An internal picture of health and the system of a control over the health-promoting behaviour

Abstract

The objectives of this study were twofold: 1) to assessed the children’s internal picture of health (IPH) and 2) to study the connection between a child’s ability or inability to form an IPH with their capacity to recognize consistent patterns in the structure of a stream of sensory signals. 82 primary school children were participants. The study was conducted in two stages. During the first stage, IPH of the children was evaluated by means of a questionnaire. It includes, on the one hand, a person’s image of themselves as healthy and, on the other hand, a knowledge of the methods needed to achieve the right behavior to maintain their health and – this is extremely important – to actually perform it To describe a child’s ability to discern some kind of order in a stream of sensory signals, the models of simple and complex sensory-motor reactions were used. The children who had a well-developed IPH from the very start of the process involving simple and complex sensory-motor reactions had fewer lapses than those in the other two groups, and they performed at a consistently high level throughout the entire task. The process of developing an IPH is accompanied by an increase in control during performance of a serial reaction task. An IPH is an internal mental model that not only predetermines a child’s notion of themselves as a healthy person; it also has a psychological basis in the form of a system that strengthens their control over their own actions.