Chapter Three: Health Behaviors Flashcards
Causes of heart disease
Tobacco, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, physical inactivity, obesity, diabetes, high cortisol
Potential causes of cancer
Smoking, unhealthy diet, & environmental factors
Potential causes of a stroke
High blood pressure, tobacco, diabetes, high cholesterol, physical inactivity, & obesity
Potential causes of accidental injuries
On the road, not wearing seat belts (ex); dangerous fall, poison, or fire
Potential causes for chronic lung disease
Tobacco, environmental factors (pollution, radiation, radon (radioactive gas), & asbestos (heat & corrosion resistant fibrosis minerals).
Def: Health Promotion
is based on the idea that good health, or wellness is a personal & collective achievement
Involves teaching ppl how to have a healthy lifestyle.
Involves the development of interventions to help ppl practice healthy behaviors.
Def: health behaviors
undertaken by ppl to enhance or maintain their health
Def: health habit
healthy behavior that is firmly established & performed automatically, without awareness.
Usually develops during childhood and stabilizes around preteenhood.
Def: Primary Prevention
Taking measures to combat risk factors for illness before it has a chance to develop.
Primary prevention strategies:
Getting ppl to alter their problematic health behaviors
Keeping ppl from developing poor health habits in the 1st place
Factors responsible for practicing & changing health behaviors:
Demographic factors
Age
Values
Personal Control
Social influence
Personal goals & values
Perceived symptoms
Access to the health care delivery system
Knowledge & intelligence
Def: Health locus of control scale
measures the degree to which ppl perceive their health to be under personal control, control by the e health practitioner, or by chance.
Emotional factors might lead to ___________________
unhealthy behaviors
Instability of health behaviors:
Diff factors control diff health habits
Diff factors might control the same health behavior for diff ppl
Factors controlling a health behavior change:
Over the history of behavior
Across a person’s lifetime
Def: socialization
influence of parents as both teachers & role models
Def: teachable moments
suitable times for modifying health practices
Def: window of vulnerability
time when students are 1st exposed to bad habits
Not confined to childhood & adolescence
Precautions taken in adolescence may affect disease risk after age 45.
Pros to intervening with At-risk ppl:
Efficient use of health promotion dollars
Disease might be prevented altogether
Makes it easier to identify other risk factors too
Cons for intervening with at-risk ppl:
Risks are not perceived correctly
Testing positive for a risk factor might lead ppl into hypervigilant behaviors
Ethical issues in intervening with at-risk ppl:
Choosing the right time to alert ppl
Instilling risk reduction behaviors might cause psychological stress
No effective intervention might be available for cases involving genetic risk factors
Emphasizing risks that are inherited can raise complicated issues of family dynamics.
Health Promotion efforts for older adults:
Maintain a healthy, balanced diet & an exercise regimen
Take steps to reduce accidents
Control alcohol consumption & eliminate smoking
Reduce inappropriate use of prescription drugs
Obtain vaccinations against influenza
Remin socially engaged
Health promotion efforts should take the social norms of a group into account bc of what??
Health practices in the community
Informal networks of communication & language
Co-occuring risk factors in ethnic groups
Co-occurring risk factors in ethnic groups:
Combine effects of low SES & a biological predisposition to specific illnesses.
Educational appeals refers to the way ppl ______ their health habits if they have good ______ abt their habits
change, info
Def: Fear appeals
Fear appeals refers to how ppl change their behavior if they fear that a specific habit is hurting their health
Def: message framing
Message framing refers to how messages can change ppl’s personal characteristics depending on the type of message.
Def: Health Belief model
Factors influencing health behavior practices
Perceived health threat
Perceived threat reduction
Used to increase perceived risk & perceived effectiveness of steps to modify a broad array of health habits
What is the Health Belief Model based on?
Our perception on how susceptible we are to a certain disease/illness
Perceived severity of the illness
Perceived benefits of change
Perceived barriers of such actions.
What is a downside to the Health Belief Model?
Leaves out self-efficacy, and how our culture and society dictates how we look and perceive our own health.
Def: Self-efficacy
one’s ability to control one’s practice of a particular behavior
Criticisms of attitude theories:
Interventions might not always provide the impetus to take action
Actions:
Assume that behavior changes are guided by conscious motivation
Ignore the fact that behavior changes occur automatically aren’t subject to awareness
Def: Self Determination Theory (SDT)
builds on the idea that ppl are actively motivated to pursue their goals
2 components as fundamental to behavior change:
Autonomous motivation (intrinsic motivation/self motivation)
Perceived competence
Def: Implementation intentions
integrate conscious processing with automatic behavioral enactment
Control of goal-directed responses can be delegated to situational cues
Helps predict behavior when added to attitude models
Explain the connection between your health behavior changes & your brain
Health behavior changes in response to persuasive messages can occur outside of awareness
Changes can be reflected in patterns of brain activation
Medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)
Posterior cingulate cortex (pCC)
Def: Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT)
uses complementary methods to intervene in the modification of a target problem & its context.
Def: self-monitoring
understanding the dimensions of one’s poor health habit before change can begin.
Assesses the frequency of the target behavior & its consequences. First step in personal health change
Self-monitoring stages
Learning to discriminate against the target behavior.
Charting the behavior bc it helps in identifying the discriminative stimulus.
Stimulus-control interventions involves:
Ridding the environment of discriminative stimuli that can evoke the behavior that’s a problem.
Creating new discriminative stimuli, signaling that a new response will be reinforced.
CBT emphasizes _________.
self-control
With CBT, ppl learn to control their _________ & ___________ of target behavior with CBT.
antecedents, consequences
Def: cognitive restructuring
trains ppl to recognize & modify their internal monologues to promote health behavior change.
Def: self-reinforcement
systematically rewarding oneself to increase or decrease the occurrence of a target behavior.
Def: contingency contracting
form of self-punishment that is effective in behavior modification
Def: behavioral assignments
home practice activities that support the goals of a therapeutic intervention
Advantages of behavioral assignments:
Client becomes involved in the treatment process
Client produces useful analysis in planning further interventions.
Client becomes committed to the treatment process
Responsibility for behavior is slowly shifted to the client.
Hwk assignments increase the clients sense of self-control
Why is classical conditioning important in health psych?
paring of an unconditioned reflex with a new stimulus.
Produces a conditioned reflex
Heavily depends on one’s willing participation and a client’s participation in therapy.
Why is operant conditioning beneficial for health psych?
Operant conditioning: pairs a voluntary behavior with systemic consequences.
Reinforcement & its schedule are important.
Def: modeling (therapy)
learning that occurs from witnessing another person perform a behavior
Def: social skills training/Assertiveness training
ppl are trained in methods that help them deal effectively with social anxiety.
Def: relaxation training
involves deep breathing & progressive muscle relaxation
Def: motivational interviewing (MI)
interviewer adopts a nonjudgmental, non confrontational, encouraging, & supportive style.
What is the big deal with Motivational Interviewing/MI?
To help clients express their positive and/or negative thoughts regarding the behavior in an atmosphere that is free of negative evaluation.
Def: abstinence violation effect
feeling of loss of control that results when a person has violated self imposed rules.
Possible reasons for relapse:
Vigilance fades
Negative effects
Should be integrated into treatment programs from the outset.
Depression
Anxiety
Under stress.
Techniques when dealing with someone who’s having urges of relapsing:
Asking ppl to identify the situations that might lead to relapse
Engaging participants in constructive self-talk
Def: lifestyle rebalancing
promotes a healthy lifestyle & reduces the likelihood of relapse.
Pros of CBT
Carefully selected set of techniques can deal with all aspects of an issue.
Therapeutic plans can be tailored to each person’s issues
Skills imparted by multimodal interventions help _________ several health ________ simultaneously.
modify, habits
Def: Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change
Analyzes the stages & processes ppl go thru in bringing a change in their behavior
Def: social engineering
modifies the environment in ways that affect ppl’s abilities to practice healthy behaviors.
Venues for Health-Habit Modification
Health practitioner’s office
Family
Self-help groups
Schools
Workplace interventions
Community based interventions
Mass media
Cellular phones & landlines
The internet
Younger, more affluent, ________-educated ppl with ______ levels of stress & high levels of support typically practice _________ health habits than those under lots of stress with little to no support.
better, low, better
Health habits start during ____________ but fade away during adolescence & ________ adulthood. But, this soon changes when they get older.
childhood, young
Family, friends, & workplace friends influence health related ___________
behaviors
Health habits are based on ______________
personal goals
Ppl who were deemed as ____________ as kids tend to have better health related biological profiles during adulthood.
intelligent
Poor health behaviors can feel pleasurable, ________, addictive, and resistant to change. And changing the behaviors can create psychological distress & could lead to ppl to respond ___________, distorting to risks of their health.
automatic, defensively
It’s better to change one health behavior/habit at a time instead of __________.
all at once
Health habits get progressively __________ over time; especially during times of stress.
unstable
Factors controlling a health behavior __________ change over the history of the behavior.
might
Factors controlling health behavior ______ change across one’s lifetime.
can
Def: Protection Motivation theory
examines how ppl appraise health threats & how they appraise their abilities to manage threats
Def: Theory of planned behavior
a theory that directly links health beliefs with our behavior.
A healthy behavior is the direct result of a behavioral intention
Intentions are made up of:
Our attitudes toward the specific action
Subjective norms regarding the action.
Perceived behavioral control
Def: Perceived behavioral control
the perception that one can perform the action & that the action will have the intended effect. Similar to self-efficacy
Def: Theory of planned behavior
Predicts a broad array of health behaviors, & change in health behaviors. The componetns predict behaviors as risky intercours among straights, consumption of soft drinks, & communications targeted to particular parts of the model like social norms
Attitude change techniques are based on the idea that behavior change occurs _________ and is not subject to awareness.
automatically
Def: Self-regulation
refers to the fact that ppl control their own actions, emotions, & thoughts.
A lot of this is automatic but still conscious
Def: Self-affirmation
occurs when ppl reflect upon their important values, personal qualities, or social relationships
Negative self reward involves removing an _________ factor from one’s environment after successful self _________ for the target behavior.
aversive, reward
