Comparison between Two Social Cognition Theories - Essay Example

College: Comparison between Two Social Cognition Theories related to Health and Illness Introduction The concept of healthand illness has been in existence since time immemorial, some time back people used to associate illness to a kind of curse or omen from the evil spirits or a punishment from God. The sick were secluded from the rest of the society based on the type of illness they were suffering from. The pitied on by the rest of the society, more so their family members. On the other hand, healthy people were regarded as lucky with prospects of living up to old age. Cognitive adaptation and mental health theory and the common sense Model of self regulation of health and illness are some of the psychological analysis of understanding health and illness in human beings (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). Cognitive Adaptation and Mental Health Theory When an individual is suffering from a chronic illness, one would get the perception that such an individual clearly understands the level of vulnerability he is in and the likelihood of associating his sickness to some meaning (Ratelle et al,2004). Regardless of the pain they, may be undergoing, thinking positively about ones state of affairs promotes mental health. However, if patients, harbor negatives thoughts that tend to lay the blame on themselves, they are likely to harbor negative mental health that may lead to anxiousness, stress or a feeling of worthlessness. A number of researchers, has challenged this stand by pointing out that such negatives perceptions triggers the acceptance of their condition thus allowing them to accept there state of health (Taylor,1983). Cognitive Adaptation and Mental Health Theory states that self-determined motivation forms the psychological mechanism that triggers cognitive adaptation that enhances mental health. According to Taylor, 1993, the adjustment process in a person usually takes place when an individual tries to maintain or achieve an optimistic attitude towards a general issue life, an attempt to attempt to specialize or deeply understand an event or regaining of self-esteem (Ratelle et al, 2004). Cognitive adaptations mostly occurs when there is a life threatening event in ones life, however, the cognitive and adaptation and mental health theory, points out that when an individual’s mind is preoccupied with optimism, positive perceptions, and perceived control he is likely to benefit from them both mentally and physically (Taylor, 1983). An analysis of three components of Cognitive Adaptation Theory (CAT) plays a significant role towards the understanding of Cognitive Adaptation and Mental Health Theory. The first components of CAT points out that people do not perceive themselves objectively. They instead tend to think of the positive aspects about themselves, have better memories of the positive things in their life and they selectively pick out positive attributes about themselves in life situations. The second component of CAT, points out that human beings believe in the ability to control the environment around them (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). Quite a number of researches have confirmed that individuals’ perceptions have mastery over everything including the uncontrollable events. This component proves that people have the capability to fight it in a number of ways that will eventually lead to its cure and the ability to determine their health condition as all the power is bestowed in their hands (Ratelle et al, 2004). . For example, an obese person’s decision to exercise in order to cut down his/her weight. Thus, human beings know that the status of their health is depended on their actions and will (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). The third component of CAT, points out that people usually hold an optimistic outlook on life, each time they believe that their present situation is much better than the past one and it keeps on improving. In this case, individual perceive themselves as having better health and less diseases compared to other people or their peers (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). The Cognitive Adaptation and Mental Health Theory show that motivational processes had the ability to significantly predict the changes in mental health. It also points out that cognitive adaptation was negligible in determining the mental health of an individual when self-determined motivation was present (Taylor, 1983).Thus as long as an individual has intrinsic motivation about his state of health, his cognitive adaptations will not change the perception he has towards his own health. The common sense model of self regulation of health and illness According to Professor Jaap Van Laar, when an individual is sick the greatest impact of the disease lies in the effect it creates on the individual’s ability to continue living a normal daily life. Consequently, a person’s ability to live a normal life when he is sick also depends on his focus of interest. Leventhal research conducted in the 1960’s and early 1970’s on the effect of fear messages registered in a person’s mind during an acute illness, may prompt him to undertake health promoting actions such as regular exercise , quitting smoking, wearing seat belts or avoiding fatty foods. He found out that different type of information relayed to an individual was influenced both their attitude and actions towards adopting healthy living to evade any threat to health or general well being (Ratelle et al, 2004). However, the change of attitude only lasted for a short period and immediately the individual were cured or healed, they would go back to their normal l way off life. Leventhal and his colleagues further prompted the necessary conditions that were necessary to maintain the change of perception that promotes good health for a longer time especially among patients who suffered from chronic diseases (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). To understand the adaptation required to maintain the right state of attitude in chronic illness, they adopted three main constructs, which included representation, action planning and appraisal. The representation of the illness experience was important in understanding how the patient felt about their condition and thus plays a crucial step towards designing a solution based on the real experience. Secondly, action planning is carried out to spell out the actual activities that would be undertaken and finally monitoring or appraising the results of the exercise whether it was successful or not (Ratelle et al, 2004). Even though illness is mostly conceptualized has a stressful experience, Leventhal and his colleagues preposition was to separate the active parallel reasoning how an individual may respond to both illness and the danger it brings itself with. For example, a sick person can ask themselves what they is the health threat they are likely to face and what they can objectively do to prevent it (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992).In relation to the person’s regulation of emotional feeling, he may ask himself how he feels about his condition and what he can do to make feel better about the same condition. The key construct of the common sense model is the concept that illness representations. These representations are the ones that link with the individuals normative beliefs which then enable them to make sense of the feeling they are undergoing at that particular moment. The main five representations of illnesses as presented by the common sense model include; identity, cause, timeline, consequences and curability or controllability (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). The identity of the ailment one is suffering from and the beliefs that people have towards that particular ailment affects a person’s feeling towards it. For example, is one is suffering from HIV/AIDs that is highly stigmatized; the patient is likely to interpret diverse and severe symptoms towards it. The cause of the illness which sometimes may not be biologically accurate also affects a person’s perception towards the disease. For example, the information at the patient’s disposal may have originated from paramedics, witch doctors, family members or the media, whether the information about the cause if false of true, it will certainly affect the way a person feels or interprets the illness (Hale, 2008). The predictive timeline on how long the disease may last, if it going to be chronic or not leaves the patient wondering and concluding various feelings or responses towards his illness. For instance, if the illness is a cold, the patient will be optimistic that it is only a matter of time before he gets healed. However, incase a person is diagnosed with cancer, they will be filled with uncertainty on how long it mat take before they are cured or if become skeptical of whether they will ever be healed (Radley, 1995). The consequence of the illness at hand, which is the impact it is likely to create on the patient socially or physically also affects their cognitive reasoning and feeling towards the ailment. There are some ailments that can leave a patients completely distraught wither because of the financial effect, physical disability, divorce largely affects a person’s perception on the disease. Lastly, the level of ones ability to control the disease or cure it plays part in shaping a person’s thoughts towards the same (Hale, 2008). As patients with chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes get new information about their illness and measure their attempts to moderate, manage the effects or cure it is predisposed with the already exiting representations mentioned above. Comparison between the two models Both the Cognitive Adaptation and Mental Health Theory and the common sense model have a number of similarities in place. One of the similarities is that both theories rely on cognitive reasoning to explain the concept behind them. The Cognitive Adaptation theory states that as long as an individual has predisposing feeling towards a certain disease, his cognitive reasoning over the same is unlikely to change his perception (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). On the same not, the common sense model points out that a person’s experience about an illness in relation to what they have heard significant people say about it, has a greater impact on the way he perceives the illness to be than his own reasoning about the same issue. In addition, both models, present a number of constructs on which they base there argument on (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). The constructs related to the cognitive adaptation and mental health theory includes three main components of cognitive adaptation theory (CAT), the first one is that people do not perceive themselves in an objective manner, the second one is that human being have the ability to control the uncontrollable and lastly , people always hold on to the optimistic aspects of life. The common sense model constructs or representations include timeliness, curability, consequences, cause and identity (Hale, 2008). The difference between the two models is that, the cognitive adaptive model of mental health theory places more powers or authority over the individual in controlling their status of health. For instance, people are likely to think positively about themselves regardless of their health conditions, they are assured that they will always be in control and have a tendency of concentrating on the positive aspects of life in any adverse situation (Radley, 1995). On the other hand, the common sense model does not give power to the people but rather to the prevailing conditions. For example, regardless of what an individual knows about an illness, his perceptions about it are largely depended on the cause, consequence, timeline, curability and identity of the illness all of which are external to his will or control (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1992). In conclusion, both theories, shade some light about people perceptions on illness and health. Each of them is unique in its own way and this gives the audience an opportunity to have different opinion over the concept of health and illness in human beings (Radley, 1995). As indicated above, human beings perception on health an illness is affected by a variety of factors. Depending on the type of social cognition theory, these factors can range from traditional, to religious, cognitive, social, physical and sometimes emotional. The most important thing is for one to develop a perception that promotes health and fitness contrary to one that worsens his health status. References Aspinwall, L. G., & Taylor, S. E. (1992). Modeling cognitive adaptation: A longitudinal investigation of the impact of individual differences and coping on college adjustment and performance .Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63 , 989–1003. Hale, E.D. (2008). The Common Sense Model of self-regulation of health and illness: how can we use it to understand and respond to our patients needs? Oxford Journals.vol 46. Issue 6. Retrieved from http://rheumatology.oxfordjournals.org/content/46/6/904.full Radley,A. (1995). Making Sense of Illness: The Social Psychology of Health and Disease. New York: SAGE Publications Ltd Ratelle, C., Vallerand , J., Chantal,Y & Provencher, P. Cognitive adaptation and mental health: A motivational analysis. European Journal of Social Psychology Eur. J. Soc. Psychol.34, 459–476 (2004) Taylor, S. E. (1983). Adjustment to threatening events: A theory of cognitive adaptation. American Psychologist, 38, 1161–1173 Read More