Towards an Ideology-Free, Truly Mechanistic Health Psychology

Efficient transfer of concepts and mechanistic insights from the cognitive to the health sciences and back requires a clear, objective description of the problem that this transfer ought to solve. Unfortunately, however, the actual descriptions are commonly penetrated with, and sometimes even motiva...

Descripción completa

Guardado en:

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales:	Bernhard Hommel, Christian Beste
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	mental health psychiatry ADHD GTS Medicine R
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/aa3c140fe16949978de324406867431a
Etiquetas:	Agregar Etiqueta Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!

id	oai:doaj.org-article:aa3c140fe16949978de324406867431a
record_format	dspace
spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:aa3c140fe16949978de324406867431a2021-11-11T16:17:05ZTowards an Ideology-Free, Truly Mechanistic Health Psychology10.3390/ijerph1821111261660-46011661-7827https://doaj.org/article/aa3c140fe16949978de324406867431a2021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/21/11126https://doaj.org/toc/1661-7827https://doaj.org/toc/1660-4601Efficient transfer of concepts and mechanistic insights from the cognitive to the health sciences and back requires a clear, objective description of the problem that this transfer ought to solve. Unfortunately, however, the actual descriptions are commonly penetrated with, and sometimes even motivated by, cultural norms and preferences, a problem that has colored scientific theorizing about behavioral control—the key concept for many psychological health interventions. We argue that ideologies have clouded our scientific thinking about mental health in two ways: by considering the societal utility of individuals and their behavior a key criterion for distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy people, and by dividing what actually seem to be continuous functions relating psychological and neurocognitive underpinnings to human behavior into binary, discrete categories that are then taken to define clinical phenomena. We suggest letting both traditions go and establish a health psychology that restrains from imposing societal values onto individuals, and then taking the fit between behavior and values to conceptualize unhealthiness. Instead, we promote a health psychology that reconstructs behavior that is considered to be problematic from well-understood mechanistic underpinnings of human behavior.Bernhard HommelChristian BesteMDPI AGarticlemental healthpsychiatryADHDGTSMedicineRENInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol 18, Iss 11126, p 11126 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	mental health psychiatry ADHD GTS Medicine R
spellingShingle	mental health psychiatry ADHD GTS Medicine R Bernhard Hommel Christian Beste Towards an Ideology-Free, Truly Mechanistic Health Psychology
description	Efficient transfer of concepts and mechanistic insights from the cognitive to the health sciences and back requires a clear, objective description of the problem that this transfer ought to solve. Unfortunately, however, the actual descriptions are commonly penetrated with, and sometimes even motivated by, cultural norms and preferences, a problem that has colored scientific theorizing about behavioral control—the key concept for many psychological health interventions. We argue that ideologies have clouded our scientific thinking about mental health in two ways: by considering the societal utility of individuals and their behavior a key criterion for distinguishing between healthy and unhealthy people, and by dividing what actually seem to be continuous functions relating psychological and neurocognitive underpinnings to human behavior into binary, discrete categories that are then taken to define clinical phenomena. We suggest letting both traditions go and establish a health psychology that restrains from imposing societal values onto individuals, and then taking the fit between behavior and values to conceptualize unhealthiness. Instead, we promote a health psychology that reconstructs behavior that is considered to be problematic from well-understood mechanistic underpinnings of human behavior.
format	article
author	Bernhard Hommel Christian Beste
author_facet	Bernhard Hommel Christian Beste
author_sort	Bernhard Hommel
title	Towards an Ideology-Free, Truly Mechanistic Health Psychology
title_short	Towards an Ideology-Free, Truly Mechanistic Health Psychology
title_full	Towards an Ideology-Free, Truly Mechanistic Health Psychology
title_fullStr	Towards an Ideology-Free, Truly Mechanistic Health Psychology
title_full_unstemmed	Towards an Ideology-Free, Truly Mechanistic Health Psychology
title_sort	towards an ideology-free, truly mechanistic health psychology
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/aa3c140fe16949978de324406867431a
work_keys_str_mv	AT bernhardhommel towardsanideologyfreetrulymechanistichealthpsychology AT christianbeste towardsanideologyfreetrulymechanistichealthpsychology
_version_	1718432376205344768

Towards an Ideology-Free, Truly Mechanistic Health Psychology

Ejemplares similares