BPS Core Textbooks Series
Developed in collaboration with the British Psychological Society
Health enhancing behaviours
Behaviours that are beneficial to health e.g. healthy eating, physical activity, vaccinations, preventative screening.
Health compromising behaviours
Behaviours that are detrimental to health, e.g. smoking, binge drinking, risky sexual behaviours.
Classical conditioning
A type of associative learning based on reflexive behaviours.
Operant conditioning
A type of learning based on voluntary behaviours that can be shaped by schedules of reinforcement.
Social learning theory
Observational learning that includes modelling the behaviour of others.
Vicarious learning
Learning from the experience of others.
Self efficacy
A person’s belief in their own ability to accomplish a task or behaviour.
Health locus of control
The beliefs that people have over the control of their own health and health behaviours.
Health Belief model
A social cognition model that tries to understand why people engage in health behaviours, based on perceived threat, modifying factors and likelihood of action.
Cues to action
Internal (symptoms)or external factors (the media or healthcare invitations) that influence health behaviours.
Mammography
X-rays that are used to examine the breasts for cancer.
Transtheoretical model
A five-stage model used to explain behaviour that includes processes of change, self efficacy and decisional balance.
Theory of planned Behaviour
A model used to predict behavioural intention, based on attitudes towards the behaviour, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control.
Intention-behaviour gap
The inability to convert intentions into actions.
Behaviour Change Wheel
A structured way to describe, design and evaluate interventions that moves people from intention to action by focusing factors that influence behaviour.
Behaviour change techniques
The smallest precisely defined active ingredients used in interventions.
Two-Eyes Seeing
A model that incorporates Western and Indigenous knowledge, values and beliefs, so that Indigenous Peoples can benefit from both.
The Medicine Wheel
Represents a holistic Indigenous approach to health and healing that values harmony and connectedness in all aspects of life.
He Pikinga Waiora
An indigenous model that has been used to guide the development of health interventions.