Intro to Health Psychology Flashcards
Health psychology
Represents the educational, scientific, and professional contributions of Psychology to the promotion and maintenance of health, the prevention and treatment of illness, the identification of the causes and correlates of health, illness, and related dysfunction, the improvement of the health care system and health policy formation
Health psychology is considered an applied _____ psychology
Social
Noncommunicable diseases (NCD)
4 main types
- Cardiovascular diseases
- Cancer
- Chronic respiratory diseases (COPD)
- diabetes
What plays a part in development of NCDs
Lifestyle and health behaviours
Modifiable risk factors for NCDs
- Smoking
- Physical inactivity
- Unhealthy diet
- Alcohol
Why is it hard to change health behaviours?
- Some like eating and exercise become habits if learned young, set it by age 11 or 12
- Often come with immediate costs and long term benefits, people like to maximise immediate rewards and ignore long term costs
- Some health behaviours are reinforced by social environment and peers
Theory of planned behaviour
- Azjen (1991)
- Based on the assumption that people decide on intentions prior to taking action and that intentions are best predictors of behaviour
Intention is predicted by…
- Attitude
- Subjective norms (whether those around us would like us to engage in behaviour)
- Perceived behavioural control (how easy or difficult to engage in the behaviour)
Norman and Conner (2006)
Found that attitude, self-efficacy and perceived control negatively predicted binge-drinking intentions, which predicted binge drinking behaviour one week later
Transtheoretical model
- Prochaska, DiClemente & Norcross (1992)
- Five changes to go through in order to change behaviour successfully
- Pre-contemplation
- Contemplation
- Preparation
- Action
- Maintenance
What must you have to move between stages of the transtheoretical model?
Self-efficacy and believe that positives of change outweigh the negatives
Implementation intentions
- Gollwitzer (1990)
- We fail to live up to our good intentions because we (a) forget to act, and (b) struggle to find time to act
What should we do to avoid failing to live up to our intentions
Form a plan regarding when and where they will engage
If-then rules
Differentiate between…
- Goal intention - ‘I intend to reach’
- Implementation intention ‘When y arises, I will perform response z’
(Gollwitzer, 2004)
What is binge drinking?
Having over 8 units in a sitting for men and over 6 units in a sitting for women
Reducing binge drinking
- Techniques which change normative beliefs…
- ‘You drink more than your peers’
- Should work because we are highly influenced by in-group norms, so if our peers don’t drink much we’ll adjust our behaviour to fit group norms
McAlaney & McMahon (2007)
- Survey of drinking behaviour and perceived drinking behaviour of others in three groups of increasing social distance
- 500 respondents from University of Paisley
- Majority of respondents overestimated alcohol consumption in other students, and these misperceptions increased as the social distance increased
Neighbors, Larimer & Lewis (2004)
- College students given feedback on how much they drank, how much they thought other students drank and how much others actually drank
- Compared to control, participants showed significant reductions in binge-drinking behaviour, an effect that was maintained at 3-month and 6-month follow ups
What is procrastination?
Common, self-regulatory problem involving the unnecessary and voluntary delay of important intended tasks despite recognition that this delay may have negative consequences
Procrastination as a problem
- Affects 15-20% of adults
- 80-95% of university students engage in procrastination, 50% consistently (Steel, 2007)
How does procrastination affect health?
- Direct route: stress -> immune system
- Indirect route: health behaviours
- Health behaviours may work in conjunction with or independent of stress to predict illness
Procrastination is linked to…
- Delay in making medical appointments
- Practicing fewer health promoting and protective behaviours
- Higher stress
- Greater number of health problems
The big 5
- Openness
- Conscientious
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism
Procrastination and the big 5
- C negatively related to procrastination
- N positively related to procrastination
Dewitte & Schouwenberg (2002)
Procrastinators sensitive to positive social temptations
Self compassion - Neff (2003)
Taking a kind and understanding stance toward oneself in instances of pain or failure rather than being harshly self-critical
Self compassion parts
- Self-kindness - instead of self-critical reactions
- Common humanity - realising you are not alone, others have gone through similar challenges
- Mindfullness - keeping a balanced view of one’s feelings rather than indulging negative ones
Protection-motivation theory
- Rogers (1983)
- When we encounter a potential threat to our health, we engage in two processes: threat appraisal and coping appraisal
Threat appraisal
Calculation about severity of threat, and one’s personal susceptibility to that threat
Coping appraisal
Evaluating the effectiveness of a corrective course of action and considering one’s personal self-efficacy regarding the intervention
