Health Behaviours Flashcards
Why is it important to study health behaviours?
What is the Health Belief Model? What are the 4 constructs it suggests will determine whether a person engages in a health behaviour or not
What does the Theory of Reasoned Action?
About attitudes and behaviour, to be applied to any type of behaviour (not just health)
What are the two main components of the TRA
Attitude towards a behaviour
Subjective norms
In Falk et al 2010 experiment on the health behaviour of wearing suncreen, which part of the brain predicted behaviour change
medial PFC
It explained over 25% of variance in behaviour which is a major step forward in the predictive capcity of models, helping us predict behaviours based on attitudes but also brain activity
What is some critique on TRA
It also assumes that intention is the most important influence on behaviour and tha all beahviours are under our intentional control
Some behaviours require more than just volition and will, can require opportunity, resources and skiills. There are factors beyond intention that will determine whether we will enact change
What is the Theory of Planned Behaviour?
Explain what might cause behavioural change - development of TRA:
Attitide, subjective norms and perceived control are what lead to intention and behaviour
What is self-efficacy ?(Theory of planned behaviour) And what can it be influenced by?
The extent to which we feel we are able to enact change. This can be infleunced by
pas experiences and obstacles
Feeling you have control makes action easier to perform and also help perservere longer
its kinda ur faith ur your abilites
Self efficacy was found to enhance connections between which two areas?
hippocampus and mPFC
The greater the self efficacy, the greater the connection between these two areas
What is some critique on the TPB?
Doesnt explain the intention - behaviour gap. Cuz people have may have intention or attitude to do smth but often will not end up behaving accordingly
This construct is better at predicting our intentions than the actual behavioural outcomes
What are self efficacy strategies and how did these help reduce craving in smokers? Which area is associated with having increased activation?
Self persuasion
An area associated with motivation
Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC)
Area associated with reward
ventral tegmental area
ventromedial striatum
Area associated with memory and learning
Hippcampus and amygdala
What is the Transtheoretical Model ? What new aspect does it take into account for behaviour change?
This model tries to address the intention - behaviour gap issue int eh Theory of Planned behaviour, by stating that motivation to change also needs to be taken into account. It describes the process of change more than the cognitive factors of attitudes. According to this model, there are 6 phases of change
