Bad Habits
Full course description
At the end of the course, students will have acquired knowledge of relevant theories and models to explain the origin, nature and maintenance of unhealthy and unwanted behaviour, or ‘bad habits’.
Students will be able to analyse a ‘bad habit’ using a multidisciplinary perspective. The approach to assessing ‘bad habits’ is multidisciplinary in that it uses recent views from social psychology, social cognition, clinical psychology and cognitive experimental psychology.
Emphasis is put on understanding, explaining and predicting unhealthy behaviours: Several recent theoretical views are used to explain how (un)healthy and (un)wanted behaviours develop and endure. Students will review various types of bad habits in the broad sense of the word and learn how these are acquired, including addictive behaviours, excessive eating, and risky sexual behaviour.
The corresponding practical for this course is: Cognitive Paradigms in Health Psychology
The final assessment for this course is a numerical grade between 0,0 and 10,0.
Course objectives
- Students are able to understand theories and models that explain health behavior, including dual-process theories, the theory of planned behaviour/reasoned action approach, learning theory, behavioural economics, and habit theory;
- Students are able to use these theories to analyse and explain unhealthy, irrational health behaviour and to induce behaviour change.