Intro Flashcards
What historical views exist in terms of disease?
- The idea of disease as coming from evil spirits.
What beliefs did the Ancient Greeks have in terms of disease?
- They believed that the mind were connected to humours; the 4 humours must be balanced in order for the body to be healthy. (Black bile, phlegm, yellow bile, blood).
- This belief lasted until the Scientific Revolution.
What is the mind-body dualism belief?
- Physicians treat the body while Theologists tend to the mind.
- Mental phenomena as non-physical as the mind and the body are separate. - Looks at the idea of multiple souls.
What is the Biomedial model?
- The biomedical model focuses purely on biological factors (e.g. pathology, physiology and biochemistry) - 4 core elements.
- Around since mid 19th century.
- Predominant model in diagnosing disease.
What is the Biopsychosocial model?
- The idea that stress can cause illness and stress related illnesses.
- Includes biological and psychological factors.
What health issues can arise as a result of stress?
- Heart disease, cancer, obesity, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, gastrointestinal problems, asthma.
Why is everyday stressors important?
- While they can build up, what matters is how we deal with them.
- Evidence: high stress to daily life rather than significant life events has a higher mortality rate.
Why can stress be good?
- In terms of sports, it can be good - improves performance (arousal levels).
What is resilience and why is it useful?
- Resilience is useful in helping people cope with daily hassles; if you’re more resilient, you’re better able to cope with problems that happen on the daily.
When can hassles be detrimental?
- When one views them negatively e.g. stage fright.
What is illness?
- Anything that restricts us physically or mentally.
What is health?
- Health is experiencing a general sense of well-being, alongside an absence of symptoms of disease.
In terms of social representations of health, what is important to consider?
- Having strong reserve-resources, strong family and quick recovery.
What is health behaviour defined as?
- What a person does in terms of exercise, looking after oneself, physical fitness, and vitality.
- The idea of feeling fit and energetic and maintaining good relationships.
- Varies depending on age. `
What is psychosocial well-being defined as?
- Having a sense of harmony and pride in oneself and one’s relationship with others - looks at the mental side of health.
How does one describe healthy functioning?
- The ability to perform duties without restriction and the ability to fulfil social roles and relationships.
- Unhealthy functioning can cause physical and mental worsening.
What is the definition of health?
What is wrong with this definition?
- A state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and… not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. - WHO, 1947.
- It’s extreme; could be a working definition but is not complete.
What is health psychology?
- The study of health, illness and healthcare practices in a professional or personal manner.
What are the goals of health psychology?
- The promotion and maintenance of health, improving healthcare systems and health policy and the prevention and treatment of illness, alongside the causes of illness-risk factors.
- Looking at how to protect oneself against illness.
What influential factors exist in determining health?
- Age, gender, where one lives, what money one earns, what one eats, drug use.
What are distal influences?
- Distal influences are further away; look at socioeconomic status, age/gender and personality.
What are proximal influences?
- They’re closer to oneself; look at attitudes, beliefs, perceptions and motives.
How does social class mediate the effects of health and illness?
- There are differing attitudes between upper, lower and working class etc.
- Differences in terms of political attitudes; poverty.
- Differing attitudes of classes in terms of exercise and doctor visits; who can afford to visit the doctors more?
- Richer social classes are more likely to be able to protect their health better.
What gender perceptions exist in mediating health? Consider smoking.
- In the 50s women who smoked on screen were seen as cool, where as now smoking is no longer cool.
What mediating relationships exist in terms of age?
- Age can cause variation in the beliefs that one holds.
- Beliefs have changed in terms of drug use and ecstasy etc - more accepted amongst this age group. In the 60s there were arguments; attitudes were changing - youth then thought dope would lead to world peace etc.
What are Eysenck’s (1970) 3 factors of personality?
- Introversion - Extraversion,
- Psychoticism - Normality.
- Neuroticism - Stability.
What are McCrae and Costa’s (1990) 5 factors of personality? (‘Big Five’)
- Neuroticism - extraversion.
- Openness.
- Agreeableness.
- Conscientiousness.
What is the openness and healthy diet idea?
- Openness predicted healthy practices and a willingness to try novel situations and experience new food tastes.
What idea is associated with conscientiousness?
- Positive health behaviour.
Why is neuroticism associated with negative health behaviour and high use of healthcare?
- Neuroticism is associated with pickiness and fussiness.
- They use more healthcare because they pay more attention to bodily sensations and label them as ‘symptoms.’
- But there’s no consistent evidence of health enhancing or health damaging increase in neurotics.
What is the locus of control theory?
- The idea of externality and internality as reason.
What is the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control and who invented it?
- Wallson et al, 1978.
- Locus of control is specific to health beliefs.
What is the interal aspect of LOC?
- Determine your own health; outcome responsibility of oneself.
- Health-protective behaviour.
What is the external aspect of LOC?
- Health as matter of luck/fate.
Who are the powerful others in LOC?
- Doctors/Surgeons etc.
What did Normal et all (1998) find in terms of the Health Locus of Control in terms of it being a health predictor?
- It was a weak predictor.
How might social norms impact on health?
- Environmental influences such as culture, society, family, subculture, peer group and the media can influence behaviour.
- We give more attention to the beliefs of our peers than we do to our parents.
- Learn from own experiences but also ‘vicariously.’
What are the 3 components of attitude-objects?
- Thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
- Cognitive - beliefs about attitude-object - smoking = weak/dangerous.
- Emotions - feelings towards attitude-object - smoking = disgusting/pleasurable.
- Behaviour - intended towards attitude-object - I won’t smoke.
What is risk perception?
- How likely we think that we are to experience illness.
- We often compare ourselves to others; ‘I don’t smoke as much as as my friend so I’ll be fine’ etc.
What is unrealistic optimism?
- There are 4 factors involves (Weinstein, 1987).
- Lack of Personal Experience with Behaviour/Problem.
- Belief that an action can prevent.
- Belief that if a problem hasn’t occurred, it won’t in the future.
- Belief that the problem is uncommon.
What motivates us to act in a healthy manner?
- Attractiveness, relationships, children, marriage (social roles)?
How did Bandura (1986) define self-efficacy?
- ‘Belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the sources of action requires to manage prospective situations.’
What is self-efficacy?
- Our belief in our abilities to successfully execute required behaviour to produce outcome confidence.
What psychosocial factors are involved in health behaviour?
- Demographic factors.
- Personality.
- Social norms.
- Attitudes.
- Risk perceptions and unrealistic optimism.
- Goals and motivation.
- Self-efficacy.
What are the Continuum Models of Health Behaviour?
- Health Belief Models (HBM).
- Protection Motivation Theory (PMT).
- Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA).
- Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB).
- Implementation Intentions.
Why are models important?
- Models are rudimentary and provide a theoretical framework but aren’t detailed enough to fully explain observations.
- Help to generate research, predict behaviour and explain data and solve problems.
What is the Health Belief Model (HBM) (Becker, 1974)?
- Cognitive model.
- Influence of demographic factors.
- E.G. social class, gender, age…
What are the processes involved in HBM?
- Demographic factors.
- Perceived barriers
Perceived Benefits - Perceived severity
Perceived susceptibility.
= Likelihood of behaviour.
What are the internal and external beliefs of HBM?
- Internal: symptoms of illness.
- External: TV programme.
What are the limitations of the HBM model?
- Problems with applications & content.
- Not all versions include the same things.
- Some components are studied independently.
- It’s a static model. - Doesn’t allow for dynamic process of change in beliefs.
- Only features 4 variables.
What is the Protection Motivation Theory Model (PMT) (Rogers, 1975. 1983. 1985)?
- Expanded from the HBM.
- Health behaviour is a result of 4 components; severity, susceptibility, response effectiveness and self-efficacy. Fear was added later.
- Predict behaviour intention which precedes behaviour.
What do severity, susceptibility and fear work together to create?
- Threat appraisal.
What is response effectiveness? How does this relate to self-efficacy?
- What is intended to be successful.
- Self-efficacy relates to the ability to carry out intention.
= Coping appraisal (this can be adaptive/maladaptive).
What is the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Azjen & Fishbein, 1970)?
- It’s a social cognition model (from SLT - Bandura).
- Assumes social perceptions, expectation and beliefs = determines behaviour.
- Behave in goal directed manner - outcomes expectancies weighed up rationally before deciding whether to engage in behaviour.
- Behaviour determined by intention.
What are the features of the PMT model?
- Fear, Self-Efficacy, Response Effectiveness, Susceptibility, Severity.
- Behaviour Intentions.
= Behaviour.
What are features of the TRA model?
- Demographic/Personality/Past Experiences.
- Normative Beliefs + Motivation to Comply = Subjective Norm.
- Outcome Expectancies + Outcome Value = Attitude toward behaviour.
- Behaviour Intention.
= Behaviour.
Give an example of the TRA.
- Attitude = smoking is dangerous.
- Stopping = reduce chance of cancer (outcome expectancies).
- Health is important = sports (outcome value).
- Sports friends don’t smoke; tell me to stop (normative beliefs) + want to be fit (motivation to comply).
What are limitations of TRA?
- Originally developed: applications to volitional behaviour (under person’s control). - Much isn’t volitional (smoking).
- Doesn’t acknowledge transaction between predictor variables (attitudes and subjective norms) + outcomes of intention or behaviour.
- Need longitudinal studies = makes poss. to disentangle cause + affect relationships.
What is the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)? (Azjen, 1985, 1991).
- Social cognition model.
- Added Perceived Behaviour Control (PBC).
- PBC = direct influence on behaviour intention, and indirect influence on behaviour.
- Influenced by past behaviour and successes/failures. - it’s similar to self-efficacy.
What are the features of TPB?
- Demographics/Personality/Past Experiences.
- Perceived Internal/External Control Factors = Perceived Behaviour Control.
- Normative Beliefs + Motivation to Comply = Subjective Norm.
- Outcome Expectancies + Outcome Values = Attitude Toward Behaviour.
- Behaviour Intention.
= Behaviour.
What are the internal and external elements of control in the TPB model?
- Internal = skills/abilities/info - contribute to individual freedom and control.
- External = obstacles/opportunities.
What are the limitations of the TPB model?
- Lower than prediction of intention - need to identify further variables that move individual from intention to action.
- Claims to be ‘sufficient’ but several have challenged - other factors have had an impact.
- ‘Moral norms’ - some behaviours may be motivated by these - esp. those directly involving others e.g. condom use.
- Anticipatory Regret.
- Self-Identity.
- Implementation Intention.
What are Implementation Intentions (Gollwitzer, 1993, 1999)?
- Part of the process involved in turning intention into action - filling intention-behaviour gap - limitation in behaviour prediction
- Increases commitment.
- If goals are valued and self-efficacy is high, there should be good outcomes.
- Make plans to follow on a regular basis - implementation of ideas promoting change.
What are the Stage Models of Health Behaviour?
- Transtheoretical.
- Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPA).
- Health Action Process Approach (HAPA).
What is the Transtheoretical model of health behaviour? (Weinstein, 1988).
- 4 properties.
- Classification system to define stages = theoretical constructs; prototype for each but few will perfectly match ideal.
- Ordering of stages = must through all to reach point of action or maintenance. Progression is neither inevitable or irreversible.
- Common barriers to change facing people within same stage - helpful; encourages progression through stages if people at one stage have to address similar issues.
- Diff. barriers to change facing people in diff. stages. = factors producing movement to next stage same regardless of stage = same intervention used for all; stages = redundant. Ample evidence showing diff. barriers exist in diff. stages.
What is the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) (Prochaska and DiClemente, 1986)?
- Stages of change developed form quitters of smoking.
- Stages people move through when quitting.
- Different processes involved at each stage.
- Looked at attitudes throughout; motivation and why?
What are the features of the TTM?
- Precontemplation.
- Contemplation.
- Preperation.
- Action.
- Relapse.
- Maintenance.
- Relapse.
- Termination (6 months?)
What are the features of the Precaution Adoption Process Model (PAPM) (Weinstein + Sandman, 1992).
- Unaware of issue.
- Unengaged.
- Considering whether to act.
- Deciding not to act.
- Deciding to act.
- Action.
- Maintenance.
What is the Health Access Process Approach (HAPA) (Schwarzer, 1992)?
- Distinguish the motivational and volitional phases - the 2 stages; individual first decides to act and then makes plans to begin maintaining behaviours.
- Motivation phase looks at self-efficacy, outcome expectancies and risk perceptions.
What are the three major predictions of health behaviour intentions? (HAPA model)
- Self-efficacy.
- Outcome expectancies.
- Risk perception.
= Leads to goals.
HAPA - what does the volition phase subdivide into?
- Planning phase.
- Action phase.
- Maintenance phase.
- Self-efficacy is crucial in both.
