Health as a Result of Everyday Choice: Development and Validation of the Motivation of Actions For and Against Health Scale

Abstract

In this paper, health-related behavior is considered not as a single activity, but as a series of everyday, often uncoordinated and polymotivated, choices of actions in favor or against of better health. The aim is to develop and validate a scale of motivation for actions related to health, as people's everyday choices - in favor or against of health. Methods. 119 residents of Moscow and Moscow Region and 64 residents of Baku filled out the scale of motivation for actions in favor and against of health (on a specific example of each of the actions), Satisfaction With Life Scale, Positive and Negative Experience Scale and the Scale of Ways to Care for Health. Results. Sufficient consistency and factorial validity of the scale were demonstrated. In general, when evaluating their motivation for both benefit and harm to health, people rate internal and identified motivation higher, and lower - the search for a new, external and amotivation. When choosing in favor of health, in comparison with the choice to the detriment of it, there are higher indicators of identified, introjected motivation, as well as the search for something new. Intrinsic and identified motivations for choosing actions in favor of health are associated with lower levels of negative emotions and an active lifestyle, and identified motivations are also associated with proactive health monitoring. Powerlessness as a variant of amotivation is associated with a higher level of negative emotions, both when choosing in favor of health, and to the detriment of it. The search for new health is associated with the use of alternative methods of treatment. Conclusions. The action motivation scale can be used to assess internal, identified, introjected, external motivation, amotivation, as well as searching for something new and impotence, both in relation to actions for the benefit and to the detriment of health.