Psychological Influences on Health

Question 1

What were the leading causes of death in the US in 2000?

Answer 1

Tobacco use
Poor diet and physical inactivity
Alcohol consumption

Question 2

How can psychological factors influence health?

Answer 2

Indirectly: changing behaviours that affect health
Directly: change in hormones and/or heart rate

Question 3

What are healthy behaviours strongly associated with?

Answer 3

Raised BP 
Raised cholesterol 
CBD or cerbrovascualr disease 
Cancer 
Type 2 diabetes 
Obesity 
Respiratory disease

Question 4

Give an example of behaviours of individuals that could affect their health

Answer 4

Link between obese women and not using contraception, increasing their risk of STIs
Young people drinking and unintended pregnancies

Question 5

What are the top risk factors in Scotland?

Answer 5

Exceeding drinking guidelines
Smoking 
Not enough veg or fruit
High salt intake 
Not active enough 
Overweight 
Saturated fat, highly processed food - diabetes 

55% have 3 or more risk behaviours

Question 6

How can risky behaviours impact people?

Answer 6

Impact beyond health and impact on mental health, families and communities (especially alcohol related harm) and the economy through absenteeism.

Question 7

What are the two systems that influence behaviour?

Answer 7

Reflective system - behaviour as a result of our goals which reflects our values and where aware of what were doing
Automatic system - impulse

Question 8

What are choices we makes influenced by?

Answer 8

Social factors
Large scale social context (i.e. economy)
Physical environment - i.e. availability of cheap and unhealthy food or no cycling lanes less likely to cycle

Question 9

What are the 3 factors of the behaviours change theory?

Answer 9

Personal (beliefs, attitudes, knowledge)
Environment/social (culture, location, income)
Behavioural (habits)

Question 10

What are the 5 concepts of the Social Cognitive Theory that influence a an individuals behaviour?

Answer 10

Observation learning
Outcome expectations 
Self-efficacy 
Goal setting 
Self-regulation

Question 11

According to SCT, what factors can influence behaviour and why?

Answer 11

Personal: belief in the ability to change (self-efficacy), the outcomes of changed behaviour and how important these consequences are to them

Behaviour: how habitual or autonomic it is

Environment: facilitators like social supports, barriers or perceived barriers such as time or money

These all interact with each other

Question 12

Define self efficacy

Answer 12

Belief in the ability to change

Question 13

For info/knowledge to influence behaviour, what must it be?

Answer 13

Relevant to goals
Easily understood
Readily available at moment of decision or action

Question 14

What does self-efficacy underpin?

Answer 14

Goal setting
Effort investment
Persistence in face of barriers
Recovery from setbacks

Question 15

What is the use of the General Self-Efficacy Scale?

Answer 15

To assess optimistic self-beliefs to cope with a variety of difficult demands in life

Question 16

What is the choice architectures?

Answer 16

The environment in which an individual make choices. Changing the way options are presented or altering the social and physical environment can make it much more likely that a particular choice becomes the natural or default preference.

Individuals may often be unaware of the effect that changes in the choice architecture have on their individual choices and actions.

Question 17

What are nudges?

Answer 17

Prompt choices without getting people to consider their options consciously, and therefore do not include openly persuasive interventions such as media campaigns and the straightforward provision of information

Question 18

What are the behaviours change recommendations for NICE in 2007?

Answer 18

Take account of the circumstances in which people live, especially socioeconomic and cultural context

Build on people’s strengths and skills

Tailor interventions to tackle beliefs, attitudes, intentions and knowledge with the target behaviour

Question 19

What are the NICE key concepts when trying to influence an individuals behaviours?

Answer 19

• Outcome expectancies – provide knowledge about health consequences
• Personal relevance – emphasising personal importance of health behaviours
• Positive attitude – promoting positive feeling towards the outcomes of behaviour change
• Self-efficacy – enhancing their beliefs of ability to change
• Descriptive norms – promoting visibility of positive health behaviours
• Subjective norms – enhancing social approval for positive health behaviours
• Personal and moral norms – promote personal and moral commitments to behaviour change
• Intention formation and concrete plans – forms a plan and goals for change
• Behaviours contracts – sharing their plans and goals with others
• Relapse prevention – helping people develop skills to cope with difficult situation and conflicting goals

Question 20

What role does motivation play in health-related behaviour?

Answer 20

Motivation depends on seeing the value of change and having faith in your ability to manage the change