Health Psychology and Behaviour Change

Health psychology has been at the vanguard of many recent advances in behaviour change theory and practice. This timely textbook offers a thoughtful, state of the art critical summary of theory and evidence around understanding and changing health behaviour. Particularly encouraging is the extensive coverage of automatic processes, which are typically overlooked in favour of unrealistic accounts of most health behaviours as conscious, deliberative and reasoned. Tapper succeeds in situating health psychology in the real-world by recognising various barriers to translating evidence into policy and practice, including biased interpretation and communication of behavioural science and the spreading of misinformation in the social media age. * Benjamin Gardner, King’s College London, UK * Katy Tapper’s book covers the research, theory and practice of health psychology and behaviour change in comprehensive detail. She encourages students to develop the critical thinking skills necessary to evaluate contemporary research, whilst also explaining how this can be practically applied to everyday media and online content. * Olga van den Akker, Middlesex University, UK * This book is a must-read for all students and others who want to be updated in health psychology and effective interventions for behavioural change. * Jesper Dammeyer, University of Copenhagen, Denmark * This is a comprehensive and lucidly written textbook that makes a compelling case for understanding the relationship between behaviour and health in high, middle-and-low-income societies. In the 21st century, characterized by a high prevalence of communicable and non-communicable diseases, increasing pressures on health care systems, large-scale migration, and unprecedented climate change, this book is a very useful source for students in psychology, health counselling, nursing and related fields. In addition to presenting theory and research associated with important health issues and problems, Dr. Tapper also calls attention to criticisms and controversies, thus presenting an important critical perspective. * Ashraf Kagee, Stellenbosch University, South Africa * This fantastic textbook provides a well-organised, succinct and accessible overview of both the scientific evidence in relation to the psychology of behaviour change as well as its practical application in the real-world. This is one of the best textbooks in this area that I have come across and will be an invaluable guide to anyone interested in understanding and changing health behaviour. * Stephan Dombrowski, University of New Brunswick, Canada *