Chapter 10: Stress and Health Flashcards
What is health psychology?
The interdisciplinary field that investigates the links among behaviour, cognition, and physical health.
What is the biopsychosocial model?
A way of understanding what makes people healthy by recognizing that biology, psychology, and social context all combine to shape health outcomes.
What is stress?
A physiological response to some type of environmental event that is subjectively appraised as taxing or even exceeding one’s ability to adapt.
What is a primary appraisal of stress?
A person’s perception of the demands or challenges of a given situation.
What is a secondary appraisal of stress?
A person’s perception of their ability to deal with the demands of a given situation.
What is the general adaptation syndrome?
A broad-based physiological response to a physical threat that unfolds in three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
What is the sympathetic-adreno-medullary (SAM) axis?
A physiological system that governs the body’s IMMEDIATE response to a stressful event, enabling the ability to fight or flee.
What is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis?
A physiological system that governs the body’s PROLONGED response to a stressful event, enabling the conservation of energy.
What is challenge reactivity?
A cardiovascular pattern of responding to a situation whereby the heart pumps out more blood and the vasculature dilates, allowing efficient circulation through the body.
What is threat reactivity?
A cardiovascular pattern of responding to a situation whereby the heart pumps out more blood but the vasculature constricts, preventing efficient circulation through the body.
What is cortisol?
A hormone produced by the adrenal cortex that is often elevated in response to stressful events.
What is allostatic load?
The sustained activation of many physiological systems in response to frequent or chronic stressors.
What are cytokines?
Molecules, released as part of the body’s natural immune response, that respond to injury or infection by causing fever and inflammation.
What is alcohol myopia?
A phenomenon whereby alcohol intoxication leads to a narrowing of attention and impairment of the ability to exert top-down control over impulses.
What is a Type A personality?
The label used to describe a collection of traits that include being highly competitive and driven, hot-tempered and hostile, and urgently focused on time and time management.
What is a Type B personality?
A label used to describe a collection of traits that include being reflective, creative, and less competitive.
What are gene x environment interactions?
The interaction between environmental factors and a person’s genetic predispositions that determine the unique phenotypes expressed in personality.
What is the diathesis-stress model?
A conception of psychopathology that distinguishes the factors that create a risk of illness (the diathesis) from the factors that turn that risk into a problem (the stress).
What is the differential sensitivities hypothesis?
The idea that some people have a genetic predisposition to be more strongly affected by variation in their environment, especially during early childhood.
What is epigenetics?
The study of how life events can change how genes are expressed.
What is a broaden-and-build function?
The idea that positive emotions evolved as a signal of safety, allowing for exploration and creativity.
What is flow?
The subjective experience of having one’s attention so focused on an activity or task that any sense of self-awareness disappears.
What are implementation intentions?
Specific “if-then” thoughts that cognitively connect a desired action to some triggering event or stimulus.
