Psychology 2036A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Health Belief Model, Optimism Bias

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2036A/B
• Professor: Doug Hazelwood

Document Summary

Strategies of primary intervention- preventing illness before it develops. Approaches to primary intervention: eliminate unhealthy behaviours after they begin (but before the cause damage) eg. stopping people from smoking, prevent unhealthy behaviours before they begin eg. prevent people from starting to smoke. Health values: good health is not valued by everyone: social barriers, family, peers, media, economic forces, health-care system (focus on treatment, not prevention) Part 2: models of health barriers: research on fear appeals, the dental hygiene study (1953): Students read on of three messages (same advice- brush teeth after every meal) All struck up a different level of fear (low, moderate, and high) High fear=least likely to adopt messages advice (8%) Results: fear decreases persuasion: but: sometimes fear increases persuasion, a curvilinear relation (self protection-discount the likelihood of the threat) (inattention to message and advice) (defensive avoidance- avoid thinking about it, protection motivation theory. If all three are high -> protection motivation: the health belief model (57-59)