Cramming for your exam?
No worries! The blog contains simplified notes for the subtopic of IB psychology unit 6 health psychology “social cognitive explanations of health behaviour”
Key takeaways
- Health Belief Model (HBM)
- Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)
Hold on, there are more health models…?
Absolutely! In this section, you will learn about the health belief model and the theory of planned behaviour. These are essential for decision-making, and each model attempts to illustrate what an individual’s mind goes through when trying to decide their action in a given situation.
Health Believe Model (HBM)
It is a model developed by Hochbaum, Rosenstock, and Kegels in 1958 in order to explain why people didn’t engage in preventing diseases.
Two main perceptions of HBM
According to the HBM, there are two main perceptions that the individual would have:
- Perceived threat of the illness
- Effectiveness of recommended health behaviour
Remember! These perceptions influence the individual’s journey of behavioural change.
Perceived threat of the illness
Perceived threat of the illness = perceived suspectibility + perceived severity
- Perceived suspectibility = belief of getting a disease or condition.
- Perceived severity = negative consequences that individual associate with an event or outcome.
Individual thinking he or she is likely to get sick with serious illness –> more likely to act to prevent the outcome.
Effectiveness of recommended health behaviour
Effectiveness of recommended health behaviour = potential benefits of a behaviour + perceived barriers (or costs) to actions
- Perceived barriers (or costs) to actions = an obstacles that would make individual less likely to act.
Given behaviour appear to provide great benefits towards the individual with only few barriers –> they are more likely to follow.
Still not quite understood yet? here are the examples
Applying on sunscreen to prevent cancer –> easy and quick action –> more likely to follow
Hiking builds stronger muscles –> exhausting, 2 hours away from home –> less likely to follow
Two components of the HBM
The two components of the HBM illustrates the journey of a person’s behavioural change in terms of health. As I mentioned before, it is affected by the two perceptions of the HBM.
Two components of HBM:
- Cues to action
- Health motivation
Cues to action
Triggering factors which more likely to encourage the person to act. Triggering factors could be internal such as noticing symptoms, or external such as health campaign or advice from their family members.
Health Motivation
Dispositional attitude towards their health.
- Dispositional = individual differences in the tendency to form a positive or negative attitude.
For example,
John eats well, exercises regularly, and goes for check-ups without needing any external motivation or reminders. He thinks it’s important to stay fit and avoid health problems, and he’s confident he can do it. John’s dispositional attitude towards health is that he naturally values and takes care of his health without needing external influences or reminders.
Meanwhile, Sarah rarely pays attention to what she eats, avoids physical activity, and only goes to the doctor when absolutely necessary. She thinks that no matter what she does, she’ll eventually have health issues, so she doesn’t bother trying to stay healthy. Sarah’s dispositional attitude towards health is that she naturally neglects and dismisses her health without being motivated to take positive actions.
Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)
The theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) is a health framework proposed by Ajzen and Fishben in 1958 in order to explore the reason why people choose to engage or avoid certain actions.
An individual’s planned behaviour is determined by:
- Attitude
- Social norms
- Amount of self-control individuals think they have
Attitude
Attitude is determined by:
- People’s thoughts are based on their assumptions of how they would feel in a given situation.
- A person’s knowledge of the consequences of their action.
Social norms
Individual’s action is influenced by the society they are living. The perception of approval and disapproval is determined by the society.
Perceived confidence
Individuals are more likely to perform a certain action when they are confident that they are able to enact that change.
If people feel that they have enough time and resources to eat more healthily or go to the gym, their confidence will increase, more likely to attempt healthy actions.
That’s all for today, readers. If you would like to check out other blogs, you can read them here.
Definition of dispositional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition
Examples of what dispositional attitudes are https://chat.openai.com/c/846160d0-f149-4d57-919e-9ebc34c2378f
IB Psychology course book (Alex Propov)
English