Attribution Patterns, Attitude and Knowledge of HIV/AIDS on Sexual Behavioural Change Among Students of Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

Sexual behavioural change is central to HIV/AIDS control programme. This study was carried out among students (n = 603; average age = 18.9) of Covenant University, Nigeria. The study was designed to examine the impact of attribution patterns, attitude and knowledge of HIV/AIDS on sexual behavioural change. Three hypotheses were raised. Regression analysis, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson’s r were used to analyze the data. The results show that attribution patterns and attitude towards HIV did not influence sexual behavioural change. In effect, knowledge of HIV was the best predictor of sexual behavioural change of respondents. The study also revealed that there was a significant effect of gender on sexual behavioural change of respondents while there was no significant effect of age. Another result shows that there was a strong correlation between perceived benefits and all the other variables. Fourteen percent (14%) of the respondents are sexually active, 520 or 86% indicated they are not sexually active. Eighty-nine percent (89%) of the respondents do not know of anyone who is HIV positive or died from AIDS while 11% knows someone who is HIV positive or had died from AIDS related complications. This study shows that young people using the perceived benefits variable in the Health Belief Model (HBM) coupled with adequate knowledge of HIV knowledge have the power and ability to change their risky sexual behaviour. Key words: Attribution patterns, Attitude, Knowledge, HIV/AIDS, Students, Young people, Perceived benefits and Sexual behavioural change

Binge flying: Behavioural addiction and climate change

Recent popular press suggests that ‘binge flying’ constitutes a new site of behavioural addiction. We theoretically appraise and empirically support this proposition through interviews with consumers in Norway and the United Kingdom conducted in 2009. Consistent findings from across two national contexts evidence a growing negative discourse towards frequent short-haul tourist air travel and illustrate strategies of guilt suppression and denial used to span a cognitive dissonance between the short-term personal benefits of tourism and the air travel’s associated long-term consequences for climate change. Tensions between tourism consumption and changing social norms towards acceptable flying practice exemplify how this social group is beginning to (re)frame what constitutes ‘excessive’ holiday flying, despite concomitantly continuing their own frequent air travels

Encouraging pro-environmental behaviours: a review of methods and approaches. ESRI Working Paper No. 645 December 2019

Many urgent environmental problems can be mitigated with more sustainable use of resource. An acknowledgement of which is a growing interest among policy practitioners in encouraging pro-environmental behaviour change initiatives. The effect of anthropic pressure on the environment is long known and the first pro-environmental behaviour studies date back to the middle 1970s. Despite this, the scientific literature has not yet answered several questions: what are the most suitable ways to encourage behavioural changes? What are the barriers to project implementation? What are the long run effects of behavioural change projects? With this in mind, this contribution offers a review of the existing literature on behavioural change case studies and provides a categorisation of treatments and guidelines for successful project implementation. Five different approaches have been considered: education and awareness, social influence, relationship building, incentives and nudges, which have been used in experimental studies. On balance the case studies suggest that all approaches are suitable but their selection should be based on specific objectives and target population. Interestingly, the choice of the behaviour to change is rarely discussed before project implementation. This analysis also highlights that little is known on whether behaviour change projects achieve sustained pro-environmental behavioural change over time

Long-term behavioural change detection through pervasive sensing

The paper proposes an information generation and summarisation algorithm to detect behavioural change in applications such as long-term monitoring of vulnerable people. The algorithm learns the monitored subject's behaviour autonomously post-deployment and provides time-suppressed summaries of the activity types engaged with by the subject over the course of their day to day life. It transmits updates to external observers only when the summary changes by more than a defined threshold. This technique substantially reduces the number of transmission required by a wearable monitoring system, both through summarisation of the raw data into useful information and by preventing transmission of duplicated or predictable data and information. Based on evaluation using simulated activity data, the proposed algorithm results in an average of one transmission per month following an initial convergence period (reaching less than 1 transmission per day after only three days) and detects a change in behaviour after an average of 1.1 days.<br/

Predicting employees' commitment to and support for organisational change

This study aimed to identify factors that predict employees' commitment to and support for organisational change. The three components of Herscovitch and Meyer's (2002) commitment to organisational change model were hypothesised to mediate the relationship between organisational climate and behavioural support for organisational change. Data were collected from a Queensland government department (N = 342). Analysis of correlations revealed that organisational climate, commitment to change, and behavioural support for change variables were all significantly related. Structural equation modelling demonstrated that affective, normative, and continuance commitment to change were all predictors of behavioural support for organisational change. Positive work climate also contributed directly to the prediction of behavioural support for change over and above the indirect influence through commitment to organisational change, indicating a partial mediation effect. These findings support Herscovitch and Meyer's (2002) three-component model of commitment to organisational change and extend their nomological network by showing the relevance of two types of organisational climate to the core components of the model. Affective commitment to organisational change is a positive influence on employees' behavioural support for change and also reflects healthy aspects of the organisational climate. However, continuance commitment to organisational change is detrimental influence on employees' behavioural support for change and is linked with unhealthy dimensions of the organisational climate

Terror threat perception and its consequences in contemporary Britain

The terrorist attacks of 9/11, and subsequent terrorist acts around the world, have alerted social psychologists to the need to examine the antecedents and consequences of terrorist threat perception. In these two studies we examined the predictive power of demographic factors (age, sex, location), individual values and normative influences on threat perception and the consequences of this perception for behavioural change and close relationships. In study 1 (N = 100) gender, benevolence values and normative influences were all correlates of threat perception, whilst sense of personal threat was correlated with increased contact with friends and family. In study 2 (N = 240) age, sex, location, and the values of Openness to Change and Hedonism, all predicted threat perception, which in turn predicted behavioural change and relationship contact. Such findings point to the important role social psychologists should play in understanding responses to these new terrorist threats

The development of a theory-based intervention to promote appropriate disclosure of a diagnosis of dementia

Background: The development and description of interventions to change professional practice are often limited by the lack of an explicit theoretical and empirical basis. We set out to develop an intervention to promote appropriate disclosure of a diagnosis of dementia based on theoretical and empirical work. Methods: We identified three key disclosure behaviours: finding out what the patient already knows or suspects about their diagnosis; using the actual words 'dementia' or 'Alzheimer's disease' when talking to the patient; and exploring what the diagnosis means to the patient. We conducted a questionnaire survey of older peoples' mental health teams (MHTs) based upon theoretical constructs from the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and used the findings to identify factors that predicted mental health professionals' intentions to perform each behaviour. We selected behaviour change techniques likely to alter these factors. Results: The change techniques selected were: persuasive communication to target subjective norm; behavioural modelling and graded tasks to target self-efficacy; persuasive communication to target attitude towards the use of explicit terminology when talking to the patient; and behavioural modelling by MHTs to target perceived behavioural control for finding out what the patient already knows or suspects and exploring what the diagnosis means to the patient. We operationalised these behaviour change techniques using an interactive 'pen and paper' intervention designed to increase intentions to perform the three target behaviours. Conclusion : It is feasible to develop an intervention to change professional behaviour based upon theoretical models, empirical data and evidence based behaviour change techniques. The next step is to evaluate the effect of such an intervention on behavioural intention. We argue that this approach to development and reporting of interventions will contribute to the science of implementation by providing replicable interventions that illuminate the principles and processes underlying change.This project is funded by UK Medical Research Council, Grant reference number G0300999. Jeremy Grimshaw holds a Canada Research Chair in Health Knowledge Transfer and Uptake. Jill Francis is funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorate. The views expressed in this study are those of the authors

Challenges of measuring body temperatures of free-ranging birds and mammals

The thermal physiology of most birds and mammals is characterised by considerable spatial and temporal variation in body temperature. Body temperature is, therefore, a key parameter in physiological, behavioural and ecological research. Temperature measurements on freely moving or free-ranging animals in the wild are challenging but can be undertaken using a range of techniques. Internal temperature may be sampled using thermometry, surgically implanted loggers or transmitters, gastrointestinal or non-surgically placed devices. Less invasive approaches measure peripheral temperature with subcutaneous passive integrated transponder tags or skin surface-mounted radio transmitters and data loggers, or use infrared thermography to record surface temperature. Choice of technique is determined by focal research question and region of interest that reflects appropriate physiological or behavioural causal mechanisms of temperature change, as well as welfare and logistical considerations. Particularly required are further studies that provide opportunities of continuously sampling from multiple sites from within the body. This will increase our understanding of thermoregulation and temperature variation in different parts of the body and how these temperatures may change in response to physiological, behavioural and environmental parameters. Technological advances that continue to reduce the size and remote sensing capability of temperature recorders will greatly benefit field research