Exam 1 Flashcards
Biopsychosocial model of illness and advantages/disadvantages
The view that biological, psychological, and social factors are all involved in any given state of health or illness.
Arose from Freud’s work on conversion hysteria (unconscious conflicts lead to physical disturbances)
Useful clinically
A: Macrolevel and Microlevel (broader scope), emphasizes both health and illness, more integrative
Biomedical model of illness and advantages/disadvantages
The viewpoint that illness can be explained on the basis of aberrant somatic processes and that psychological and social processes are largely independent of the disease process; the dominant model in medical practice until recently
A: Simple, Direct, has prompted much medical progress
D: Reduces illness to micro-level processes like disordered cells and chemical imbalances (Reductionist model), fails to recognize social and psychological influences, emphasizes illness over health, cannot explain some puzzles
Health
The absence of disease or infirmity, coupled with a complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being; health psychologists recognize health to be a state that is actively achieved rather than the mere absence of illness.
Illness
Substandard state of health
Focuses of health psychology
Health promotion and maintenance
Prevention and treatment of illness
Etiology and correlates of health, illness, and dysfunction
Improve the health care system and the formulation of health policy
Patient-centered medical home
Allows for collaboration among providers from a variety of specialties to care for the overall health and wellness of patients rather than simply addressing biological or physical concerns alone
Etiology
Origins or causes of illness
Psychosomatic medicine
A field within psychiatry, related to health psychology, that developed in the early 1900s to study and treat particular diseases believed to be caused by emotional conflicts, such as ulcers, hypertension, and asthma. The term is now used more broadly to mean an approach to health-related problems and diseases that examines psychological as well as somatic origins.
Acute disorders
Illnesses or other medical problems that occur over a short time, that are usually the result of an infectious process, and that are reversible.
Tuberculosis, pneumonia, influenza, measles
Declining prevalence
Chronic illnesses
Illnesses that are long lasting and usually irreversible.
Increasing prevalence
Heart disease, cancer, respiratory diseases
Chronic illnesses
Illnesses that are long lasting and usually irreversible.
Increasing prevalence
Heart disease, cancer, respiratory diseases
Often caused by psychological and social factors and cause problems socially and psychologically in return; have helped spawn field of health psych.
Theory
A set of interrelated analytic statements that explain a set of phenomena, such as why people practice poor health behaviors.
Experiment
A type of research in which a researcher randomly assigns people to two or more conditions, varies the treatments that people in each condition are given, and then measures the effect on some response.
Randomized clinical trials
A target treatment is compared against the existing standard of care or a placebo control, that is, an organically inert treatment.
Evidence-based medicine
Medical interventions go through rigorous testing and evaluation of their benefits before they become the standard of care, usually through randomized clinical trials.
Gold standard of health psychology research
Experiments and randomized clinical trials
Gold standard of health psychology research
Experiments and randomized clinical trials
Correlational research
Measuring two variables and determining whether they are associated with each other. Studies relating smoking to lung cancer are correlational, for example.
Disadvantage: hard to determineq direction of causality
Advantage: More adaptable than experiments
Prospective research
Looks forward in time to see how a group of people change, or how a relationship between two variables changes over time
Can be experimental or correlational
Longitudinal research
Type of prospective study in which the same people are observed at multiple points in time
Retrospective designs
Look backward in time in an attempt to reconstruct the conditions that led to a current situation
Epidemiology
The study of the frequency, distribution, and causes of infectious and noninfectious disease in a population
Morbidity
The number of cases of a disease that exist at a given point in time; it may be expressed as the number of new cases (incidence) or as the total number of existing cases (prevalence).
Mortality
The number of deaths due to particular causes.
Meta-analysis
Combines results from different studies to identify how strong the evidence is for
particular research findings
10 Major Systems of Body
Nervous Endocrine Cardiovascular Respiratory Digestive Renal Reproductive Immune *Muscular *Skeletal
Nervous System
The system of the body responsible for the transmission of information from the brain to the rest of the body and from the rest of the body to the brain; it is composed of the central nervous system (the brain and the spinal cord) and the peripheral nervous system (which consists of the remainder of the nerves in the body)
Peripheral is somatic and autonomic
Sympathetic NS
Mobilizes the body for action.
Parasympathetic NS
Responsible for vegetative functions, the conservation of energy, and the damping down of the effects of the sympathetic nervous system.
Medulla
Regulates HR, BP, and Respiration
Pons
Link between hind and midbrain and helps with respiration
Cerebellum
Coordinates voluntary muscle movement, balance and equilibrium, and muscle tone/posture
Hindbrain
Pons, medulla, cerebellum
Midbrain
Sensory and motor impulse pathway
Coordinates visual and auditory reflexes
Forebrain
Thalamus and hypothalamus
Cerebral cortex
Thalamus
Recognition of sensory stimuli and relay of sensory impulses to cortex
Hypothalamus
Regulates heart function, BP, respiration, water balance, and appetites
Cerebral cortex
Largest part of brain
Higher order intelligence, memory, personality
4 lobes
Frontal lobe
Motor cortex (voluntary movement)
Parietal lobe
Somatosensory cortex
Temporal lobe
Auditory and olfactory
Occipital
Visual
Limbic system
Important in stress and emotional responses.
Amygdala, hippocampus, cingulate gyrus, septum, hypothalamus
Amydala
Detection of threat
Catecholamines
Epinephrine and norepinephrine
Prompted by stimulation of NS
Promote sympathetic stimulation
HR increase, vessels constrict except around heart, BP increases, blood diverted to muscles, respiration increases, more air into lungs, digestion and urination decrease, pupils dilate, sweat produced
Diathesis-stress model
The diathesis-stress model takes both genetic predispositions /situational factors (diatheses) and lifestyle choices (stresses) into account in order to conceptualize the risk a certain individual may have for developing a certain disorder. According to the diathesis-stress model, both genes AND environment are important in determining disease risks.
Health behaviors
Behaviors undertaken by people to enhance or maintain their health, such as exercise or the consumption of a healthy diet.
Health habit (7 Major)
A health-related behavior that is firmly established and often performed automatically, usually developed in childhood
Can be highly resistant to change
Sleeping 7-8 hours a night, not smoking, eating breakfast, no more than 1-2 alcoholic drinks each day, regular exercise, not eating between meals, being no more than 10% overweight
Health promotion
A general philosophy maintaining that health is a personal and collective achievement; the process of enabling people to increase control over and improve their health. Health promotion may occur through individual efforts, through interaction with the medical system, and through a concerted health policy effort
Teachable moment
The idea that certain times are more effective for teaching particular health practices than others; pregnancy constitutes a teachable moment for getting women to stop smoking; the time after a negative consequence is a teachable moment
Health Belief Model
A theory of health behaviors; the model predicts that whether a person practices a particular health habit can be understood by: 1) knowing the degree to which the person perceives a personal health threat and 2) the perception that a particular health practice will be effective in reducing that threat.
Con: leaves out idea of self-efficacy; that one can control their own behavior
Theory of Planned Behavior
A person’s behavioral intentions and behaviors can be understood by knowing 1) the person’s attitudes toward the behavior, 2) subjective norms regarding the behavior, and 3) perceived behavioral control over that action
Theory
A set of interrelated analytic statements that explain a set of phenomena, such as why people practice poor health behaviors.
Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change
An analysis of the health behavior change process that draws on the stages and processes people go through in order to bring about successful long-term behavior change.
Stages include pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance.
Often a cycle
Successful attitude or behavior change at each stage depends on the appropriateness of the intervention. For example, attitude change materials help move people from pre-contemplation to contemplation, whereas relapse prevention techniques help move people from action to maintenance.
Motivational Interviewing
Getting people to work through ambivalence they experience about changing health behaviors
Nonjudgmental, nonconfrontational, encouraging, supportive
No persuasion
Ambivalence
Having mixed feelings about something
Health locus of control
The perception that one’s health is under personal control; is controlled by powerful others, such as physicians; or is determined by external factors, including chance.
Health locus of control
The perception that one’s health is under personal control; is controlled by powerful others, such as physicians; or is determined by external factors, including chance.
Self-determination theory
The theory that 1) autonomous motivation and 2) perceived competence are fundamental to behavior change.
Fear appeals
Efforts to change attitudes by arousing fear to induce the motivation to change behavior; fear appeals are used to try to get people to change poor health habits
Fear appeals
Efforts to change attitudes by arousing fear to induce the motivation to change behavior; fear appeals are used to try to get people to change poor health habits
Not very effective
Fear appeals
Efforts to change attitudes by arousing fear to induce the motivation to change behavior; fear appeals are used to try to get people to change poor health habits
Not very effective
Cognitive-Behavior Therapy
Most effective approach to health habit modification
The use of principles from learning theory to modify the cognitions and behaviors associated with a behavior to be modified; cognitive-behavioral approaches are used to modify poor health habits, such as smoking, poor diet, and alcoholism
Emphasizes self-control
Self-monitoring
Includes discriminating the target behavior and charting the behavior
Discriminative stimulus
Capable of eliciting target behavior
Signals a positive reinforcement is about to occur
Eliminated or modified by CBT
Stimulus-control interventions
Interventions designed to modify behavior that involve the removal of discriminative stimuli that evoke a behavior targeted for change and the substitution of new discriminative stimuli that will evoke a desired behavior.
Cognitive restructuring
A method of modifying internal monologues in stress-producing situations; clients are trained to monitor what they say to themselves in stress-provoking situations and then to modify their cognitions in adaptive ways
Self-reinforcement
Systematically rewarding oneself to increase or decrease target behavior
Contingency contracting
A procedure in which an individual forms a contract with another person, such as a therapist, detailing what rewards or punishments are contingent on the performance or nonperformance of a target behavior.
Behavioral assignments
Home practice activities that clients perform on their own as part of an integrated therapeutic intervention for behavior modification
Social skills training
Techniques that teach people how to relax and interact comfortably in social situations; often a part of health behavior modification programs, on the assumption that maladaptive health behaviors, such as alcohol consumption or smoking, may develop in part to control social anxiety.
Assertiveness training
Techniques that train people how to be appropriately assertive in social situations; often included as part of health behavior modification programs, on the assumption that some poor health habits, such as excessive alcohol consumption or smoking, develop in part to control difficulties in being appropriately assertive
Abstinence violation effect
A feeling of loss of control that results when one has violated self-imposed rules, such as not to smoke or drink.
Lifestyle rebalancing
Concerted lifestyle change in a healthy direction, usually including exercise, stress management, and a healthy diet; believed to contribute to relapse prevention after successful modification of a poor health habit, such as smoking or alcohol consumption
Set point theory of weight
The concept that each individual has an ideal biological weight that cannot be greatly modified.
Yo-yo dieting
The process of chronically alternating between dieting and regular eating, leading to successive weight gains and losses; over time, yo-yo dieters increase their chances of becoming obese by altering their underlying metabolism.
Stress
Appraising events as harmful, threatening, or challenging, and assessing one’s capacity to respond to those events; events that are perceived to tax or exceed one’s resources are seen as stressful.
Three aspects of stress
Stressful stimulus
Stressful response
Interaction between 2
Stressful stimulus
Event or situation outside of the individual that causes a response from the individual
Stressful response
Reaction by an individual to the stimulus that can be characterized as emotional, physiological, biochemical, cognitive and/or behavioral.
3 primary stress models
Fight or flight model
General adaptation syndrome
Transactional model
Fight or flight
A response to a threat in which the body is rapidly aroused and motivated via the sympathetic nervous system and the endocrine system to attack or flee a threatening stimulus; the response was first described by Walter Cannon in 1932.
General Adaptation Syndrome
Developed by Hans Selye, a profile of how organisms respond to stress;
3 phases: a nonspecific mobilization phase, which promotes sympathetic nervous system activity; a resistance phase, during which the organism makes efforts to cope with the threat; and an exhaustion phase, which occurs if the organism fails to overcome the threat and depletes its physiological resources
Cons: does not account for psychological factors
Diseases of adaptation
Asthma, ulcers, etc.
Transactional model
Focuses on the relationship between environmental stimulus and individual response
Proposes two appraisal processes: primary and secondary appraisal
Primary appraisal
The perception of a new or changing environment as beneficial, neutral, or negative in its consequences; believed to be a first step in stress and coping.
Secondary appraisal
The assessment of one’s coping abilities and resources and the judgment as to whether they will be sufficient to meet the harm, threat, or challenge of a new or changing event.
5 dimensions of stressful events
Salient (Events occurring in central, important domains in life; areas where one devotes energy and derives a sense of self) Negative (Events perceived as undesired and to be escaped or avoided if possible) Uncontrollable Ambiguity (Events that cannot readily be identified as positive or negative or otherwise understood in terms of scope and required resource) Overload
Tend and befriend
A theory of responses to stress maintaining that in addition to fight-or-flight, humans respond to stress with social affiliation and nurturant behavior toward offspring; thought to depend on the stress hormone oxytocin; these responses may be especially true of women
2 systems involved in stress response
Sympathetic-adrenomedullary system and hypothalmic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis
Allostatic load
The accumulating adverse effects of stress, in conjunction with preexisting risks, on biological stress regulatory systems.
Can be assessed by increased weight and higher BP, etc
Acute stress paradigm
A laboratory procedure whereby an individual goes through moderately stressful procedures (such as counting backwards rapidly by 7s), so that stress-related changes in emotions and physiological and/or neuroendocrine processes may be assessed.
Role conflict
Conflict that occurs when two or more social or occupational roles that an individual occupies produce conflicting standards for behavior.
Demand-control-support model
When high demands and low control are combined with little social support at work
