This paper sets out the case that personality traits are central to health psychology. To achieve this, three aims need to be addressed. First, it is necessary to show that personality influences a ...broad range of health outcomes and mechanisms. Second, the simple descriptive account of Aim 1 is not sufficient, and a theoretical specification needs to be developed to explain the personality-health link and allow for future hypothesis generation. Third, once Aims 1 and 2 are met, it is necessary to demonstrate the clinical utility of personality. In this review I make the case that all three Aims are met. I develop a theoretical framework to understand the links between personality and health drawing on current theorising in the biology, evolution, and neuroscience of personality. I identify traits (i.e., alexithymia, Type D, hypochondriasis, and empathy) that are of particular concern to health psychology and set these within evolutionary cost-benefit analysis. The literature is reviewed within a three-level hierarchical model (individual, group, and organisational) and it is argued that health psychology needs to move from its traditional focus on the individual level to engage group and organisational levels.
Are we more risk-averse or risk-seeking when we make decisions on behalf of other people as opposed to ourselves? So far, findings have not been able to provide a clear and consistent answer.
We ...propose a meta-analysis to assess whether self-other differences vary according to particular features of the decision. We reviewed 78 effect sizes from 49 studies (7,576 participants).
There was no overall self-other difference, but there were moderating effects of domain and frame. Decisions in the interpersonal domain were more risk-averse for self than for other. Decisions in the medical domain were more risk-seeking for self than for other. There were no overall self-other differences in the financial domain, however there was a moderating effect of frame: decisions in a gain frame were more risk-averse for self than other whereas decisions in a loss frame were more risk-seeking for self than other. This effect of frame was slightly different overall and in the medical domain, where self-other differences occurred in a loss frame but not in a gain frame.
Future work should continue to investigate how the specific content and context of the decision impacts self-other differences in order to understand the effects of domain and frame we report.
Influenza vaccine uptake remains low worldwide, inflicting substantial costs to public health. Messages promoting social welfare have been shown to increase vaccination intentions, and it has been ...recommended that health professionals communicate the socially beneficial aspects of vaccination. We provide the first test whether this prosocial vaccination hypothesis applies to actual vaccination behaviour of high-risk patients.
In a field experiment at a tertiary care public hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, we compare the effects of two motivational messages for promoting vaccination. Using a between-subjects single-blind experimental design patients were randomly assigned to frames emphasizing the vaccine's benefits to self (n = 125) or social benefits (n = 119). Free influenza vaccination was offered to each patient.
Among 222 patients who were not vaccinated for the season prior to the study (72% medically assessed to be at high risk), 42% in the self-benefit frame chose to receive a vaccination compared with 34% in the social-benefits frame, but the difference was not statistically significant (aOR = 1.63, 95% CI 0.90 to 2.95, p = 0.108). Reasons for vaccination focused primarily on self-benefit (67%) rather than social-benefit (5%). Exploratory analysis showed that the effect of messages depended on patient perception of risk group membership (aOR
/ aOR
= 5.59, 95% CI 1.30 to 24.05, p = 0.021). In particular, emphasis on self-benefit was more influential among patients who perceived themselves to be in the risk group (aOR = 6.22, 95% CI 1.69 to 22.88, p = 0.006).
In contrast to the literature observing intentions of low-risk populations, we found no evidence that social-benefit motivates actual vaccination behaviour among a high-risk patient population. Instead, those who self-categorize as being in the high risk group are more motivated by the self-benefit message. Our results suggest that a stratified approach can improve coverage: even if an emphasis on social-benefit could be effective among low-risk groups, an emphasis on self-benefit holds more promise for increasing vaccination in medical organizational settings where high-risk groups are prevalent.
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04230343 Retrospectively registered on the 13th January 2020.
Highlights • Participants who had made a previous suicide attempt exhibited significantly lower cortisol response to acute stress. • Participants who made an attempt within the past year exhibited a ...blunted cortisol response compared to participants with a more distant history of attempt. • Participants who had made a suicide attempt and had a family history of suicide also exhibited a blunted cortisol response to stress. • Lower levels of cortisol in response to acute stress were associated with higher levels of suicidal ideation at 1-month follow-up in the suicide attempters group
Recent revisions of Gray’s reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) have important implications for self-report measures of approach and avoidance behaviours and how Gray’s model relates to other ...personality models. In this paper, we examine the revised RST by comparing Carver and White’s (1994) original one-factor solution of the BIS scale with two alternative two-factor solutions separating BIS-Anxiety and FFFS-Fear. We also examine the relationships between Eysenck’s PEN and revised RST factors. Two hundred and twelve participants completed Carver and White’s BIS/BAS scales and Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire-Revised. Confirmatory factor analyses of the original BIS scale showed that the hypothesized two-factor model of BIS-Anxiety and FFFS-Fear was the best fit to these data. Associations between the revised RST and Eysenck’s PEN were examined using path analysis. In line with theoretical predictions, Psychoticism was related to revised BIS-Anxiety and BAS, Neuroticism to revised BIS-Anxiety and FFFS-Fear, and extraversion to BAS and FFFS-Fear. Distinctions between BAS subscales and their associations to BIS, N and P were made in terms of past, present and future focus. Possible explanations for mixed findings in the literature and implications for future research are discussed.
Objective:
This study investigated the daily hassles-eating behavior relationship and its moderators in a naturalistic setting.
Design:
A multilevel diary design was used to examine day-to-day ...within-person effects of daily hassles on eating behavior (
N
= 422), together with the individual and simultaneous influence of potential moderating variables.
Main Outcome Measures:
Daily diary reports of between-meal snacking, fruit and vegetable consumption and perceived variations in daily food intake.
Results:
The results showed daily hassles were associated with increased consumption of high fat/sugar snacks and with a reduction in main meals and vegetable consumption. Ego-threatening, interpersonal and work-related hassles were associated with increased snacking, whereas, physical stressors were associated with decreased snacking. The overall hassles-snacking relationship was significantly stronger and more positive at high compared to low levels of restraint, emotional eating, disinhibition, external eating and in females and obese participants. Simultaneous consideration of these moderators indicated that emotional eating was the pre-eminent moderator of the hassles-snacking relationship.
Conclusion:
Daily hassles were associated with an increase in unhealthy eating behavior. These changes may indicate an important indirect pathway through which stress influences health risk.
BACKGROUND: Using constructs from the Theory of Planned Behavior and theories of altruism, this article explores how multiple motivations and beliefs for blood donation are clustered and change ...across the donor career. In so doing important distinctions, for blood donation, between impure altruism, pure altruism, and warm glow are explored.
STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Measures of intentions, cognitive and affective attitudes, role merger, pure altruism, trust, self‐efficacy, subjective and moral norms, and habit formation were assessed in a sample of 12,580 whole blood donors. Analyses showed that a distinction between first‐time, novice (one to four donations), and experienced donors (five or more donations) is justified. Principal components analysis and confirmatory factor analytic Multiple‐Indicator Multiple‐Causal models were used to compare models across these groups.
RESULTS: A cognition‐behavior (CB) factor, including intentions, was common to all groups. First‐time and novice donors were marked by a newly identified motivational factor: “reluctant altruism” (i.e., the motivation to donate because of a lack of trust in others). First‐time donors exhibited an impure altruism factor whereas for experienced donors warm glow and pure altruism factors were observed. For first‐time donors impure altruism and reluctant altruism were both associated with the CB factor in females and impure altruism only in males. For both sexes reluctant altruism was associated of the CB factor in novice donors and warm glow and pure altruism for experienced donors.
CONCLUSIONS: New avenues for intervention are suggested by the emergence of reluctant altruism for novice donors and warm glow for experienced donors. The importance of distinguishing aspects of altruism is highlighted.
Recent research has highlighted the role of prosocial personality traits-agreeableness and honesty-humility-in egalitarian distributions of wealth in the dictator game. Expanding on these findings, ...we ran two studies to examine individual differences in two other forms of prosociality-generosity and reciprocity-with respect to two major models of personality, the Big Five and the HEXACO. Participants (combined N = 560) completed a series of economic games in which allocations in the dictator game were compared with those in the generosity game, a non-constant-sum wealth distribution task where proposers with fixed payoffs selected the size of their partner's payoff ("generosity"). We further examined positive and negative reciprocity by manipulating a partner's previous move ("reciprocity"). Results showed clear evidence of both generosity and positive reciprocity in social preferences, with allocations to a partner greater in the generosity game than in the dictator game, and greater still when a player had been previously assisted by their partner. There was also a consistent interaction with gender, whereby men were more generous when this was costless and women were more egalitarian overall. Furthermore, these distinct forms of prosociality were differentially predicted by personality traits, in line with the core features of these traits and the theoretical distinctions between them. HEXACO honesty-humility predicted dictator, but not generosity allocations, while traits capturing tendencies toward irritability and anger predicted lower generosity, but not dictator allocations. In contrast, the politeness-but not compassion-aspect of Big Five agreeableness was uniquely and broadly associated with prosociality across all games. These findings support the discriminant validity between related prosocial constructs, and have important implications for understanding the motives and mechanisms taking place within economic games.
The spread of infection amongst livestock depends not only on the traits of the pathogen and the livestock themselves, but also on the veterinary health behaviours of farmers and how this impacts ...their implementation of disease control measures. Controls that are costly may make it beneficial for individuals to rely on the protection offered by others, though that may be sub-optimal for the population. Failing to account for socio-behavioural properties may produce a substantial layer of bias in infectious disease models. We investigated the role of heterogeneity in vaccine response across a population of farmers on epidemic outbreaks amongst livestock, caused by pathogens with differential speed of spread over spatial landscapes of farms for two counties in England (Cumbria and Devon). Under different compositions of three vaccine behaviour groups (precautionary, reactionary, non-vaccination), we evaluated from population- and individual-level perspectives the optimum threshold distance to premises with notified infection that would trigger responsive vaccination by the reactionary vaccination group. We demonstrate a divergence between population and individual perspectives in the optimal scale of reactive voluntary vaccination response. In general, minimising the population-level perspective cost requires a broader reactive uptake of the intervention, whilst optimising the outcome for the average individual increased the likelihood of larger scale disease outbreaks. When the relative cost of vaccination was low and the majority of premises had undergone precautionary vaccination, then adopting a perspective that optimised the outcome for an individual gave a broader spatial extent of reactive response compared to a perspective wanting to optimise outcomes for everyone in the population. Under our assumed epidemiological context, the findings identify livestock disease intervention receptiveness and cost combinations where one would expect strong disagreement between the intervention stringency that is best from the perspective of a stakeholder responsible for supporting the livestock industry compared to a sole livestock owner. Were such discord anticipated and achieving a consensus view across perspectives desired, the findings may also inform those managing veterinary health policy the requisite reduction in intervention cost and/or the required extent of nurturing beneficial community attitudes towards interventions.
Behavioural scientists have been studying public perceptions to understand how and why people behave the way they do towards climate change. In recent times, enormous changes to behaviour and ...people's interactions have been brought about by the worldwide coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, unexpectedly and indefinitely; some of which have environmental implications (e.g., travelling less). An innovative way to analyse public perceptions and behaviour is with the use of social media to understand the discourse around climate change. This paper focuses on assessing changes in social media discourse around actions for climate change mitigation over time during the global pandemic. Twitter data were collected at three different points during the pandemic: February (time 1), June (time 2), and October 2020 (time 3). By using machine learning techniques, including recurrent neural networks (RNN) and unsupervised learning Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling, we identified tweets mentioning actions to mitigate climate change. The findings identified topics related to "
,"
," "
," and "
," among others. We found an increase in tweets identified as "action tweets" relating to climate change for time 2 and time 3 compared with time 1. In addition, we found that the topic of energy seemed to be of relevance within the public's perceptions of actions for climate change mitigation; this did not seem to change over time. We found that the topic of "
" was present across all time points and may have been influenced by political events at time 1, and by COVID-19 discourse at times 2 and 3. Moreover, topic changes over time within Twitter indicated a pattern that may have reflected restrictions on mobility as these tended to focus on individual and private sphere behaviours rather than group and public sphere behaviours. Changes in topic patterns may also reflect an increase in salience of certain behaviours (e.g., shopping), which may have received increased attention due to lockdown restrictions. Considering restrictions and adaptability challenges people face in times of a global pandemic may help to identify how to support sustainable behaviour change and the likely persistence of these changes.
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