Human Behavior & Models
Human Behavior & Models
behavior
1 Meron A. 4/10/2025
outline
Behaviors-definitions
Healthy behaviors
Factors affecting human behaviors
Predisposing factors
Enabling factors
Reinforcing factors
The role of human behaviors in level of disease prevention
2 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Learning outcome
At the end of this session you will be able to ;
Define correctly what behavior mean?
Describe factors that affect human behaviors
Discuss the role of human behaviors in disease prevention
3 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Human behavior
What is behavior?
4 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Human behavior….
What is behavior?
Behavior-is any overt action that has specific frequency
duration, Intensity and purpose, whether conscious
or unconscious
5 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Behavior..
Action-
E.g- Drinking/smoking
- Breast feeding
Frequency-how many times the behavior occurs in a given time
period . how it is repeated, regularity
Duration-the amount of time on each session .
is it for week/month?
Intensity –how intensely or how hard the behavior is performed
6 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Why do we need to study human behaviour?
7 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Why do we need study health behaviour?
8 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Components of behavior
9 Meron A. 4/10/2025
healthy behavior Vs unhealthy behaviors
Healthy behavior-
is an overt behavioral patterns, actions, and habits that relate
to health maintenance, to health restoration, and to
health improvement
10 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Causes of health problems ;Shift in cause of ill health
Bacteria Behavior
11 Meron A. 4/10/2025
The behavior-health link becomes clear when examining the
10 leading risk factors for preventable death and disease
worldwide.
12 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Top risk factors leading to disease, disability, or death
13 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Human behaviors important for health promotion
Preventive behaviors
Promotive behaviors
Utilization behaviors
Illness behaviors - recognition of symptoms and prompt
self-referral .
- It is what people do when they feel ill.
aimed to seek remedy
Compliance (adherence) behavior– following course of
prescribed medicines
Community action
14 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Factors affecting...
Factors affecting human behavior
Lawrence Green identified three categories of factors
affecting individual or collective behavior. These are;
15 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Factors affecting human behaviors
Predisposing
factors
Enabling
Cultures/norms behavior factors
Reinforcing
factors
16 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Factors..
Predisposing factors are antecedents or prior to behavior that
provide the rationale or motivation for the behavior to occur.
17 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Enabling factors- are antecedents to behavior that facilitate a
motivation to be realized.
18 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Reinforcing factors are those factors subsequent to
a behavior that provide the continuing reward or
incentives for the behavior to be persistent and
repeated
19 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Predisposing ...
knowledge or awareness
Knowledge is, “A clear and certain mental perception,
understanding, the fact of being aware of something, experience of
acquaintance of familiarity with information , learning that which
is known, fact learned or study of.”
20 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Knowledge and skills are interrelated in that skills are the
practical application of essential knowledge
21 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Predisposing ...
22 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Knowledge is necessary but not sufficient in behavior change.
It is necessary, because, without adequate knowledge , people
may unaware of and concerned about health problem and
unable to manage their behavior
23 Meron A. 4/10/2025
knowledge about/awareness vs how to
k/ge or essential knowledge
Knowledge about/awareness: Knowledge about a topic may
be important in developing interest in the topic and may even
motivate the behavior
24 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Therefore, one of the main task in health education is helping
the learner to become knowledgeable about some health
topic.
25 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Skill is the capability of accomplishing something with
precision and certainty.
26 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Perception
Perception: a process by which
individuals organize and interpret
their sensory information in
order
to give meaning to their
environment.
27 Meron A. 4/10/2025
28 Meron A. 4/10/2025
4/10/20
25
29 Meron A.
perception
THINGS AS WE ARE.”
30 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Belief
31 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Types of beliefs
Harmful belief
Helpful beliefs
Neutral beliefs
32 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Difficulty index of changing beliefs
It is usually easier to influence those beliefs that:
Are held by individuals
Have been acquired recently
Come from not highly respected sources( religion ,traditional
medical system)
33 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Measurement
How do you know /measure the awareness/knowledge of an
individuals about certain health condition?
34 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Attitude
Social psychologists define an attitude as an enduring
evaluation, positive or negative, of people, objects, or ideas
We are not neutral observers of the world we evaluate what we
encounter
35 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Mucchielli (1970) describes attitude as
“a tendency of mind or a reltively constant feeling
towrds a certain category of objects,people,or situation”
Characteristics of attitude
1. Predisposition- exposure related to an attitudinal object. No
exposure, no attitude
2. Has direction- polar ,+ve or –ve ,negative or positive
3. Evaluation-can be evaluated by intensity or judgment
e.g. Favorable or unfavorable
36 Meron A. 4/10/2025
4.changeability- can be changed ,not static
It is relatively constant
5.Stability or consistency
stability=related to time
Consistency= sameness of attitude
37 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Link between knowledge(K) and Attitude (A)
Feeling/sense of
Attitude
knowledge like or dislike
38 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Link between knowledge(K) and Attitude (A)
39 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Link among knowledge(k), Attitude(A) and practice(p)
practice
knowledge Attitude
40 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Link among knowledge(K) and Attitude (A) and
Practice (P)
The general trend or normal way of thinking and acting
the proper sequence and linkage among KAP is that
knowledge (K) is followed by attitude (A) and is
followed by practice (P).
41 Meron A. 4/10/2025
When P or A precedes K, it is due either to an imitation
(modeling) or compulsion
42 Meron A. 4/10/2025
KAP gap curve
A
P
43 Meron A. 4/10/2025
KAP ….
44 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Cognitive consistency theory
45 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Attitude measurement
Self-reported attitudes- asked direct questions about
their feelings.
The Likert Scale –is one the mostly commonly used scale
to measure attitude.
In Likert scale, respondents are asked how strongly they
agree or disagree with carefully selected statements on
five point scale.
46 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Attitude scale is usually stated in form of statement
47 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Belief vs Attitude
Our beliefs about things affect our attitude
towards it.
Our beliefs, in turn, are influenced by our attitudes.
The judgment as good or bad and worth
carrying out a behavior will depend on the beliefs
about the consequences of performing the behavior
48 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Value
The relative worthy/preference/judgment
individual gives every thing around is known as value
-Are standards most important to us
49 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Value...
Value exert strong and enduring influence on behaviors
The values that have advantages for the self
and for the society are known as positive values.
50 Meron A. 4/10/2025
value conflict and value clarification
People value life, health. However, in opposite engaged in
unhealthy behavior, for instance, smoking. This reveals
conflict of values=inconsistencies between two or more
values.
51 Meron A. 4/10/2025
But we can sometimes bring about changes by
emphasizing values which don’t involve health.
52 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Relationship between attitude and value
53 Meron A. 4/10/2025
54 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Educational approach to behavior
change
55 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Behavior change is complicated
56 Meron A. 4/10/2025
How to improve behavior change
interventions
1. Specify target behavior precisely
57 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Behavior Change Process
Identify Identify content
Understand the
intervention &implementation
behavior
option option
1. Define the
problem Identify:
Identify:
5.Intervention
2.Select target 7.Behavior change
function
bhr techniques
6. Policy category
8.Mode of delivery
3.Specify target bhr
58 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Step 1. DEFINING BEHAVIOUR
Examples:
3)Reducing cholesterol
59 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Step 2: Select the target behavior
Multiple potentially relevant behaviors
Consider:
Impact
Ease of measurement
60 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Step 3: Specify the target behavior
More precise the better
Will help in developing and evaluating intervention
61 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Step 4: Identify what needs to change
Target behavior identified and specified
But why not currently being carried out?
Need to understand behavior change in context
–Population
–Environment
•Need to understand predictors of the behavior
62 Meron A. 4/10/2025
The Capability Opportunity Motivation
–Behaviour (COM-B) Model
63 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Step 5: Identify intervention Functions
64 Meron A. 4/10/2025
The Behaviour Change Wheel
65 Meron A. 4/10/2025
Behavior Change
Can be natural or planned changes.
Natural change Our behavior changes all the
time.
Some changes take place because of natural
events or processes such as age-sex related
behaviors. E.g. eating clay during pregnancy.
Planned change – We make plans to improve our
lives or to survive and we act accordingly.
It can be faster or slower depending on the
response of the acceptor and adapter of the
behavior.
Example: plan to stop smoking or drinking
4/10/20
25
66 Meron A.
Behavior Change approach
• Persuasion Approach: is the deliberate attempt to
influence the other person to do what we want
them to do.
– Used during serious threat like epidemics and
natural disasters
• The informed decision making approach: Giving people
information, problem-solving and decision-making
skills to make decision but leaving the actual choice
to the person.
– ‘open’ or ‘non judgmental’ approach.
4/10/20
25
67 Meron A.
Learning
4/10/20
25
68 Meron A.
Learning…
Learning may occur as a result of
habituation or classical conditioning,
So, learning is the modification of behavior
through practice, training, or experience.
Five important components of learning
4/10/20
25
69 Meron A.
Learning…
1. Learning involves change
A change may be for good or bad.
2. Not all changes reflect learning
To constitute learning, change should be
relatively permanent.
Temporary changes may be only reflective
and fail to represent any learning.
This rules out behavioral changes caused by
fatigue or drugs
4/10/20
25
70 Meron A.
Learning…
3.Learning is reflected in behavior
A change in an individual’s thought process, not
accompanied by behavior, is not learning.
This clarified that learning needs to result in
behavior change.
4. The change in behavior should occur as a result
of experience, practice or training:
Behavior caused from maturity, disease, or
physical damages does not constitute learning.
4/10/20
25
71 Meron A.
Learning
…
5. The practice must be reinforced in order for
learning to occur: if reinforcement does not
accompany the practice or experience, the behavior
will eventually disappear.
4/10/20
25
72 Meron A.
Principles of learning
There are three principles of learning:
1. Learning by association - Connection
between events in time, place, etc.
It is the most important part of learning.
It is first formed in the physical environment.
Examples,
If we see lightening we expect thunder
When we see a needle, we think of injection
When we see pregnancy we expect delivery
4/10/20
25
73 Meron A.
Principles…
2. Learning by Reinforcement & punishment
Reinforcement and punishment play a key
role in learning process.
4/10/20
25
74 Meron A.
Principles
…
Reinforcement: is the attempt to develop or
strengthen desirable behavior. There are two types
a. Positive reinforcement strengthens and enhances
behavior by the presentation of positive reinforcers.
There are primary reinforcers and secondary
reinforcers.
Primary reinforcers satisfy basic biological needs and
include food and water. However, primary
reinforcers do not always reinforce.
4/10/20
E.g. food may not be a reinforcer
25 to someone who has
just completed a five course meal.
Meron A.
75
Principles…
Secondary reinforces: include benefits such as
money, status, grades, trophies and praise from
others.
These become positive reinforcers because of their
associations with the primary reinforcers and
hence are often called conditioned reinforcers.
b. Negative reinforcement, an unpleasant event that
precedes a behavior is removed when the desired
behavior occurs.
4/10/20
25
76 Meron A.
Principles
…
Punishment
Is the attempt to eliminate or weaken undesirable
behavior. It is used in two ways.
First is to apply a negative consequence called
punishers – following an undesirable behavior.
E.g. A football player who is excessively offensive to
an official (undesirable behavior) may be ejected
from a game (punished).
The other way to punish a person is to withhold a
positive consequence following an undesirable
behavior.
4/10/20
25
77 Meron A.
Principles
…
Reinforcement increases the likelihood of the
occurrence of the situation.
It increases the association between the
response and stimulus.
78 Meron A.
Principles
3. Learning by Motivation
A n individual who is not motivated will gain or learn nothing i.e. it can
affect the learning process
4/10/20
25
79 Meron A.
Disease prevention
Prevention can be divided into three levels for
comparison.
Primary prevention directed toward
preventing the initial occurrence of disorders
Secondary prevention seeks to retard
existing disease and its effects
Tertiary prevention seeks to reduce the
occurrence of relapses.
Meron 4/10/20 80
A. 25
Levels of Health Education in Health-illness
continuum
1. Primary health education
Directed at healthy people
The primary aim is to prevent occurrence of
ill-health.
It is a focus of health promotion programs
E.g. Health education programs on good
nutrition, immunization, and breastfeeding
Meron 4/10/20 81
A. 25
Levels
…
2. Secondary Health Education
Educating patients about their condition and
what to do about it.
The aim of this level is to stop the progress
of diseases to the severest form.
At this level complete recovery from the
diseases is possible, but if neglected
complications may occur.
e.g. Early treatment of Malaria, Tuberculosis
treatment
Meron 4/10/20 82
A. 25
Levels…
3. Tertiary health education
Used in patients whose ill-health can not be completely
cured.
It is concerned with educating the person or his or her
relatives about how to make the remaining potential for
healthy living and had to avoid unnecessary
hardships, restrictions and complications.
Meron 4/10/20 83
A. 25
THEORIES & MODELS IN HEALTH
EDUCATIONS
84 4/10/2025
OBJECTIVE
85 4/10/2025
What is theory
Theory is
“A set of interrelated concepts, definitions, and
proposition
present a systematic view of phenomena
by specifying relations among variables with the purpose of
explaining and predicting the phenomenon”
87 4/10/2025
Role...
Helps pinpoint what planners need to know before they
88 4/10/2025
Population
Interpersonal
Individual
/intrapersonal
89 4/10/2025
1. Individual Health Behavior Model
90 4/10/2025
2.Interpersonal health behavior
theories
Focus on interpersonal processes including relationship
with family, friends, and peers
91 4/10/2025
3. Community level Models
Diffusion of Innovation
92 4/10/2025
HEALTH BELIEF MODEL
93 4/10/2025
HBM
Focus:
Individuals’ perceptions of the threat posed
by a health problem, the benefits of avoiding the threat, and
factors influencing the decision to act.
94 4/10/2025
1. The health belief model (HBM)
•Perceived susceptibility
to Disease "X“ Perceived threat
Likelihood of taking
+ of Disease "X" recommended
•Perceived seriousness
(Severity) of Disease "X"
preventive health
action
Cues to action
•Mass media campaigns
•Advice from others
•Reminder postcard from health workers
•Illness of family member or friend
97 4/10/2025
Health belief model…
Individual perceptions are factors that affect the perception of
illness or disease. It includes:
general health value, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity,
Self efficacy
98 4/10/2025
Perceived threat
is made up of the perception that one is susceptible to illness (i.e.
Personal risk) & the perception that the illness is serious.
99 4/10/2025
Out come expectation
Is made up of the perceived benefits of the specified action minus
the perceived barriers to the action
101 4/10/2025
Theory of Reasoned Action
(TRA)
&
Planned Behavior (TPB)
102 4/10/2025
Introduction
TRA was introduced by Fishbein in 1967
Modified & Refined over time (eg. Ajzen & Fishbein,
1980)
- concerned with the prediction and understanding
of human behavior
103 4/10/2025
Assumption:-
The theory rests on the assumptions that
humans are:
- rational,
- have control over their behavior, and
- seek out, utilize, and process all available
information about pending decisions before they
take actions.
104 4/10/2025
Behavioral belief
&
Outcome
Attitude
BEHAVIOR
INTENTION
Evaluation
Normative beliefs
of referents Subjective
& norms
Motivation to
comply
105 4/10/2025
The theory of reasoned action.
106 4/10/2025
TRA…
107 4/10/2025
TRA…
108 4/10/2025
TRA…
109 4/10/2025
TRA…
110 4/10/2025
TRA…
Determinants of Subjective Norms
1. Normative beliefs
2. Motivation to comply
1. Normative beliefs = belief about what a specific
referent person thinks one should or should not do
regarding the behavior
111 4/10/2025
TRA…
112 4/10/2025
TRA…
113 4/10/2025
Limitations
Not appropriate for predicting or explaining behavior in
situations where people had little power over events
around, i.e if there is non volitional control
114 4/10/2025
Extensions (TPB)
To improve the predictive power of TRA, Ajzen(1985) added a
third construct (Perceived behavioral control) to the original
theory to account for the performance of behaviors which are not
completely under the subject's control.
Theory of
Planned Behavior
115 4/10/2025
116 4/10/2025
TPB…
117 4/10/2025
TPB…
(2) PBC reflects actual control and has a direct link to behavior not
mediated by intentions.
118 4/10/2025
Measurement of constructs
Direct measures and
e.g. by asking respondents about their overall attitude
indirect (belief-based) measures
indirectly e.g. by asking respondents about specific
behavioral beliefs and outcome evaluations
• Measuring the same construct the direct measure &
indirect measure scores are expected to be positively
correlated
• ELICITATION STUDY –For indirect measures
119 4/10/2025
Reliability
120 4/10/2025
Tr a n s - t h e o r e t i c a l
model
(stages of
change)
121 4/10/2025
To be continued……