9. Health, Stress and Coping

Question 1

What is Health Psychology?

Answer 1

understanding of psychological influences on:

how people stay healthy
why they become ill
how they respond when the get ill

Question 2

what is health according to the World Health Organisation?

Answer 2

complete state of physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease of ‘infirmity’

Question 3

what are many of the leading causes of death in the world?

Answer 3

they are all preventable

chronic diseases; heart disease, stroke, cancer, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes

Question 4

what is the health belief model?

Answer 4

suggests that health behaviours are predicted by 4 factors?

Question 5

what are the 4 factors of the health belief model?

Answer 5

perceived susceptibility to a health threat
perceived seriousness/severity of a health threat
benefit and barriers of undertaking particular health behaviours
cues to action

Question 6

what is the protection motivation theory of health?

Answer 6

health belief model + self-efficacy

Question 7

what ar the theories of reasoned action?

Answer 7

a socio cognitive view

an individual’s attitudes toward a health behaviour and subjective norms influence their intention to perform the behaviour

Question 8

what is the theory of planned behaviour?

Answer 8

Theory of reasoned action + self-efficacy

Question 9

what are the attitudes towards a health behaviour

Answer 9

an individual’s belief that the behaviour leads to certain outcomes and certain evaluations of these outcomes

Question 10

what are subjective norms?

Answer 10

the person’s belief that the specific individuals or group think he/she should or should not perform the behaviour and his/her motivation to comply with the specific referents.

Question 11

what is stress?

Answer 11

a challenge to a person’s capacity to adapt to inner and outer demands

Question 12

what does a stressful experience produce?

Answer 12

psychological and emotional arousa

Question 13

what do stressful experiences elicit?

Answer 13

cognitive and behavioural efforts to cope with stress

Question 14

what is stress as a transactional provess

Answer 14

stress is a transaction between the individual and environment rather than a property of either alone. It involves assessments of demands and resources called cognitive appraisals (Lazarus)

Question 15

What is Lazarus’ model?

Answer 15

primary appraisal –> secondary appraisal

Question 16

what is the primary appraisal

Answer 16

deciding the significance or meaning of the event

Question 17

what is the secondary appraisal

Answer 17

evaluate our ability to cope and decide how to respond

Question 18

what are the 3 types of stress?

Answer 18

harm or loss
threat (anticipation of loss)
challenges (opportunities that might involve disruption and uncertainty)

Question 19

what is the stress that we experience made up of?

Answer 19

depends on the cognitive appraisals we make in our transactions in our environment.

if the fit between demands and resources is close, we experience little to no stress

if we appraise a discrepancy between demands and resources, we perceive stress to carrying degrees (depending on the ‘size’ of the discrepancy)

Question 20

what are the three highest source of stress?

Answer 20

death of a spouse
divorce
marital separation

Question 21

what is stress as a psychobiological process?

Answer 21

involves both the nervous system and endocrine syste

Question 22

which part of the peripheral nervous system does stress affect?

Answer 22

the autonomic nervous system

Question 23

what is the autonomic nervous system responsible for?

Answer 23

concerned with regulation of smooth muscle (e.g. blood vessels, wall of gut), cardiac muscle and glands

Question 24

what are the two automatically separate systems of the ANS?

Answer 24

the sympathetic division and parasympathetic

Question 25

what is the sympathetic division?

Answer 25

most involved in activities associated with the expenditure of energy from reserves stored in the body (fight or flight)

Question 26

what is the parasympathetic division?

Answer 26

supports activities that are involved with increases in the body’s supply of stored energy (rest and digest)

Question 27

what are the glands that provide for the interaction between the nervous system and the endocrine system?

Answer 27

hypothalamus and pituitary glands

Question 28

what is an adrenal gland

Answer 28

critical for our stress response

Question 29

what is neural communication?

Answer 29

activation of sympathetic nervous system, happens really fast. it is the communication between neurons.

Question 30

what are neurons?

Answer 30

basic functional cell of the nervous system

Question 31

why is the sympathetic nervous system activity seen in a stress response quick?

Answer 31

because the type of communication that triggers it is neural communication or synaptic transmission.

Question 32

what is the process of neural communication or synaptic transmission?

Answer 32

sends out little chemicals into gap (synapse) between neurons, that trigger activity in another neuron (quick and direct)

Question 33

what is endocrine communication?

Answer 33

communication via the blood stream.

endocrine cell sends out molecule like a neuron however molecule has to travel through bloodstream until reaches target organ

takes longer process, triggered as a stress response

Question 34

what is the hypothalamus’ role?

Answer 34

providing a fight or flight repsonse

Question 35

what other gland does the hypothalamus control?

Answer 35

pituitary gland by releasing a hormone signal to the anterior gland and then to the pituitary gland

Question 36

what does the pituitary gland do

Answer 36

releases hormones to tell other glands what to do

Question 37

what is the process included in the production of hormone by the anterior pituitary?

Answer 37

Process called HPA axis

release of CRF from hypothalamus to the anterior pituitary gland
then ACTH from the pituitary gland to act on the adrenal gland (tells adrenal gland to excrete the stress hormone

Question 38

what is the HPA axis?

Answer 38

hypothalamic - pituitary - adrenal

from hypothalamus to pituitary gland to adrenal gland

Stress Axis

Question 39

CRF

Answer 39

corticotropin releasing facto

the hormone that hypothalamus releases to the anterior pituitary gland (hey you go signal(

Question 40

ACTH

Answer 40

adrenocorticotropic hormone

the hormone that is released by the pituitary that acts on adrenal

Question 41

what is the stress hormone?

Answer 41

glucocorticoids (cortisol)

Question 42

what is general adaptation syndrome?

Answer 42

the process of:

alarm - resistance - exhaustion

Question 43

what is the alarm stage of general adaptation syndrome?

Answer 43

release of adrenaline and other hormones (fight or flight response)

Question 44

what is the resistance stage of general adaptation syndrome?

Answer 44

respiration and heart rate return to normal, glucose levels and some stress-related hormones remain high

Question 45

what is the exhaustion stage of general adaptation syndrome?

Answer 45

after prolonged stress, the body’s defences break down, increases vulnerability to infection/disease

Question 46

what are the principle components of the stress response?

Answer 46

mobilisation of energy t the cost of energy storage
increased cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary tone
suppression of digestion
suppression of growth
suppression of immunity and of inflammatory response
anahesia
neural responses including altered cognition and sensory thresholds

Question 47

common pathological consequences of prolonged stress

Answer 47

fatigue, muscle wasting, steroid diabetes
hypertension (high blood pressure)
ulcers
psychogenic dwarfism, bone decalcification
suppression of ovulation, impotency, loss of libido
impaired disease resistance
apathy
accelerated neural degeneration during aging