A new typology of health behaviours for personality‐health predictions: The case of locus of control

Abstract

Psychological investigations of the impact of personality on health behaviours have tended to emphasize fine distinctions among personality variables while failing to distinguish among different kinds of behaviours. For example, theoretical treatments of perceived personal control are quite sophisticated; in contrast, only one well‐known analysis of health behaviours exists. We propose four categories of health‐enhancing behaviours, which take into account contemporary views of the shift in health care from acute and physician‐directed actions to long‐term and patient‐directed efforts. In addition, we suggest that perceived control (we emphasize locus of control because of its generality and parsimony) is an important predictor variable when combined with other factors common to current models of health behaviour.

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