Chapter 12 Discovering Psychology Notes Flashcards
These factors make major contributions to physical health- and disease.
Psychological and social factors
- Poverty
- Discrimination
- lack of access to medical and psychological care
Social factors
- stress
- depression
- psychological disorders
Psychological factors
- Smoking
- Substance abuse
- Sedentary lifestyles* Is the leading cause of disability, disease, and death in modern societ.y
Unhealthy behaviors
- How to promote health- enhancing behaviors
- How people respond to being ill
- How people respond to the patient- health practitioner relationship.
Issues that health psychologists investigate
- physicians
- nurses
- social workers
- occupational and physical therapists
Professionals health psychologists work with
- Biological factors
- Psychological factors
- Social factors
According to the biopsychosocial model, health and illness are determined by the complex interaction of these factors.
Genetic predispositions
Biological factors
Health beliefs and attitudes
Psychological factors
Family relationships and cultural influences
Social factors
Developed by Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, was an early attempt to quantify the amount of stress experienced by people in a wide range of situations.
- Includes 43 life events that are likely to require some level of adaptation.
- Assigned life change units
The social readjustment rating scale
A numerical rating of the relative impact of a life event, ranging from 11 to 100.
Life change units
Events or situations that are negative, severe, and far beyond our normal expectations for everyday life or life events.
Traumatic events
- Witnessing or surviving a violent attack
- Serious accident
- Experiences associated with combat, war, or major disasters
Types of events considered to be traumatic
- 85% have been exposed to traumatic events during their lifetime.- most common being the death of a loved one, sexual assault, and family violence.
Traumatic events - College students
A disorder that involves intrusive thoughts of the traumatic event, emotional numbness, and symptoms of anxiety, such as nervousness, sleep disturbances, and irritability.
- Can result from traumatic events, even minor ones.
- most people recover from traumatic events without experiencing PTSD
PTSD
The total amount of negative events experienced over a lifetime.
Cumulative adversity
Experiencing some stress is better than experiencing no stress at all.
- High cumulative adversity = poor health
- Low cumulative adversity = poor health
- Moderate cumulative adversity = good health and better able to cope with recent misfortunes than people who had experienced either very low or high levels of adversity.
Psychologist Mark Seery and his colleagues - “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” hypothesis study.
The ability to cope with stress and adversity, to adapt to negative or unforeseen circumstances, and to rebound after negative experiences.
- Moderate adversity experience builds this.
Resilience
True or false:
People who are never exposed to stressful, difficult events don’t develop the ability to cope with adversity when it does occur - as it eventually does. Even minor setbacks can be perceived as overwhelming.
True
The frequency of daily hassles, as well as a tendency to react more negatively to daily hassles, are linked to:
- Mental and physical illness
- Unhealthy behaviors
- Decreased well-being
True or false:
Some researchers have found that the number of daily hassles that people experience is a better predictor of physical illness and symptoms than is the number of major life events experienced.
True
Experiencing daily hassles as a child is predictive of poorer health as an adult
Each hassle may be unimportant in itself, but after a day or two filled with minor hassles, the effects add up.
Daily hassles are cumulative
Any major life change can create a ripple effect, generating a host of new daily hassles.
Daily hassles contribute to the stress produced by major life events.
More likely to report daily stress that is associated with friends or family.
Women
More likely to report daily stress that is school or work related.
Men
Stress at work or school tends to affect home life.
Both men and women
Can produce a pressure cooker environment that takes a significant toll on physical health.
Work stress
- People feel exhausted- used up all physical and emotional resources.
- Cynicism - Demonstrating negative or overly detached attitudes toward the job or work environment. Feel unappreciated.
- Failure or inadequacy- may feel incompetent or unproductive and have a sharply reduced sense of accomplishment
3 Key components of burnout
When the demands of the job exceed the worker’s ability to meet them.
Overload
The more control you have over your work and work environment, the less stressful it is.
Lack of control
Supportive co-workers, a sense of teamwork, and a positive work environment can all buffer workplace stress and prevent burnout.
Community (in the workplace)
People who live under difficult or unpleasant conditions often experience this.
- low socioeconomic class
- low social status
- racism and discrimination
- clashing of cultures
Chronic stress
The measure of overall status in a society.
- Income
- Education
- occupation
- Strong association of physical health and the longevity with this.
Socioeconomic status (SES)
- Highest levels of pathological stress, illness, premature death
- associated with poorer physical health
- fewer resources available to them
Less privileged people
- 3/4 African american adolescents treated as incompetent or dangerous or both
- Increases the risk for stress related health problems such as hypertension
Racism and discrimination
Subtle instances of racism.
Microaggressions
Stress of adapting to a new culture.
clashing of cultures
One of the earliest contributors to stress research.
- influential theory of emotion
- Identified the fight or flight response
Walter Cannon
- Should I seek positive relations with the dominant society?
- Is my original culture identity of value to me and should i try to maintain it?
Two questions people are faced with when adapting to a new culture
Continue to value their own customs but also seek to become part of dominant society.
Integrated
Associated with higher self esteem and lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress.
- May be the most adaptive acculturation pattern.
- Embraced by integrated individuals
Bicultural
Give up their old culture identity and try to become part of a new society. They adopt the customs and social values of the new environment, and abandon their original cultural traditions.
- moderate level of stress because it involves psychological loss
Assimilated
Maintain their cultural identity and avoid contact with the new culture.
- refuse to learn new language
- live in a neighborhood that is primarily populated by members of their own ethnic group
- sometimes due to the society’s unwillingness to accept the new immigrants
- high levels of stress
Separation
Lack cultural and psychological contact with both their traditional group and the culture of their new society.
- lost important features of their traditional culture but have not replaced them with a new cultural identity
- rare
- Associated with the greatest degree of acculturative stress
- feel as though they do not belong anywhere
Marginalized
- Prompting behaviors that jeopardize physical well-being
- not eating or sleeping properly- interferes with attention, concentration, memory, decision making
- Increases the likelihood of accidents and injuries
Indirect effects of stress
- Altering body functions
- physical symptoms, illness, disease
- cancer or diabetes later in life
Direct effects of stress
