Chapter 16 Stress and Health Flashcards
Stressors
Specific events or chronic pressures that place demands on a person or threaten the person’s well being.
Stress
The physical and psychological response to internal or external stressors.
Health Psychology
The subfield of psychology concerned with ways psychological factors influence the causes and treatment of physical illnesses and the maintenance of health.
Chronic Stressors
Sources of stress that occur continuously or repeatedly.
Environmental Psychology
The scientific study of environmental effects on behaviour and health.
Fight-or-Flight Response
An emotional and physiological reaction to an emergency that increases readiness for action.
General Adaptation Syndrome
A three-stage physiological response that appears regardless of the stressor that is encountered.
Catecholamines
Biochemicals indicating the activation of emotional systems.
Three Stages to GAS:
Alarm phase, resistance phase, exhaustion phase.
Alarm Phase
Body rapidly mobilizes resources to respond to the threat.
Resistance Phase
Body adapts to its state of high arousal as it tries to cope with the stressor.
Exhaustion Phase
The body’s resistance collapses, and results in damage.
Immune System
A complex response system that protects the body from bacteria, viruses, and other foreign substances.
Lymphocytes
Cells that produce antibodies that fight infection.
Psychoneuroimmunology
The study of how the immune system responds to psychological variables.
Who came up with the Type A and Type B behaviour patterns?
Friedman and Rosenman.
Type A Behaviour Pattern
Tendency toward easily aroused hostility, impatience, a sense of time urgency, and competitive achievement strivings.
Primary Appraisal
The interpretation of a stimulus as stressful or not.
Secondary Appraisal
Determining whether the stressor is something you can handle or not.
Difference between threat and challenge.
A threat is something you may not be able to control.
PTSD
Chronic physiological arousal, recurrent unwanted thoughts or images of the trauma, and avoidance of things that call the traumatic events to mind.
Burnout
A state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion created by long-term involvement in an emotionally demanding situation and accompanied by lowered performance and motivation.
Repressive Coping
Avoiding situations or thoughts that are reminders of a stressor and maintaining an artificially positive viewpoint.
Rational Coping
Facing the stressor and working to overcome it.
Three Steps in Rational Coping:
Acceptance, exposure, and understanding.
Reframing
Finding a new or creative way to think about a stressor that reduces its threat.
Stress Inoculation Training
A reframing technique that helps people to cope with stressful situations by developing positive ways to think about the situation.
Relaxation Therapy
A technique for reducing tension by consciously relaxing muscles of the body.
Relaxation Response
A condition of reduced muscle tension, cortical activity, heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure.
Biofeedback
The use of an external monitoring device to obtain information about a bodily function and possibly gain control over that function.
Social Support
The aid gained through interacting with others.
Psychosomatic Illness
An interaction between mind and body that can produce illness.
Somatoform Disorders
The set of psychological disorders in which the person displays physical symptoms not fully explained by a general medical condition.
Hypochondriasis
A psychological disorder in which a person is preoccupied with minor symptoms and develops an exaggerated belief that the symptoms signify a life-threatening illness.
Somatization Disorder
A psychological disorder involving combinations of multiple physical complaints with no medical explanation.
Conversion Disorder
A disorder characterized by apparently debilitating physical symptoms that appear to be voluntary, but that the person experiences as involuntary.
Sick Role
A socially recognized set of rights and obligations linked with illness.
Malingering
Feigning medical or psychological symptoms to get what they want.
In Kobasa’s experiment, hardy individuals exhibited ___ and ___.
Committment and Control.
Self-Regulation
The exercise of voluntary control over the self to bring the self into line with preferred standards.
