Lecture 5 Flashcards
Health Behaviours
Role of Behaviour in health
- Peoples health habits influence their likelihood of developing chronic and fatal diseases (ex. Heart disease, cancer, HIV/AIDS)
- Illness and early death can be substantially reduced if people would adopt lifestyles that promote wellness (ex. Eating healthy, exercising, not smoking)
define Health behaviours
activities that people perform to maintain or improve health (or prevent disease and illness)
regardless of health status or whether the activity actually improves health
well behaviour
any activity ppl undertake to maintain or improve current good health and avoid illness
symptom-based behaviour
any activity ill people undertake to determine the problem and find a remedy
sick-role behaviour
any activity people undertake to treat or adjust to a health problem
List off examples of health compromising behaviours
Physical inactivity
Poor diet
Smoking
Alcohol consumption
Unprotected sex
Excessive sun exposure
primary prevention
Actions taken to avoid disease or injury or prevent onset of illness (ex. Exercise, wearing a seatbelt, flossing, vaccination)
Health belief model
The likelihood that a person will perform some health behaviour depends on the outcome of 2 assessments the person makes:
1. Perceived threat: the threat associated with a health problem
- Seriousness
- Vulnerability
- Cues to action/reminders
2. Perceived benefits and barriers: Pros and cons of taking action
- Belief that benefits outweigh the costs
Cognitive Adaptation Theory
Those who do not fully accept their physiological risk may have better mental health and be better able to cope with the risk
Theory of planned behaviour
Whether or not people will do the Health behaviour is influenced by 3 things:
1. Attitude regarding the behaviour - judgment of whether the behaviour is good or bad
2. Subjective norm: appropriateness or acceptability of behaviour (based on social norms)
3. Perceived behavioural control: expectation of success
Theory of planned behaviour applied to the case of HPV vaccine
- Attitude: belief that HPV vaccine is safe and HPV is severe
- Subjective norm: parents and friends thought they should
- Perceived control: belief that vaccine is effective against cervical cancer
Transtheoretical Model for implementing a new health behaviour (5 steps)
Recognizes that it may not be possible to change all at once so follows 5 steps:
1. Precontemplation: not considering changing
2. Contemplation: aware of need to change, contemplating
3. Preparation: ready to change, plan to implement change soon
4. Action: starts successfully making changes to behaviour
5. Maintenance: work to maintain new behaviour
Ways to help people advance through the stages of the transtheoretical model
- Describe in detail how a person would carry out the behaviour change
- Match strategies to the persons’ current needs to promote advancement to the next stage
- Plan for problems that may arise when implementing the change
Motivated reasoning
- emotionally-biased reasoning intended to produce justifications or make decision that are most desired rather than those that reflect the evidence
- People may search for reasons to accept supportive information and discount disconfirming info
Conflict theory
When people are faced w health related decisions, they experience stress due to conflict over what to do
- people deal with this conflict differently depending on their evaluations of risk, hope and adequate time
4 emotional drivers found to be the most effective levers for behaviour change:
- Disgust - desire to avoid and remove contamination
- Nurture - desire for a happy, thriving child
- Status - desire to have greater access to resources than others
- Affiliation - desire to fit in
empathy and disease threat
Higher the empathetic responding = higher recommended precautions
Social benefits of empathy
- Reduces prejudice
- Reduces stereotype expression
- Reduces interpersonal aggression
- Mitigates the negative social consequences of pandemics (ex. Racism, discrimination, “othering”)
Herd Immunity
The more people that are immunized for a virus, the more that chains of infection are disrupted, protecting the population at large
antisocial traits in pandemic
Lower lvls of empathy and higher lvls of callousness deceitfulness, and risk taking are associated w lower compliance with contaminant measures (social distancing, mask-wearing, handwashing)
pattern of men and masks
Men were less likely to resort intentions to wear face masks. They were more likely to label this practice as: shameful, not cool, sign of weakness and a stigma
Empathetic advertising of mask wearing
Messages focusing on “your community” were the most effective in motivating mask wearing behaviour
factors associated w anti-vax attitudes
individualism, over-confidence, narcisissm
factors in vaccine hesitancy and resistance
Threat, fear, and disgust
Lack of trust
Conspiracy theories
Reactance
Narcissism, low empathy
Dunning-Kruger Effect
- A cognitive bias by whereby ppl with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain
- Overconfidence is associated w increased support of non-expert views in policy decisions, and anti-vax ideas
solution to vaccine hesitancy
Information on disease threat rather than information debunking vaccine myths works best to change attitudes about vaccines
Backfire effect
A cognitive bias that causes people who encounter evidence that challenges their beliefs to reject that evidence and strengthen their support of their original stance
