Methods and Applications
Nutritional status is an important predictor of health status. Diets high in plant foods with moderate sources of lean protein and minimal fat and alcohol are inversely associated with cardiovascular disease, obesity, several cancers, and diabetes. Paradoxically, measuring diet is one of the most arduous tasks in behavioral medicine. Today’s varied and complex food offerings coupled with eating habits...
Sexual behavior augments human experience, allowing people to express affection, develop intimate bonds and interpersonal relationships, and experience pleasure. Sexual behavior can also have unwanted consequences, such as sexually transmitted infections or unintended pregnancy. Researchers often assess sexual behavior to learn more about how it enhances the human experience and to understand conditions...
Many behaviors that matter in the domain of behavioral medicine are habitual. This chapter first focuses on the definition and conceptualization of habit. Contrary to the prevalent practice of equating habit with frequency of past behavior, habit is described here by three key features: frequency of occurrence, automaticity, and the fact that habits are context-cued. Some varieties of habits are discussed,...
Much of the research of the past few decades has approached adherence from a global perspective. The multiple processes underlying adherence to medical advice have not been examined for the identification of phase-specific covariates or for the identification of phase-specific interventions. This chapter reviews the multiple processes that underlie adherence including the phases of adoption through...
Self-reports often serve as outcomes in all manner of behavioral science and medical research; as such, it is essential that they be measured as accurately as possible. In this article, we discuss the concept of ecological validity as it relates to methodologies used to collect self-report data. When phenomena are responsive to the environment and memory of them is questionable, we argue that ecological...
Although classical test theory (CTT) has defined the standard of questionnaire development for several decades, an increasing number of standardized tests are now developed using item response theory (IRT) as an alternative to CTT. Unlike CTT, the examinee’s true score is not test dependent, and the item parameters are not sample dependent, therefore the parallel test assumption is not necessary in...
Neurocognition is a critically important dimension of our daily functioning that is impacted negatively by a host of non-neurological, systemic diseases. In the field of behavioral medicine, neurocognitive testing is used to examine the impact of such diseases and their risk factors on multiple domains of function including attention; learning and memory; executive functions; visuospatial; psychomotor;...
Lay representations of illness and treatment are too often ignored because of the preconception that lay concepts are inherently unscientific and/or of interest only to anthropologists. The subtitle of this chapter, “A Framework for Action,” defines lay representations as perceptions and concepts that generate and specify the behavioral environment for action. The behavioral environment provides the...
A variety of negative affective characteristics have been studied as risk factors for the onset and course of physical illness. Symptoms of anxiety, depression, and anger, related personality traits, and related diagnosable disorders have most often been studied one at a time in this research. Given well documented and substantial associations among anxiety, depression, and anger, and among symptoms,...
Hostility has long been thought to play a role in health, and recent research has now documented substantial effects on disease etiology, with much of the attention given to its role in cardiovascular disease. Several measures of this construct have been found to predict adverse cardiovascular events as well as cardiac and total mortality. It is apparent, however, that the hostility construct has...
Research on emotional experience in behavioral medicine has been focused primarily on negative characteristics such as depression, anxiety, and hostility. This chapter outlines recent developments in understanding the contribution of positive affect and well-being to health. The different conceptualizations of positive well-being are described, and the evidences about their associations with disease...
This chapter addresses the topic of coping and health. Several extensive literatures have built up around the ways in which these two concepts intersect. Given this wealth of information, this chapter is limited to serving as an introduction to some of the ideas and themes of this topic rather than being a comprehensive review. The chapter is organized along the logical flow of the experiences under...
This chapter provides a selective review of the use of experimental social psychological methods to test hypotheses and predictions in health psychology/behavioral medicine. Although such methods have limited ecological validity, they have the virtue of tight controls and being able to test causal relationships. Thus, they provide a complementary and supplementary approach to descriptive-correlational...
A lack of social connections has long been noted as a risk factor for poor physical health outcomes. A burgeoning body of research also suggests that the positive or negative qualities of our social relationships are linked to our physical well-being. We review evidence for the salutary benefits of both giving and receiving social support. We also highlight potential health risks associated with negative...
The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the evidence linking social networks to health outcomes. Evidence on the link between social support and health outcomes is dealt with separately in Chapter 17. In the first section we discuss the definition and measurement of social networks. In the second section, we describe theoretical mechanisms linking social networks to health. The third...
Despite the long history of research on social norms in psychology, sociology, and other disciplines, social norms remain relatively underutilized as a mechanism for changing health behaviors. However, normative influence is a powerful motivator of behavior that can and should be brought to bear in health promotion research. Accordingly, research that has examined the role of social norms in characterizing,...
Beer, marriage, and public health may seem like odd bedfellows and the links to social marketing obscure – but this chapter shows how they are all intimately connected. It starts with an incident in a local bar which shows how an expert marketer goes about influencing behavior on a very small scale (and with no budget). From here we go on to explore eight key principles of social marketing: objective...