Week 9

Question 1

Health Belief Model

Answer 1

– Suggests that health behaviours are predicted by
four factors:
• Perceived susceptibility to a health threat
• Perceived seriousness/severity of a health threat
• Benefits and barriers of undertaking particular health
behaviours
• Cues to action

Question 2

Protection Motivation Theory of Health

Answer 2

– Health Belief Model + self-efficacy

Question 3

Theories of health behaviour

Answer 3

• Theory of Reasoned Action
– a socio-cognitive view
– an individual’s attitudes toward a health
behaviour and subjective norms influence their
intentions to perform the behaviour

• Theory of Planned Behaviour
– Theory of Reasoned Action + self-efficacy

Question 4

Stress

Answer 4

Stress refers to a challenge to a person’s
capacity to adapt to inner and outer demands.
• Stressful experiences typically produce
physiological and emotional arousal.
• Stressful experiences typically elicit cognitive
and behavioural efforts to cope with the stress

Question 5

Lazarus’s model of stress

Answer 5

– Primary Appraisal: deciding on the significance or
meaning of the event
– Secondary Appraisal: evaluate our ability to cope and
decide how to respond

• Three types of stress (Lazarus, 1981):
– harm or loss
– threat
– challenge

Question 6

Peripheral nervous system

Answer 6

Autonomic nervous system and sympathetic nervous system

Question 7

Autonomic nervous system

Answer 7

The autonomic nervous system is concerned
with the regulation of smooth muscle (eg.
skin, blood vessels, walls of the gut), cardiac
muscle, and glands

Divisions of the ANS:
• The sympathetic division is most involved in activities associated with the expenditure of
energy from reserves stored in the body.
• The parasympathetic division supports
activities that are involved with increases in
the body’s supply of stored energy

Question 8

The HPA Axis

Answer 8

Acronym heaven…
• HPA: hypothalamicpituitary-
adrenal
• CRF: corticotropin
releasing factor
• ACTH:
adrenocorticotropic
hormone

Question 9

Stress as a psychobiological

process

Answer 9

– Alarm: Release of adrenalin and other hormones
(fight or flight response)
– Resistance: Respiration and heart rate return to
normal, glucose levels and some stress-related
hormones remain high
– Exhaustion: After prolonged stress the body’s
defences break down, increased vulnerability to
infection/disease