Health Psychology : a Textbook

The PMT describes severity, susceptibility and fear as relating to threat appraisal (i.e.

appraising to outside threat) and response effectiveness and self-efficacy as relating to

coping appraisal (i.e. appraising the individual themselves). According to the PMT, there

are two types of sources of information, environmental (e.g. verbal persuasion, obser-

vational learning) and intrapersonal (e.g. prior experience). This information influences

the five components of the PMT (self-efficacy, response effectiveness, severity, susceptibil-

ity, fear), which then elicit either an ‘adaptive’ coping response (i.e. behavioural inten-

tion) or a ‘maladaptive’ coping response (e.g. avoidance, denial).

Using the PMT

If applied to dietary change, the PMT would make the following predictions: information

about the role of a high fat diet in coronary heart disease would increase fear; increase

the individual’s perception of how serious coronary heart disease was (perceived severity);

and increase their belief that they were likely to have a heart attack (perceived suscepti-

bility/susceptibility). If the individual also felt confident that they could change their

diet (self-efficacy) and that this change would have beneficial consequences (response

effectiveness), they would report high intentions to change their behaviour (behavioural

intentions). This would be seen as an adaptive coping response to the information. The

PMT is illustrated in Focus on research 2.1, below.

FOCUS ON RESEARCH 2.1: TESTING A THEORY –

PREDICTING SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR

A study to predict sexual behaviour and behavioural intentions using the

protection motivation theory (van der Velde and van der Pligt 1991).

This study integrates the protection motivation theory (PMT) with other cognitions in

order to predict sexual behaviour in the context of HIV. It highlights the possibility

Fig. 2-4 Basics of the protection motivation theory

28 HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY