Health 2

Question 1

Somatoform Disorders - def? stem from?

Answer 1

• Disorders in which patient displays physical symptoms not fully explained by a general medical condition
• Stem from too much sensitivity

Question 2

Psychosomatic illness - def? three ex?

Answer 2

• interaction between mind and body that can produce illness
• study how ways mind (psyche) can influence body (Soma) and vice versa
• hypochondriasis, somatization disorder, conversion disorder

Question 3

Hypochondriasis

Answer 3

• psychological disorder in which a person is preoccupied with minor symptoms and develops an exaggerated belief that the symptoms signify a life threating illness
• Constantly worrying about health, tendency to catastrophize symptoms by imagining the worst possible interpretation becomes chronic source of anxiety

Question 4

Somatization Disorder

Answer 4

• combinations of multiple physical complaints that have no medical explanation
• Greater focus on symptoms
• Want someone to sympathize with physical problems, but complaints only alienate others

Question 5

Conversion disorder

Answer 5

• apparently debilitating physical symptoms that appear to be voluntary but the person experiences them as involuntary
• Seizures, paralysis, blindness, deafness with no neural basis

Question 6

Being a Patient - Sick Role

Answer 6

• socially recognized set of right and obligations linked with illness
• No responsibilities, exempted from normal activities
• Obligations: can’t appear to enjoy illness, must pursue treatment to end it

Question 7

Malingering

Answer 7

• feigning medical/psychological symptoms to achieve something they want
• secondary gains of illness outweigh costs – ability to rest, freed from performing unpleasant tasks, being helped by others, insurance benefits

Question 8

Patient - Practitioner Interaction - compliance?

Answer 8

• study checking compliance reveals compliance is quite poor
• deteriorates when treatment must be frequent, inconvenient, painful, and also decreases as number of treatment increases

Question 9

Humour - learned/innate? culture? age? animals? sound?

Answer 9

• Evidence suggest innate - babies who are blind, deaf laugh – not a learned response
• cross culture, cross time
• Animals: laugh as well
• Start laughing at others around 4 – laughing at someone falling, etc
• Sound of laughter: indistinguishable across cultures

Question 10

Humour - social context, cognitive perceptual process, emotional reponse, origin?

Answer 10

• Social context: involves more than one person, some situation is happening
• Cognitive-perceptual process: Odd/incongruent + unimportant
• Emotional response: feels good, dopamine
• vocal-behavioural expression
• Origins of laughter: come from play and practice hunting

Question 11

Social functions humour?

Answer 11

• Enhances group cohesion: good joke at right time bring people together
• at the same time, excludes outsiders: people in in group closer together, but clear that people not in that group are excluded – inside jokes = you’re an outsider, or can tell jokes about someone else
• Reduces status differences: to prof, boss, eliminates social differences
• Increases status differences: wrong joke at wrong time exasperates differences

Question 12

Two kinds of psychological factors influence personal health?

Answer 12

• Health relevant personality traits: enduring traits and make some people particularly susceptible while sparing others - outside of personal control
• Health behaviour: engaging in positive health behaviour -something anyone can do

Question 13

Optimism - stability? twins? health effects? why?

Answer 13

• level of optimism/pessimism is fairly stable over time
• Personality of twins reared together vs apart: stability arises because these traits are moderately heritable
• Doesn’t improve physical health directly, but helps maintain psychological health in face of physical problem
• More likely to maintain positive emotions and avoid negative emotions like anxiety and depression
• More likely to stick to medical regiments and keep up their relationships

Question 14

Optimism vs Rumination

Answer 14

• Rumination: opposite, dwelling on negatives
• poor immune systems, experience stress as worse, and live shorter
• optimistic people live longer, have better immune systems, experience less severe stress

Question 15

Hardiness - meaning? share three traits?

Answer 15

• Thick-skinned, resilient, can take stress/abuse that could be devastating to others, view change as a challenge and not stress score high on hardiness

1. Commitment: involved in life’s tasks/encounters instead of dabbling
2. Control: actions/words have causal influence over lives, environment
3. Challenge: accepts challenge, undertaking change, accepting opportunity for growth

Question 16

Other Individual Differences - ego? spirituality?

Answer 16

• Self-enhancement: people who are full of themselves, self centered, think highly of themselves -cope with stress quite well (being egotistical pays off when dealing with stress)
• Spirituality/religion: more spiritual/more religious = better immune systems

Question 17

Self Regulation

Answer 17

• exercise of voluntary control over the self to bring the self into line with preferred standards
• Controlling impulses, putting off immediate gratification for longer-term gains, behaving in a way that will help make you into the kind of person you would prefer to be – aka a healthy one
• Requires inner strength/will power - theory: strength can be fatigued

Question 18

Textbook stats - americans: overweight/obese? STD? smoke?

Answer 18

• 67% Americans over 20 are overweight/obese
• 65 million Americans have incurable STD – 15 million new each year
• 21% smoke