Models of Human Behavior - Essay Example

Unit 8 Assignment Models of human behaviors are present in most of the social sciences and adequately useful to the lives ofdifferent individuals in the world. They are developed by the different scholars of the world to mainly define and explain on the types of human behaviors that most of the world possess. in most cases; the models of human behavior isolate the controlling factors, causes and even processes of behavior originating in the field of psychology, sociology and even anthropology. Most of the human behavior models explain behaviors with individual beings as the locus. To these models, behaviors are the outcomes as a result of competing influences in a person that have been adequately balanced and decided upon by single individuals. Therefore, individual behaviors are developed on a continuum or a certain discrete stage in a person’s life. Pender’s model of health promotion and disease prevention explains how these personal behaviors affect the health of an individual. The Pender’s model begins by explaining how well individual persons interact with the environment to pursue their health by largely focusing on three major areas; experiences and the characteristics of individual persons, affects and cognitions that are behavior-specific as well as the outcomes of behaviors. Pender’s model is used by medical professionals and helps them understand how each and every individual develops healthy or unhealthy behaviors. The Pender’s model assumes that, individuals are able to regulate their behaviors, individuals interact progressively interact with the environment and gets transformed over time. The health professionals make a part of the patient’s life. According to the Pender’s model, past experiences and the individual characteristics plays a vital role in a person’s development of the healthy or unhealthy behaviors. For example one decides not to eat fruits which are considered to be health by health professionals simply because he or she did not grow up eating fruits. John had some unhealthy past experiences that’s why he had an inpatient rehab for the use of heroin. Such past experiences highly influenced his going back into drug use and drug abuse. John’s wife was leaving him. He was almost losing his job too. Psychologically, John was therefore not okay. He was depressed. As a result of influence from his past experiences, John developed some perceived barriers to actions. Persons struggling with depressions normally end up in drug addiction. Depression normally results into weak morals. Stress from the family issues and job concerns are mainly great contributors of depressions in individuals. Some of the key sources of stress in the causes of stress in the families include divorce, separation and financial constrains (Johari and Marzuki, 2013). Pressures piled up to a point where John could not further resist the temptations. He became alcoholic and even went back to using heroin again. John eventually became Alcoholic hepatitis and even his doctor advices him to stop the habit and seek professional help otherwise he is at a risk of dying. Thoughts, feelings and behaviors affect the health of an individual. Stress is a part of our normal lives as human beings but has negative effects to our lives if not addressed in a healthy way. There are several healthy ways of coping up with stress. Such ways of coping up with stress include taking part in sporting activities, being involved in communal work, sharing with close friends and relatives and also seeking professional help through counseling (Kobasa, 1979). Stress in our lives emanates from family matters, job and job related activities and even financial strains in our life. According to Danner et.al (2001), the body adequately responds to one thoughts, actions and feelings. When a person is stressed up, upset about something or anxious, the body responds by telling the person that something is unusual (Levenson et.al, 1992). Stomach ulcers for example results from stress related events in a person’s life. In this case, the body of John has adequately responded to the tough things he is facing in his life. John has lost a lot of weight as a result of the stress emanating from the fact that his wife was leaving him and that he was at a risk of losing his job. John does not need hospitalization. However, first, the drinking habit has to be stopped because further intake of alcohol will increase the liver damages and eventually result into death. Secondly, John needs proper nutrition capable of providing adequate minerals and vitamins to his body. Thirdly, John needs more therapies geared towards ensuring that the liver injuries are minimized and that there is hepatic regeneration of his liver. For all the above needs to be adequately met, John has to join a drug recovery program as his doctor had recommended. John is already badly affected by the hepatitis and hence needs no further diagnosis. From a personal point of view, the main problem of john’s use of heroin and alcohol is stress. It seems like John has had a lot of difficulties in his marriage and also in his employment. Instead of John using the healthy methods of dealing with stress, John has been using the unhealthy methods of relieving stress. Some of the most common unhealthy methods of dealing with stress include drug use, fighting and suicide (John and Gross, 2004). Bearing in mind that John had in the past completed an inpatient rehab for the use of heroin, it is evident that John uses drugs as way of dealing with the stresses in his life. John’s health condition has really deteriorated as a result of the alcoholic hepatitis. John’s doctor even advices him to stop the drinking or else he is likely to face death. John has gone back to using heroine too. In his past history, John took eight years in an inpatient rehab to recover fully from heroin addiction. The goals of this particular patient are to be set in such a way that he has to make full recovery within the estimated period of time. John has to join a drug recovery program and bearing in mind that John is struggling with two addictions, we will assume that he will have benefited fully from the program and recovered by the end of approximately ten years. In the ten years, John will have stopped both addictions and recovered fully from alcoholic hepatitis. So as to achieve the goal of recovering fully from alcohol and heroine addictions, John has to make a step by step in his recovery process. The first thing will be joining the drug recovery program. Secondly, John has to undertake several medical therapies so as to recover from the alcoholic hepatitis. This will be within the first six months after joining the program. Thirdly, john has to further seek professional help through guidance and counseling so as to make some changes in his life. Guidance and counseling sessions will take most of his time in the drug recovery program since he has to have a guidance and counseling session after every fortnight. Changes are very hard to make in a person’s life especially when someone is struggling with drug addiction. John has to adversely make certain changes in his life especially in ways of coping up with stress for it has been one of the main contributors to his drug addiction problem. He has to also find a way of spending his free time and carefully select the individuals he spends his free time with. Fourthly, John has to reach out to friends and family members during his time in the drug recovery program. In reaching out to his friends and family members he will open up to them. This way, he will not keep the problems to himself and further be distressed. This is crucial in the recovery process as well as to his personality. This will further help John rebuild his life without drugs. Conclusion Personal behaviors highly influence the health of an individual. Our health therefore highly depends on what we really do in our lives. It is therefore of great significance to watch our behaviors. It is also of great importance to learn how to cope up with stress in our lives in a healthy way so as to avoid ending up as drug addicts. For the individuals struggling with drug addiction, it is important that they seek professional help through joining the drug recovery programs. Reference Danner, Deborah, D., Snowdon, David, A., Friesen, Wallace, V. (2001). Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity: Findings from the Nun Study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 80, No. 5, pp. 804-813. Johari, Johana and Marzuki, Najib Ahmad. (2013). Relating Stress, Anxiety and Depression among Flood Victims’Quality of Life in Malaysia: A Theoretical Perspective. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, Vol. 3, No. 6. John, Oliver, P & Gross, James, J. (2004). Healthy and Unhealthy Emotion Regulation: Personality Processes, Individual Differences, and Life Span Development. Journal of Personality 72:6. Kobasa, S. C. (1979). Stressful life events, personality, and health: An inquiry into hardiness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1-11. Levenson, R. W., Ekman, P., Heider, K., & Friesen, W., V. (1992). Emotion and autonomic nervous system activity in the Minangkabau of West Sumatra. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 62,972-988. Read More