Chapter 6

Health and Behaviour

• Health behaviours are actions taken to improve or maintain health.
• They exist on a continuum, with some having both positive and negative impacts.

Health Belief Model

• Decisions about health behaviours are based on four interacting factors influencing perceptions of health threats.
• The four factors on making decisions are perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits and cues to action

Perceived Susceptibility

• The more susceptible one feels, the stronger the motivation to engage in health-promoting behaviours.

Perceived Severity

• This includes the potential for pain, disability, or death, and its impact on others.

Perceived Benefits vs. Barriers

• People weigh the pros and cons to determine if the benefits outweigh the barriers.

Cues to Action

• Advice from friends, social media, age, gender, and socioeconomic status all influence the likelihood of action.

Theory of Planned Behaviour

• It is the relationships among attitudes and behavior for predicting health behavior by measuring behavioural intention.

Behavioural Intention

• Behavioural intention is the decision to engage in or refrain from health-related behaviour, shaped by attitude, subjective norms and perceived control.

Attitude Toward the Behaviour

• The attitude toward behaviour is determined by the belief that engaging in the behaviour will lead to certain outcomes.

Subjective Norm

• Subjective norm reflects motivation to comply with others' views on the behaviour.
• Subjective norm is a person's perception of social pressure to perform or not perform a certain behavior.
• This perception is based on the beliefs and expectations of important others (e.g., family, friends, society).

Perceived Behavioural Control

• Perceived control refers to the expectation of success in performing the health behaviour.

The Transtheoretical Model

• Behaviour often changes systematically through distinct stages.

Precontemplation

• In precontemplation, individuals aren't seriously considering changing behaving and may not acknowledge the need for change.

Contemplation

• In contemplation, people acknowledge the existence of a problem and consider future change.

Preparation

• During preparation, people engage in thoughts and actions, making specific plans.

Action

• In action, people have changed the behaviour trying to sustain efforts.

Maintenance

• Maintenance is continuing to be successful in efforts to reach a final goal.

Prevention

• Primary prevention refers to actions taken to prevent disease or injury.
• Examples of primary prevention are wearing seatbelts and exercising.
• Secondary prevention involves actions to identify and treat illness early.
• An example of secondary preventions is regular exams for those with known high BP.
• Tertiary prevention involves actions to contain damage once a disease has progressed.
• Examples of tertiary prevention are radiation or chemo for cancer.

Family Behaviours

• Health habits are typically acquired from family, who model health behaviors.
• Children acquire expectancies about risky behaviours by observing family.

Health System Factors

• The modern healthcare system emphasizes prevention and defines health as thriving, not just the absence of disease.
• The ACA (Obamacare) decreased uninsured Americans and reduced insurance costs for those qualifying for subsidies.

Community Influences

• A community can promote or discourage healthy living.
• People are more likely to adopt health-enhancing behaviours when promoted by community organizations.

Community Health Education

• Health promotion has increased, with efforts focused on shaping public views on health issues through education.

Effectiveness of Health Education

• Education campaigns that merely inform people of the hazards of health-compromising behaviours are typically ineffective.
• Multifaceted community campaigns generally work better than 'single-shot' campaigns.

Message Framing

• An important factor in the effectiveness of health education is how information is worded or 'framed' in a relevant manner to the public.
• Health messages are framed in terms of benefits of preventative action or costs of failing to take preventative action.

Gain-Framed Messages

• Gain-framed messages focus on the positive outcomes of adopting a health-promoting behavior or avoiding an undesirable outcome.
• Example of gain-framed messages is, "If you exercise regularly, you are likely to feel better mentally and physically."

Loss-Framed Messages

• Loss-framed messages emphasizes the negative outcomes from failing to take preventative action or missing a desirable outcome.
• Example of loss-framed messages is, "If you don't exercise, you increase risk of an undetected, potentially life-threatening disease."

Tailored Messaging

• The creation of personalized health messages that are specifically designed to resonate with an individual's unique characteristics, needs, and preferences.

Loss-Framed Fear Appeals

• Loss-framed fear appeals emphasize the negative consequences or potential losses if a person does not engage in a recommended healthy behavior.

Cognitive-Behavioural Interventions

• Focus on conditions that elicit health behaviours and the factors that maintain and reinforce them.
• Self-monitoring is the initial step in many programs promoting behaviour change.

Stimulus-Control Interventions

• Seeks to modify a health behaviour by removing stimuli from the environment and establishing new ones that signal availability of reinforcement.
• Discriminative stimuli are environmental cues or signals that indicate when a particular behavior will be reinforced or punished.
• These stimuli influence behavioral responses such as a stop sign prompting a driver to stop.

Contingency Contract

• A formal agreement with another person regarding consequences of target behaviours.
• A contingency contract is a behavioral agreement that specifies the consequences (rewards or punishments) for performing or not performing a desired behavior.
• They are often used in therapy or education.

Promoting Healthy Workplaces

• Occupational health psychologists are designing healthy workplaces, focusing on stress, work-family relations, violence prevention, and relationships at work.

Work-Site Wellness Programs

• They promote health because workers find them convenient, they offer ongoing contact, and coworkers provide social support.

Positive Psychology and Thriving

• Positive psychology promotes strength-based, preventative approaches, shifting from attacking problems to promoting health.
• Thriving refers to paradoxical fourth outcome, in which adversity somehow leads people to greater psychological and/or physical well-being.

Allostasis

• Allostasis is the body's ability to adapt to stress and other elements of rapidly changing environments.

Allostatic Overload

• Allostatic overload has consequences of long-term elevations of stress-related catabolic hormones which can cause hypertension, ulcers, fatigue, etc.

Neurobiology of Resilience

• Resilience in the capacity of the brain and body to withstand challenges to homeostasis.
• The brain regulates the body's neuroendocrine, autonomic, and metabolic systems.
• Overuse of these systems can lead to allostatic overload and chronic illnesses like depression.

Biological Embedding

• Shaped by feedback from neuroendocrine systems as the body maintains homeostasis.

Psychosocial Factors and Physiological Thriving

• Self-Enhancement is the tendency to recall positive over negative information
• Research suggests it indicates health, wellness, feeling good, and the ability to sustain relationships.
• Agency is the ability of an individual to make choices and take actions independently, influencing their own life and environment.

Social Intergration

• Is the number of social roles one participates in has been demonstrating strong mental and physical state.
• Social integration is the degree to which individuals feel connected to and involved in a community or social network.
• It is often linked to well-being and mental health.

Relaxation

• Wakeful relaxation is associated with decreased negative emotions and altered neuroendocrine functions.
• Relaxation include meditation, listening to music, yoga

Spirituality

• Spiritual beliefs convey health benefits, including elevating mood, protecting against stress, and promoting healthy behaviours.

Curiosity

• Curiosity is an attraction of novel stimuli and contributes to psychological thriving.

Perceived Control and Self-Efficacy

• Also contributes to psychological thriving.
• Self-efficacy is the belief that one can perform specific behaviors successfully.