Exam One Flashcards
Health Psychology
The subarea within psychology devoted to understanding psychological influences on health, illness, and responses to those states, as well as the psychological origins and impacts of health policy and health interventions.
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.
Wellness
The optimum state of health achieved through balance among physical, mental, and social well-being.
Etiology
The origins and causes of illness
Mind-body relationship
The philosophical position regarding whether the mind and body operate indistinguishably as a single system or whether they act as two separate systems; the view guiding health psychology is that the mind and body are indistinguishable.
Conversion hysteria
The viewpoint, originally advanced by Freud, that specific unconscious conflicts can produce physical disturbances symbolic of the repressed conflict; no longer a dominant viewpoint in health psychology
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.
Biopsychosocial Model
The view that biological, psychological, and social factors are all involved in any given state of health or illness.
Biomedical model
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.
Systems Theory
The view that all levels of an organization in any entity are linked to each other hierarchically and that change in any level will bring about change in other levels.
Acute Disorders
Illnesses or other medical problems that occur over a short time, that are usually the results of an infectious process, and that are reversible.
Chronic illnesses
Illnesses that are long lasting and usually irreversible.
Epidemiology
The study of the frequency, distribution, and causes of infectious and noninfectious disease in a population, based on an investigation of the physical and social environment. Thus, for example, epidemiologists not only study who has what kind of cancer but also address questions such as why certain cancers are more prevalent in particular geographic areas than other cancers are.
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.
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
An experimental study of the effects of a variable (such as a drug or treatment administered to human subjects who are randomly selected from a broad population and assigned on a random basis to either an experimental or a control group. The goal is to determine the clinical efficacy and pharmacologic effects of the drug or procedure.
Correlational Research
Measuring two variables and determining whether they are associated with each other. Studies relating smoking to lung cancer are correlational, for example.
Prospective Research
A research strategy in which people are followed forward in time to examine the relationship between one set of variables and later occurrences. For example, prospective research can enable researchers to identify risk factors for diseases that develop at a later time.
Longitudinal research
The repeated observation and measurement of the same individuals over a period of time.
Retrospective Research
A research strategy whereby people are studied for the relationship of past variables or conditions to current ones. Interviewing people with a particular disease and asking them about their childhood health behaviors or exposure to risks can identify conditions leading to an adult disease, for example.
The 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).
Sympathetic nervous system
the part of the nervous system that mobilizes the body for action.
Parasympathetic nervous system
The part of the nervous system responsible for vegetative functions, the conservation of energy, and the damping down of the effects of the sympathetic nervous system.
Medulla
The part of the hind brain that controls autonomic functions such as regulation of heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration.
Pons
The part of the hindbrain that links the hindbrains to the midbrain and helps control respiration.
Cerebellum
The part of the hindbrain responsible for the coordination of voluntary muscle movement, the maintenance of balance and equilibrium, and the maintenance of muscle tone and posture.
Thalamus
The portion of the forebrain responsible for the recognition of sensory stimuli and the relay of sensory impulses to the cerebral cortex.
Hypothalamus
the part of the forebrain responsible for eregulating water balance and controlling hunger and sexual desire; assists in cardiac functioning, blood pressure regulation, and respiration regulation; plays a major role in regulation of the endocrine system, which controls the release of hormones, including those related to stress.
Cerebral cortex
the main portion of the brain, responsible for intelligence, memory, and the detection and interpretation of sensation.
Neurotransmitters
Chemicals that regulate nervous system functioning.
Catecholamines
the neurotransmitters, epinephrine and norepinephrine, that promotes sympathetic nervous system activity; released in substantial quantities during stressful times.
Endocrine system
A bodily system of ductless glands that secrete hormones into the blood to stimulate target organs; interacts with nervous system functioning.
Pituitary gland
A gland located at the base of and controlled by the brain that secretes the hormones responsible for growth and organ development.
Adrenal gland
Two small glands, located on top of the kidneys, that are part of the endocrine system and secrete several hormones, including cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, that are involved in responses to stress.
Cardiovascular Disease
Chronically high blood pressure resulting from too much blood passing through too narrow vessels.
Atherosclerosis
A major cause of heart disease; caused by the narrowing of the arterial walls due to the formation of plaques that reduce the flow of blood through the arteries and interfere with the passage of nutrients from the capillaries into the cells.
Angina Pectoris
Chest pain that occurs because the muscle tissue of the heart is deprived of adequate oxygen or because removal of carbon dioxide and other wastes interferes with the flow of blood and oxygen to the heart.
Myocardial infarction
A heart attack produced when a clot has developed in a coronary vessel, blocking the flow of blood to the heart.
Blood pressure
The force that blood exerts against vessel walls.
Platelets
Small disks found in vertebrate blood that contribute to blood coagulation.
Respiratory system
The system of the body responsible for taking in oxygen, excreting carbon dioxide, and regulating the relative composition of the blood.