ego. The id is concerned with the gratification of basic biological instincts
and the pleasure principle, the ego is manifested as consciousness and the
reality principle. The super ego constituted moral conscience and idealistic
striving. The development of an individuals personality structures arises as a
result of a maturational process from birth to adulthood.
A lot of people do not realise what smoking is actually doing to their health
and most smokers are living in denial which is a defence mechanism people
use to block out the unpleasant reality of smoking which exists. The smoker
does know that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and if the smoker doesn’t
stop they could die of cancer or another disease associated with smoking
such as heart disease. For example the symptoms of lung cancer are the
coughing up of blood, shortness of breath, dry cough with phlegm, weight
loss and a dull continuous pain in the chest and shoulders. If a smoker has
theses symptoms and are a heavy smoker he or she may delay in seeking
medical advice because they are afraid of the diagnosis.
The learning approach is associated with the behaviorist perspective and
believes that environmental factors influence the behaviour of individuals.
The behavioral perspective focuses on observational stimuli and responses.
An S-R analysis (stimuli and response) can be used to a specific problem for
example smoking if a smoker feels stress or anxiety – a stimulus they may
feel the need to have a cigarette which is a response to the stimulus they
are experiencing. Smokers have learned that having a cigarette is a
response to the anxiety or difficult situation they are experiencing. Another
situation is if a “social” smoker is out with other smokers in a social setting
they may be obliged to have a cigarette, the stimulus being the smokers
having a cigarette and the behavioral response is to smoke a cigarette.
A main factor of the learning theory is that people observe behaviour and
copy it in different social settings. Conformity is when people act in certain
ways to go along with a majority to “fit in”. Evidence shows that people
conform for two reasons - one being that they want to be right and the
second is they want to be liked. This can be seen many times with the issue
of smoking. Lots of young people go around in groups socially; if people in the
group smoked other young people would be obliged to join in with them and
smoke to “fit in” as they want to be linked.
People spend most of their time with friends, classmates, colleagues or
relatives in social setting in which social norms and interaction rituals have
been established (Montada & Bierhoff, 1991). If a child gets into the routine
of smoking after school with a group of peers they will be conforming with
the rest of the group they would do this so they would be liked by the rest
of the group, if they stopped doing it they maybe subjected to ridicule.
According to the conception of the social learning theory, observational
learning is one of the most powerful mechanisms of socialisation. People
observe others behaviour at a very young age – children observe other
people who serves as a model and then imitates what the model does. For
example if a child sees his or hers mother or father or another close family
member smoking they may be obliged to copy the behaviour. This theory
links closely with issue of conformity and peer pressure.
The psycho dynamic approach and the learning approach are very different
psychological explanations to the issue of health related behaviour. The
learning theory focuses more on the observational learning behaviour of
others while the psycho dynamic approach focuses on why and what makes a
person behave in the way they do. A psychological theory that ties both the
psycho dynamic approach and the learning theory together is the health
belief model, which was designed to explain why people fail to perform
preventative behaviors such as having vaccinations or screening (Beckers &
Maiman 1975). The health belief model assumes that people’s health
behaviour is determined by their perception of the threat of illness or injury
and the advantages and disadvantages of taking action. Health belief models
are considered to be appropriate targets foe persuasive communications
because they can be influenced by relevant information for example the
mass media appeals. This can be associated with the learning approach as
learning that smoking has an adverse effect on health people may be
influenced to stop due to the positive health benefits. The health belief
models has four main components, one is perceived susceptibility – the
subjective perception of the risk of getting a disease if no protective
measures are taken. For a chain smoker there run a high risk of getting lung
cancer or developing coronary heart disease. The second component is
perceived severity – the evaluation of physical or social consequences of
contracting the disease, such as for example pain, deterioration of family
life. In the case of a smoker most smokers die of lung cancer die and
coronary heart disease can be totally incapacitating. These two factors of
the health belief model are associated with the learning theory, the smoker
has learnt that smoking is bad and can cause a lot of adverse health
problems this would give the smoker motivation to stop smoking to improve
health as it may be under threat. The third component associated with the
health belief model is the perceived benefits – which is the degree to which
a particular health recommendation is regarded as reducing the perceived
susceptibility or severity of the health risk. In the case of a smoker if they
stop smoking the risk of getting lung cancer or heart disease will decrease
considerably. The four component is perceived barriers – these are negative
aspects of the recommended behaviour, such as for example side effects of
medication, the pain expected as a result of under going medical procedures,
financial factors and the effort. In a smokers point of view they may miss
the enjoyment of smoker and they may suffer in the first few months of
getting used to not smoking. These two components can be intertwined with
the psycho dynamic approach as the belief in the effectiveness of improved
health behaviour motivates the way people will deal with the situation,
meaning they will stop or cut down in smoking to improve health. Both the
psycho dynamic approach and learning approach have associations with the
health belief model but are still very different aspects when explaining
health related behaviour.
The fact that smoking and other social activities such as drinking, eating a
poor diet or leading a sedentary lifestyle can result in health impairments is
so widely accepted in the world today that one easily forgets that the health
risks were practically unknown before the second half of the twentieth
century. (Dawber 1080) More and more factors contribute why people
behaviour in the way they do and why people are damaging their health
because of it. Public health interventions designed to achieve scale behaviour
change rely on two strategies, health education and modification to the
incentive structure which refers to strategies of behaviour changes that
influence behaviour by increasing costs for example of cigarettes and
decreasing the costs of health promoting behaviour. The government use
this the fiscal method and increase taxes on cigarettes and alcohol to
influence behaviour.
Word Count - 1619
References
Strobe.W. & Jonas.K. (2001)in Introduction to social psychology. Third Edition. Blackwell Publishing. Oxford.
Gross.R. (2001) Psychology the science of mind and behaviour. Fourth Edition. Greengate Publishing services. Kent
Atkinson.R., Atkinson R.C., Smilth.E., Bem.D., Nolen – Hoeksema.S.(2000) Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology Thirteenth Edition. Harcourt Place College Publishers. Orlando.
