Unit 4 - Flashcards
When and why might we want people to change their health-related behaviour?
Prevent disease Alter current patterns of disease Reduce health inequalities Improve health and well-being Improve long-term health outcomes
Give three examples of health-related behaviours
Health Protective (e.g. tooth brushing) Health Enhancing (e.g. exercise) Avoidance of Health-harming (e.g. not smoking / drinking)
What factors influence our behaviour?
Genetics Individual thoughts and feelings The physical environment - where you are in the world - weather - culture Social interaction - influence of others - friends - family - peers Social identity - how you see or consider yourself within a context The macro-social environment - bigger picture - politics - economic climate - wars
What is a key determinant of recovery from illness and maintenance of health?
Behaviour
What is health psychology?
Study of beliefs, attitudes and psychology processes which can predict health-related behaviour
What four aspects make up understanding health and illness?
Self-regulatory model
Disease prototypes
Attribution theory
Health locus of control
What three aspects make up social cognition models?
What is an illness perception theory?
What is the self-regulatory model?
The way that people make sense of, and respond to, an illness
AKA the ‘common sense model’
What are the three inter-related stages of the self-regulatory model?
.1. Cognitive representation (understand illness)
- representation of health threat
- emotional response
2. Action planning or coping (take an action)
3. Appraisal (evaluate effectiveness)
Describe the self-regulatory model
Dynamic interaction between stages based on changes of beliefs and behaviour patterns over time e.g. symptoms improving, changing or getting worse
Model allows for intellectual and emotional representation of an illness threat
What is an illness prototype?
Preconceived ideas that people have about symptoms associated with a common disease
- chest pain = MI
- blood in stools = bowel cancer
What is self-diagnosis?
When symptoms are experienced, prototypes are used as standards against which people compare their symptoms
Can influence care-seeking behaviour
What is attribution theory?
Suggests that a person’s decision about how to treat a health problem will be determined by their belief about what caused that problem
What are internal causes in attribution theory?
Controllable - related to their own behaviour
What are external causes in attribution theory?
Uncontrollable - fate
