Health Behaviour 1

Question 1

What are health related behaviours and give a few examples ?

Answer 1

Anything that may promote good health
Or lead to an illness
Eg smoking , drinking , drug use , exercising , safer sex behaviour

Question 2

What are the three theories that help us understand people’s health related behaviour

Answer 2

1) learning theories
2) social cognition models
3) integrative model - COM-B

Question 3

How can classical conditioning be used to treat alcohol misuse ?

Answer 3

Pair alcohol with unpleasant response

For example alcohol + medication which induces nausea as a result of medication

• alcohol becomes associated with alcohol

Question 4

How do we learn behaviours through operant conditioning ?

Answer 4

1) learning through reinforcement eg if wbehaviours are positively reinforced we are more likely to repeat that behaviour because we are rewarded , as oppose to punishment as this decreases likelihood of behaviour.

Question 5

How can operant conditioning be an explanation for health related behaviour?

Answer 5

U healthy behaviours eg smoking , eating unhealthily, drug taking is immediately rewarding = this behaviour is positively reinforced.

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Question 6

How can we use operant conditioning to treat health related behaviours ?

Answer 6

Financial incentives eg paying people to stop smoking which induced positive reinforcement of stopping smoking.

Question 7

What are a few limitations of conditioning theories ?

Answer 7

1) based on simple stimulus- response assosiations
2) no account of cognitive processes , memory , attitudes

3) no account of social context

Question 8

What does the social learning theory state ?

Answer 8

We learn behaviours through imitation and observation of a model within a social context

Question 9

What are a few principles of social learning theory ?

Answer 9

• we learn what behaviours are rewarded , how likely we can perform the behaviour from observing others - this increases liklihood of performing the behaviour.
• we are more likely to copy behaviour if the model is relatable to us ( eg same sex , age ) or have a high social status eg celeb
• behaviour is goal directed

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Question 10

How can we use the social learning theory to treat leant related behaviours?

Answer 10

• celebrities in health promotion campaigns

- Peer modelling / education ( eg safer sex) - encouraged peers to teach this.

Question 11

What does the cognitive dissonance theory state

Answer 11

Discomfort results when actions or events don’t match believes and in order to reduce discomfort we change beliefs or behaviour

( alien cult example)

Question 12

How can we use the cognitive dissonance theory in health promotion

Answer 12

Providing Heath information that is usually umpncomfortable which creates mental discomfort and can prompt change in behaviour EG ‘ smoking kills’ on cigarette boxes

Question 13

Social cognition model - theory of planned behaviour

Answer 13

• strongest predictor of behaviour is intention ( eg if we don’t intend to use a condom , we won’t use it)
• theory of planned behaviour intends to predict people’s intentions
• it takes into account 3 factors eg
  1) attitude toward behaviour ( how do they feel about using behaviour )
  2) subjective norms ( eg like social norms - what do people around us think about using condoms - do our friends use them)
  3) perceived control ( the idea of whether we can even carry out that behaviour eg is it possible to even use a condom - can we even bring this up with our partner , do we have access to it )

HOWEVER , sometimes having the intention may not lead to behaviour !

Question 14

What will make it more likely for intentions to actually lead to behaviour ?

Answer 14

IMPLEMENTATION INTENTIONS: what will I do when and where - MAKING CONCRETE PLANS eg when you set down goals about drinking

Question 15

Social cognition models - health belief model

Answer 15

A tool scientists use to try and predict health behaviours

• it is based on the theory that a persons willingness to change their health behaviours is primarily due to :
  1) perceived susceptibility : people will not change their behaviours unless they believe they are at risk
  2) perceived severity : people will change their health behaviours to avoid consequence depending on how serious they perceive the consequence to be
  3) perceived benefits : they will change their health related behaviours only if they feel like they will receive something in return
  4) perceived barriers : one of the main reasons people change their behaviours is because they think that doing so will be hard.
  5) cues to action : external events that prompt a desire to make a health change.