week 4 - personality Flashcards
what is the biomedical view of illness? How can this view be a problem?
physical illness has physcial causes = > requires physcial treatment
- incomplete science when illness cannot be located - we dont know if or if not is caused by a physcial cause
- even if we cant locate physcial symptom doesnt mean that its immediately explained by psychoogenic theoires
what are 2 determinants that influence our health indirectly?
personallity and beliefs
personality: somones cognitive, affective behavioural tendencies that are pretty much stable across diff. times and sitauations
beliefs: more suceptible to change than personality
out of the BIG 5 personalitys, which one is most important in health psychology? which one is associated with better health outcomes?
concientiousness
Out of the following, whcih is NOT associated with having high levels of concientiousness personality?
- reduced disease development
- better coping
- fewer symptoms
- increased longevity
- better interaction with health care professionals
better interaction with health care professions is NOT associated with conceientiousness personality
WHY is it that people with higher lvls of concientiousness have better health?
- no one answer
there are some potential explanations
1. may be more likely to enagge in healthy behaviours (restricting OH cosumption)
2. take advice to meet PA guidelines
3. choose to be in healthier relationship/environemtns (less likely to do unprotected sex)
what persoality trait that is NOT included in the BIG 5 is associated with good health?
- optimism
is the reason to why optimistic people having better health outcomes due to their positive thinking?
- it is NOT due to positive thinking
- indirect relationship to health - more optimistic people are more likely to set goals despite the circumstaces
- more likle to respond well to challenges (illness, stressful times)
give an exmaple with an optimisic person with cancer having better outcome than pessimistic person with cancer?
- optimistic person with cancer will have better health outcome - more likely to write in feelings into diary and then be able to show counceller/health professional of their feelings + takes notes durig consultation to ensure all the information is stored etc.
is personality (optimistic, concientiousness) a proximal or distil factor to ones health status?
- personality is more distil factor
- i.e. its not becuase someone is optimistic that leads to better heatlh outcomes - its the ACTIVITIES they are likely to engage in when they are optimistic that will lead to better health outcomes -> indirect effect to health
True or false: evidence shows that personality traits associated with ADVERSE health outcomes as well as POSITIVE health outcomes?
- FALSE: only consistant evidence with certain personality traits associated with GOOD/POSITIVE health outcomes
- no/little evidence showing personality associated withADVERSE outcomes
certain personality traits being associated with POSITIVE health outcomes and NOT NEGATIVE health outcomes - what type of approach is this?
salutogenesis approach
out of the following which is NOT a challenge faced when researching persoanlity and health?
- self report data
- direction of relationship
- dimensions of persoanltiy
- previous experiences with health
- psychological mechansims
- self report data - subject to all kinds of bias (social desirability)
- direction of relationship - i.e. is it because they are in good health that they are concientious or is it because they are concientious they have good health or is it both?
- dimensions of personality - big 5 personality is predominant but something might else might be superior to these 5 personality -> tf change the way in which we research
- psychological mechanisms OR health behaviour - whether psychological or health behaviour gives us diff health outcome
THESE ARE ALL PROBLEMS FACED WITH RESEARCHING PERSONALITY / HEALTH
- previous experiences IS NOT a problem when researching persoanlity and health
give an exmaple with placebo/antiplacbo effect of how powerful beliefs can be towards ones health?
- placebo - people get a postivie reaction with inert substance (sugar pill)
- half group get inert substance half get real substance
- inert group gets positive outcome - nacebo/antiplacebo - getting adverse effect from inert substance
- i.e. telling ppl inert substance (sugar pill) will give you nausea etc.. -> ppl experience adverse effects from it
EXAMPLE see slide 14
give an example of how beliefs can affects your health with medical students?
- mecical students - plague of medical student refers to the fact that medical students are likely to self disagnose themselves
- this doesnt lead to them actually doing anything about it (does not result in hypochondrical help seeking behaviour)
why is self efficacy an important factor to consider when researching someones health behaviours/outcome?
self efficacy explains why intentions -> behaviour
- self efficacay itself can have a proximal (direct) effect ti ones behaviour
- also has a more indirect (distil) effect to behaviour as well
i.e. SE -> goals (im going to go to gym 3 times week) -> behaviour
i.e. SE -> sociocultral factors -> behaviour
i.e. SE -> outcome expectations -> behaviour
outcome expectations (physcial): will i feel like crap after i work out or will i feel AWESOME and high in energy after i work out?
outcome expectations (social) : will i be more included in social groups if i do PA?
outcome expectations (self evaluative): how do i feel when i am overweight and going to gym that is filled with healthy fit ppl?
