Health Behaviors Flashcards
What are health behaviors?
They are taken to enhance or maintain health. Ex: eating breakfast every day is a predictor of longterm health
Health Promotion
A perspective that approaches good health and well-being from both a personal and collective vantage point
What influences health behaviors?
Age, cultural/personal values, locus of control, social influence (inspiration, bullying, family members’ influence), perceived symptoms, access, knowledge and education,
Who are the target populations of health behavior promotional messages?
Children and adolescents (impressionable), at-risk populations, and adults (to provide best chances of longevity)
Health psychologists’ methods to promote attitude change
Education, fear appeals, positive or negative framing
Describe the considerations required when utilizing negative approaches to persuasion
Persuasive messages that use negativity (“don’t be like this”) must evoke just enough fear; not so much or so little that it is unrealistic or commical. Also, it is critical for a solution to the presented problem to be presented, so that people know what they are being persuaded to do.
Classical conditioning
Pairing a desired behavior with an initially neutral stimulus repeatedly so that the stimulus eventually triggers the behavior
Aversive conditioning
Ex of classical conditioning. Association of an undesirable health behavior with an unpleasant stimuli. Often proposed by health psychologists to help end a client’s undesirable behavior
Operant conditioning
Promoting a behavior with rewards or discouraging a behavior with punishment
Observational learning
Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment. Mode of learning that results from watching
Modeling and Mimcking
Basis of observational learning. The person demonstrating a behavior is modeling and the person learning/copying is mimicking
Are violent video games unhealthy?
Evidence shows that they promote aggression and violence, but only in the short-term (1-2 hours after playing).
U-shaped curve of health behaviors vs. age
A person practices the most health behaviors when young and when old. They practice the least when in their middle stage of life
Self-Determination Theory
Three factors lead to motivation for behavior-change: self-autonomy, competence, and relatedness
Health-Belief Model
One’s perceived risk surrounding their current unhealthy behavior and the perceived benefits of the possible behavior change drive their motivation to make said behavior change
Theory of Planned Behavior
States that an individual makes a plan (or formulates an intention) based on three factors: attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control
Intention-Implementation Model
Consists of two broad phases: motivational and volitional; or four more specific steps:
- Goal intention (deliberation)
- Implementation intention (action planning)
- Entrepreneurial action (action)
- Evaluation
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Uses principles from learning theories to modify beliefs and behaviors of undesirable health habits
Self-monitoring
Starts with identifying target behavior, then requires journaling/noting what specific stimuli trigger said behavior