How Automaticity Could Be Used as an Intervention for Diabetes Management - Coursework Example

Automaticity occurs after a lot of practice; but once a response is automatic, it can be triggered by the smallest of cues. This was demonstrated by Langer, Chanowitz, and Blank (1978).Verplanken and Aarts (1999) believe that the theory of planned behavior as well as the rational decision-making model are able to explain the process of habit formation which has been demonstrated with a cognitive element called the ‘habitual mindset’. This allows the individual to attend and respond to relevant cues without being distracted by other information, thus ensuring speed as well as a pre-determined response.

Aarts and Dijksterhuis (2000) have found that such automaticity can exist about a choice as elementary as a preference in the mode of travel. When people were cued to regular travel destinations, they choose preferred modes of travel, particularly when the cognitive load was high.Reading is a learned behavior. When reading becomes an automatic response for a student, he/she is able to decode words, understand the information stored in them, form relations between this information and previously learned information to make inferences and evaluate the material for usefulness (Segalowitz, 2003).

Teachers also learn to automatically respond to different items in the teaching environment.Ahlers-Schmidt et al. (2012) found that informative messages could be used to help parents develop automaticity with respect to their child’s health needs. Wryobeck and Chen (2003) also found that when people are primed with health-related information, they are more likely to incorporate healthy behaviors in their daily lives.Diabetes is a condition that results from the body’s inability to use insulin effectively to control blood sugar.

It is of two types – type I and type II. It has a number of symptoms and consequences that are detrimental to health as well as the quality of life.