Health beliefs and intro lecture

Question 1

What is the difference between physiological and psychological stress?

Answer 1

Question 2

What is cognitive dissonance?

Answer 2

Produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance. For example, when people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition), they are in a state of cognitive dissonance

Question 3

What is health behaviour?

Answer 3

Question 4

What does a sense of personal control mean for a person?

Answer 4

They are less likely to experience stress.

Question 5

What does locus of control refer to?
Is one better than the other?

Answer 5

You can have both an internal and external locus of control occurring at the same time.

• Pessimistic people have poorer health outcomes and this can be due to a poor locus of control.
• Those with a sense of personal control will suffer less depression when ill.

Question 6

What is self-efficacy?

Answer 6

Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997). Self-efficacy reflects confidence in the ability to exert control over one’s own motivation, behavior, and social environment.

Question 7

What is catastrophising?
What situation is catastrophising common?

Answer 7

Question 8

What is the correlation between social support and health?

Answer 8