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Common-Sense Model of Self-regulation

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Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine

Synonyms

Illness representation model; Mental models of illness; Mental representations of illness

Definition

The common-sense model of self-regulation explains how individuals respond to and manage health threats. It proposes that people actively engage in problem-solving by developing mental models of health threats, subjective and objective treatment goals, and practices and procedures most likely to achieve those goals.

Description

Background

The origins of the common-sense model of self-regulation (CSM) can be traced to the parallel model proposed by Leventhal in the early 1970s to understand how individuals respond to fear-arousing communications (Leventhal, 1970). Similar to the parallel model, the CSM posits that when a threat is perceived (e.g., physical symptoms or changes in function), individuals develop two parallel, yet interrelated, representations of the stimulus: cognitive and emotional (Leventhal et al., 1997). These representations and their content specify the...

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Correspondence to Pablo A. Mora .

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Mora, P.A., McAndrew, L.M. (2013). Common-Sense Model of Self-regulation. In: Gellman, M.D., Turner, J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_1220

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_1220

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1004-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-1005-9

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