Chapter 11: Health and Well Being

Question 1

Health Psychology

Answer 1

-integrates research on health and psychology to promote health and wellbeing

Question 2

Behavior and Death

Answer 2

• people are most likely to die from causes that stem from their own behaviors
• leading causes of death in 2007:
  1) heart disease
  2) accidents
• 48% of teenagers/young adults death due to accidents

Question 3

Heart Disease

Answer 3

-leading cause of death for adults in industrialized world
Key Predictors:
-health behaviors (i.e. smoking, obesity)
Personality Traits:
-related to how ppl respond to stress
a) Type A: competitive, achievement oriented, aggressive, hostile, impatient, and time pressed
b) Type B: nonconmp.etc.
Hostility
-major contributor of heart disease
-ppl who score high on hostility rating self-report have high incidence of coronary heart disease

Question 4

Placebo Effects

Answer 4

• improvements in health attributed to inert drug or bogus treatment
• participants must believe it will work and not know fake
• can reduce pain perception (neural processes involved in responding to pain-reducing placebo are similar to ones activated in response to biological treatment)
• drugs that interfere with body’s natural method of reducing pain also make pain relievers and placebos equally ineffective

Question 5

Stress

Answer 5

Definition:

-condition in which strong emotional response overwhelm’s perceived ability to meet demands of a situation

Question 6

Ways to View Stress

Answer 6

Stimulus View:
-focus on the situation that causes stress
Response View:
-focus on the physiological changes that occur when faced with challenging situation
Relational View:
-focus on relationships bw people and the situation

Question 7

Stress as a Stimulus

Answer 7

Hassles and Uplifts Scale
-social readjustment rating scale
-quantifies stress in terms of major life changes
-positive correlations bw frequency of stressors and health symptoms
Problem:
-stressors are experienced differently with different people

Question 8

Stress as a Response

Answer 8

• looking at stress response allows us to take into consideration how person reacts to situation, not just situation
• difficult to quantify large scale (but captures ind dif better)

Question 9

Person and Situation

Answer 9

Primary Appraisal

• what a situation means to us
• outcome of appraisal determines emotional response
• stress emerges from a neg emotional response when we can’t deal with the demands of a situation

Question 10

Physiology of Stress and Coping Mechanisms

Answer 10

Two processes by which body achieves stability:

1) homeostasis
- simple adjustment in physiological state to compensate for situation
2) allostasis
- multiple homeostatic mechanisms to maintain a homeostatic environment

Question 11

Physiology of Stress

Neuroendocrine System

Answer 11

Adrenal Medullary System
-norepinephrine sauses sympathetic respons (fight or flight) in which HR, respiration increases
-chronic stress is detrimental to health
Hypothalmic Pituitary Adrenal Axis (HPA)
-cortisol plays a role in breaking down complex molecules into simple ones to produce energy and suppresses immune system

Question 12

Sex Differences and Stress

Answer 12

Cannon’s Fight or Flight
-increased HR
-redistribution of blood to muscles and brain
-deeper resp
-dilation of pupils
-inhibition of gastric secretions
-increase in glucose release from liver
Researchers
-avoided using women in studies due to dif in hormones
-women and men ofter respond differently to stressors i.e. tend and befriend response
-possible that release of oxytocin during social stress encourages women to affiliate with others

Question 13

Generalized Adaptation Syndrome

GAS

Answer 13

Stage 1:
-alarm
-when stressor is realized
-fight/flight response
Stage 2:
-if stressor persists, necessary to attend some means of coping
-body can't keep this up indefinitely
Stage 3:
-body's resources are depleted and it ant maintain normal functioning
-immune system compromised

see graph

Question 14

Burnout

Answer 14

• state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion created by long-term involvement in an emotionally demanding situation
• accompanied by lowered performance and motivation

Question 15

Coping Process

Answer 15

• to deal with stressors we use cognitive appraisals (link feelings with thoughts)
• Lazarus’ Two Part Process
  1) primary appraisal
• decide whether stimuli is stressful, benign, or irrelevant
  2) Secondary Appraisal
• once we perceive an event a stressful, we evaluate our response options and choose coping strategies
• Anticipatory Coping: coping that occurs before onset of a future stressor

Question 16

Types of Coping

Answer 16

Folkman and Lazarus’ Coping Strategies

1) Problem Focused Coping
- direct steps to confront or minimize stressor
- most effective when you have control over event
2) Emotion Focused Coping
- prevent having emotional response to stressor
- most effective when no control over event

Question 17

Strategies for Positive Thinking Using Positive Reappraisal

Answer 17

Downward Comparisons
-thinking about others in worse situations
Creation of Positive Events
-restructure to find positive aspects/ effects

Question 18

Emotion Focused Coping Types

Answer 18

Distancing
-repressive
-avoiding situations or thoughts that are reminders of a stressor and maintaining an artificially positive view point
Reappraise
-reframe
-new creative way to think about stressor that reduces its threat
Rational
-three steps
a)acceptance: stressor exists and cannot be wished away
b)exposure: attending to stressor
c)understanding: working to mind the meaning of the stressor in your life