BODILY HEALTH
Central to health psychology is recognizing that the mind and body
are deeply entwined. Our mood, our stress levels, our loneliness can all
affect our health. Physical wounds literally take longer to heal when we’re
stressed. In turn, it almost goes without saying that our health can affect
our mental wellbeing. A heart attack can trigger a bout of serious depres-
sion; obesity can crush a person’s self-esteem.
Explaining and influencing behaviour
Psychologists have spent years creating models to help understand why
we choose to behave the way we do in relation to our health. One of
the best known and influential is The Theory of Planned Behaviour,
developed by Professor Icek Ajzen of the University of Massachusetts.
This proposes that whether or not we choose to behave in a certain way
depends on our attitudes and beliefs about that behaviour. These include
what we think the likely outcome of it will be, whether we believe other
people (especially those close to us) engage in it, and whether we think
we’re actually capable of behaving that way.
The benefit of this model is that it provides an immediate guide as
to how to influence people’s health-related behaviours. For example,
it suggests that persuading a smoker that most people don’t smoke is
likely to deter him or her from continuing to light up. Similarly, high-
lighting the positive outcomes likely to emerge from stopping – such as
living longer, feeling fitter, saving money and not having smelly clothes
- may also help someone decide. Finally, it can help if the person can be
persuaded that it is well within their ability to stop smoking. This might
involve telling them about other people’s successes, or offering them
aids, such as nicotine patches or gum.
Other findings in relation to behavioural change are not so obvious.
Consider health-promotion campaigns that use dramatic imagery to
highlight the dangers of drink-driving. A 2010 study by Steffen Nestler
of Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz found that for a portion
of the population these kinds of campaigns can backfire. People
who are what is known as cognitively avoidant respond to threats by
distracting themselves or denying that the threat is relevant to them.
When Nestler gave participants a scare story about a fictional illness
related to the consumption of caffeine, those with a high score for
cognitive avoidance rated the threat from the illness as less severe
after reading the scare story than they did after reading a milder,
low-key version.