Chapter 11 Flashcards
What is the biopsychosocial approach to understanding health?
Intersects between:
- biology
-Psychology
- social context
What is subjective well-being
- An individuals overall evaluation of life satisfaction and happiness
What is positive psychology?
- movement within psychology that applies research to provide people with the knowledge and skills to experience full filling lives
What are the three lines of inquiry in positive psychology?
- Positive subjective experiences: positive moods, positive e motions, flow, mindfulness
- Positive individual trails: hope, resilience, grit, gratitude
- Positiveinstitutions: positive workplaces, positive schools
What are the elements of positive psychology
- positive mood
-Gratitude - positive attitude
Happiness
What shape does the stress-performance graph make?
-Bell
- at medium stress you have your best reformance
When does post traumatic growth occur?
- have successfully coped with the trauma
- frequently reflect on the traumatizing arch and relate it to specific positive outcomes
What are the 6 domains of post traumatic growth?
- New possibilities
- Relating to others
- Personal strength
- Appreciation of life
- Spiritual change
- Life priority charge
What is stress?
- A lack of fit between perceived demands and perceived ability to cope with demands
- stress is felt when: perceived resources<perceived demand
What are the steps to stress appraisal
- Primary appraise! : initial evaluation of the relevance, level of threat, and degree of stress the event brings
-Secondary appraisal I an evaluation of our ability to cope
What are a cute stressors
Threatening events that have a relatively short duration and clear end point
What are chronic stressors
Threatening events that have relatively long duration and no readily, available time limit
-Eg. Relationship conflicts, financial problem
What is ambient stress
- Chronic negative conditions embedded in the environment
- ex/ excessive noise, traffic, pollution, crowding, poverty
What does the hassles scale measure
- Overall chronic stressors for students
What is the social readjustment rating scale (SRRS)
- Developed by Holmes and Rate
- rates various life events according to their potential for causing disease
What are the 3 responses to stress
Emotional
Physiological
Behavioral
Why are some people better at stress management
- A good indicator is moderating variables influencing stress tolerance: social support, hardiness, optimism
What is hardiness
- one of the moderating variables
- a disposition marked by commitment challenge, control that is purportedly associated with strong stress resistance
What is coping
- Active efforts to master, reduce or tolerate the demands created by stress
- coping strategies help determine the other stress will have positive or negative effects on a person
what is negative coping
- giving up prematurely
- acting aggressively
- indulging oneself
- self blame
- procrastination
what are positive coping mechanisms
- problem focused (when the situation is controllable)
- emotion-focused (when the situation is uncontrollable)
what is learned helplessness/giving up
- passive behavior produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events
- cognitive interpretation of aversive events determines whether learned helplessness develops
- sometimes transferred to situations in which the person is not really helpless
- creates a passive reaction to stressful events
what is the study of learned helplessness by martin seligman
- dogs in electrified cage are not able to escape due to impending shock
- later when shock is turned off, dogs will not even try to leave
- the dogs learned that they were helpless and accepted it
aggression as a coping mechanism
- aggression: behavior intended to hurt someone (physically or verbally)
- frustration aggression hypothesis: aggression is always due to frustration (can still act out at people who had nothing to do with their aggression)
- Freud: aggressive acts release emotional tension in a process called catharsis
indulgence as a coping mechanism
- when things are going poorly, people may seek gratification elsewhere
- excessive eating, drinking, shopping, gambling, etc
self blame as a coping mechanism
- tendency to engage in negative self talk
- Ellis: self-blame is associated with catastrophic thinking rooted in irrational assumption
what percent of college students put off academic assignments
70-90%
why do students procrastinate
- desire to minimize time on a task
- desire to optimize efficiency
- close proximity to reward
- students often get rewarded for procrastination
what is the effect of procrastination
- they turn in papers later
- they obtained lower grades
- later in the semester they report more stress related symptoms
what are appraisal-focused coping strategies
- detecting and disputing negative self talk
- rational thinking
- positive reinterpretation
- finding the humor in the situation
what is problem-focused coping strategies
- active problem solving
- seeking social support
- enhancing time management
- improving self contol
what are emotion focused coping strategies
- releasing pent up emotions
- distracting oneself
- managing hostile feelings and forgiving
- exercing
- meditating
what is ellis’s rational thinking?
has Rational-Emotional Behavior Therapy (REBT) and the ABC model to focus on altering clients pattern of thinking to reduce maladaptive emotions and behaviors
what is the effect of humor on stress
- reduces the negative impact of stress on mood
- creates more positive appraisal
- increases positive emotions
- facilitates positive social interactions
what does positive reinterpretation do for stress
- recognizing things could be worse
- finding pros in a bad situation
what are the steps to problem solving
- clarify the problem
- generate alternative courses of action
- evaluate your alternatives and select a course of action
- take action while maintaining flexibility
what are two psychosocial modifiers of stress
1) social support
2) sense of personal control
what is emotional support (type of social support)
- expression of empathy
- provides recipient with comfort, reassurance, belongingness
what is esteem support (type of social support)
- expressed through positive regard for the person
- in the form of encouragement or agreement with the persons feelings
- positive comparison of the person with others
- ego boosting
what is tangible or instrumental support (type of social support)
- direct assistance
- example lending money
what is informational support (type of social support)
- advice, directions, feedback
what is network support (type of social support)
- feeling of membership especially with those who share interests
- church, AA
what are the 4 types of control
1) behavioral control - ability to take concrete action to reduce the impact of stressor (problem focused coping)
2) Cognitive control - though processes to modify the impact of the stressor
3) decisional control - opportunity to choose between alternative procedures (plan B)
4) informational control - getting knowledge about a stressful event
what are weak predictors of happiness
- money
- gender
- parents
- intelligence
- age
- physical attractiveness
what are moderate predictors of happiness
- health
- social activity
- religion
what are strong predictors of happiness
- personality
- work
- relationship satisfaction
how is happiness defined
- aristotle: happiness was attained by living a virtues life and being a good person
- jean-jacques rousseau: the road to happiness lies in the satisfaction of ones desires and the hedonistic pursuit of pleasure
- william james: happiness was the ratio of ones accomplishments to ones aspirations
how is happiness measured
- satisfaction with life scale
- the predominance of positive compared with negative emotions
what is the positive illusion paradox
- positive illusion: inflated view of ones own characteristics as a good, able and desirable person
- paradox: positive illusion will make you happy
- a positive illusion can be accomplished by lowering ones aspiration or making downward comparisons
what positive outcomes in life correlate with happiness
- marriage
- longevity
- self-esteem
- job satisfaction
age and happiness
- happiness is moderate around teens then decreases until it starts increasing again at 46
- peaks at 74
- not actually a huge factor
does sex impact happiness
- men and women are equally happy
what is the correlation between a nations well being score and its GNP
+0.67
is there a relationship between income and happiness in the USA
- threshold of income where once u meet basic needs there are no major changes in happiness
gender, age, ethnicity, and income account for ____ percent variation in happiness
10-15%
which personality traits are closely related to well being
- extravertism
- neuroticism
