Intro to Behaviour, Health & Development Flashcards
3 components of Lay Theories of Health & Illness
Feeling - a general sense of wellbeing
Symptom orientation - The absence of symptoms of disease
Performance -The things that a person who is physically fit is about to do
Determinants of health and their contribution to premature death
Genetic predisposition - 30%
Social circumstances - 15%
Environmental exposure - 5%
Health care - 10%
Behaviour patterns - 40%
Biomedical model
Health professions are organised around a disease model. Effort goes into identification & diagnosis of acute & chronic medical conditions. It doesn’t address clinical conditions that may have multiple behavioural, social and environmental causes.
Psychosomatic medicine
Mind and body are involved in illness. Investigation between physiological and psychological factors involved.
Biopsychosocial lifespan model components
Psychological
Biological
Social
contribute to health & wellness.
Psychological component: Cognition
Thoughts, beliefs and attitudes
Health risk appraisal (how worried are you about health issues)
Self efficacy (self belief)
Psychological component: Behaviour
Adoption and maintenance of health behaviours
Operant conditioning - behaviours that are reinforcing are more likely to be repeated
Albert Bandura - Social learning theory -> Emphasised modeling, cognitive process
Psychological component: Emotion
Emotional regulation, mood, affect
Emotional appraisal
Emotional disclosure
Biopsychosocial model and Covid-19: Biological
Symptoms and illness, infection spread, underlying medical conditions, immune response, new variants
Biopsychosocial model and Covid-19: Social
Public health measures, vaccine rollout, working in essential services, access to health care, scale of outbreak, socioeconomic factors, ethnic minority
Biopsychosocial model and Covid-19: Pyschological
Cognitive - Health risk perception, vaccine hesitancy
Behavioural, health risk & protective behaviours
Emotional - responding to threats with anger, disbelief
Biopsychosocial model and Covid-19: Lifespan
Older age increased risk, different age groups susceptible to different variants, children have milder symptoms and less infection risk, increased resistance to behaviour change
Life course health & development model shows
Evidence that early experiences have long term consequence for health
Health is a consequence of multiple factors operating in biopsychosocial contexts
The scientific method
Identify a research method
Propose a hypothesis
Choose a research method/design
Collect data
Draw conclusions
Key features of good research
A theoretical framework
A standardised procedure
Generalisability
Objective measurement
Generalisability
Definition: Extent to which study findings apply to broader populations or different contexts.
Key Concept: Ensures relevance and usefulness beyond the immediate study sample.
Importance: Critical for validating research outcomes in diverse settings.
Relability
Definition: Consistency of a measure or test over time.
Key Concept: A reliable measure yields the same results under consistent conditions.
Importance: Ensures that results are repeatable and dependable.
Validity
Definition: Accuracy of a measure or test in assessing what it is intended to measure.
Key Concept: A valid measure truly reflects the concept it aims to measure.
Importance: Ensures that results are meaningful and accurately represent the phenomenon being studied.
Key feature of experimental researches
Manipulation of independent variable
Random assignment of participants to conditions
Experiment designs: Pros and cons
Pros - can make causal claims, high internal validity
Limitations - random assignment sometimes impossible, sometimes unethical, can be low external validity
Internal validity
Shows whether a study accurately measures a causal relationship
External validity
Focuses on whether the findings can be applied to a broader population
Correlational research designs
Correlation research examines the degree to which two variables are related. A correlation is when changes in one variable are accompanied by changes in another variable
Correlational design pros and cons
Pros: Help us predict behaviours/outcomes
Could suggest a potential cause and effect relationship
Can allow researchers to examine relationships among variables that cannot be investigated by experimental research.
Reveals naturally occurring relationships
Cons: Cannot infer cause and effect and why
Descriptive/observational research methods
Observing and describing subjects behaviours, beliefs, health and abilities as they naturally occur
e.g Surveys & interviews, naturalistic and laboratory observations, clinical case study, biological & neurobiological techniques
Naturalistic observations
Observe behaviour in its natural setting, attempt to avoid influencing or controlling it.
Pros and cons of naturalistic
Pros - High external validity, collect realistic picture, generate new ideas
Cons - Must wait for behaviour to occur naturally, usually small scale, may not be representative, low internal validity, cause and effect difficult to establish
Laboratory/clinic observation Pros/cons
Strengths - better control of potential confounds in environment, specialised equipment for precise measurement, can find associations
Cons - surroundings (lab clinic) may affect results, difficult to infer cause and effect
Case studies
Observe one or a very few subjects in great depth, usually over a long period of time
Case studies pros and cons
Pros - only method appropriate for very unusual case, provide insight for future research
Cons - problems with generalising the results - anecdotal, difficult to infer cause and effect
Surveys and interviews
Self/parent/teacher alternative report data from groups of people
Surveys and interview Pros/cons
Pros - can collect wide range of info that researches cannot observe e.g attitudes, beliefs, behaviours
Cons - subjects may forget or lack insight, multiple informants or methods often used to combat this, essential that sample is representative of population
Types of human developmental study designs
Longitudinal and cross-sectional
Longitudinal design
Data collected on the same group over two or more time points
Longitudinal design pros and cons
Pros - can examine change over time, can examine associations between early experiences and later behaviour/development
Cons - time, expense, attrition
Cross-sectional study
Compare people of different ages at one time point
Cross-sectional study- Pros/cons
Pros - quick & inexpensive to carry out
Limitations - cannot detect changes within an individual, correlations hard to interpret.
Common issues in research
Bias - through subject expectancies, experimenter expectancies
Sampling bias - is the sample representative?
Dealing with bias
Double blind studies
Experimenter bias also minimised through standardised procedures, objective measurements
Sampling biased can be minimised by random assignment, matched control group
Confounding variables
Definition: Variables that influence both the dependent and independent variables, potentially leading to erroneous conclusions.
Key Concept: They can distort the apparent relationship between variables in a study.
Importance: Identifying and controlling for confounders is crucial for ensuring the validity of research findings.
Example: In a study on the effect of exercise on weight loss, diet could be a confounding variable, as it influences both exercise habits and weight loss.
Te Ara Tika components
Tika - research design - validity, centering
Whakapapa - relationships
Manaakitanga - cultural & social responsibility
Mana - Justice & Equity
Correlation coefficient
The strength of the relationship between two variables is described by the correlation coefficient (r)
r=1 -strong positive correlation
r = 0 - no correlation
r=-1 - strong negative correlation
Correlation research pros and cons
Pros - high external validity, often fast and cost effective, establishes direction and strength of relationship, allows for examination of relationships
Cons - low internal validity, lack of control over variable, can’t predict why an association or relationship exists
Research ethics that must be approved by an ethic commitee
Informed consent, confidentiality, harm minimization and deception & debriefing.
Informed consent
Inform potential participants of all aspects or research
What participation involves
Benefits/risks of participation
Where to get support
Right to withdrawal
Decision is voluntary
Maintaining participant confidentiality
Do not disclose participants contact details or divulge details of data that could make participants identifiable, keep data secure
Take steps to minimise harm to participants
The rights, safety & wellbeing of participants are most important, should not be significant advantages or disadvantages of taking part or not
The use of deception and debriefing
Withhold true purpose of the study when going through informed consent. Debrief afterwards to explain true purpose & why deception was necessary. Provide support
Children as participants
They are vulnerable, not allowed to give informed consent, only from parental consent or consent from guardian and child if possible
