Applied Fields: Health

Introduction

Health psychology is a field within psychology that is devoted to understanding psychological influences on health-related processes, such as why people become ill, how they respond to illness, how they recover from a disease or adjust to chronic illness, and how they stay healthy in the first place (Schwarzer & Gutiérrez-Doña, 2000). Health psychologists conduct research on the origins and correlates of diseases. They identify personality or behavioural antecedents that influence the pathogenesis of certain illnesses. Health psychologists analyse the adoption and maintenance of health behaviours (e.g. physical exercise, nutrition, condom use, or dental hygiene) and explore the reasons why people adhere to risk behaviours (e.g. why they continue to smoke or drink alcohol). Health promotion and the prevention of illness are, therefore, agendas for ...