaints
Extraversion: Less physical/psychological symptoms , better perceived health
Conscientiousness: Live longer
How does our personality change as we age?
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extroversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
- 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
What are emotions?
- Transient, subjective experiences
- Reaction to specific event/stimulus
- Involves physiological arousal & evaluation of arousal
- Evaluation influences our interpretation
- We ‘broadcast’ these to others
What are the 4 components of an emotion?
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)
What factors are needed in order to arouse emotion?
- 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?
In what ways can emotion affect health?
Extreme emotions..
Positive emotions..
Optimists…
- 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.
How does ageing affect emotions?
- 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
Define Mood.
- State of mind
- Relatively temporary ( influenced by internal+ external factors)
Define motivation.
- Process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-orientated behaviours
Internal factors that influence: needs, curiosity, personal fulfilment
External factors : financial incentives , prestige
What is Maslows hierarchy of needs?
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.
-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
How do we perceive other peoples behaviour?
Relate this to what Fundamental attribution error is.
- 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
How do we perceive our own behaviour?
Relate this to Self serving attribution bias.
- 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
List some common behaviours that can be considered ‘abnormal’.
- 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
What are the 5 ways we classify abnormalities?
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
