Health psy: mod 1 terms

Question 1

What is life expectancy?

Answer 1

Average age at which individuals in a given sex and geographic area can expect to live.

Question 2

What are chronic diseases?

Answer 2

Ongoing illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, and stroke.

Question 3

What is the biomedical model?

Answer 3

Traditional view of western medicine, which defines health as the absence of disease.

Question 4

What is a pathogen?

Answer 4

Disease-causing organism.

Question 5

What is the biopsychosocial model?

Answer 5

Approach to health that includes biological, psychological, and social influences.

Question 6

What is behavioral medicine?

Answer 6

Interdisciplinary field concerned with the development and integration of behavioral and biomedical science knowledge and techniques relevant to health and illness.

Question 7

What is health psychology?

Answer 7

Branch of psychology that considers how individual behaviors and lifestyles affect a person’s physical health.

Question 8

What is a placebo?

Answer 8

Inactive substance or condition that has the appearance of an active treatment and may cause participants to improve or change because of their belief in its efficacy.

Question 9

What is the nocebo effect?

Answer 9

The adverse effect that occurs when a placebo is given.

Question 10

What is a double-blind design?

Answer 10

The arrangement in which neither participants nor experimenters know about treatment conditions.

Question 11

What is a single-blind design?

Answer 11

Conditions in which participants do not know if they are receiving the active or inactive treatment but the providers know.

Question 12

What are correlational studies?

Answer 12

Type of descriptive research design that yields information about the degree of relationship between two variables.

Question 13

What is a correlation coefficient?

Answer 13

Number between −1 and 1 which assesses the degree of relationship between two variables.

Question 14

What are cross-sectional studies?

Answer 14

Studies conducted at a single point in time.

Question 15

What are longitudinal studies?

Answer 15

Studies that follow participants over an extended period of time.

Question 16

What are experimental/control groups?

Answer 16

Participants in the experimental group receive treatment and participants in the control groups do not; differences between the two groups are measured.

Question 17

What are independent and dependent variables?

Answer 17

The independent variable is manipulated, and the dependent variable is the response to the manipulation.

Question 18

What is ex post facto design?

Answer 18

A quasi-experimental design that does not manipulate an independent variable.

Question 19

What is a subject variable?

Answer 19

The participant variable, which depends on selection of participants who differ already on the independent variable.

Question 20

What is epidemiology?

Answer 20

Branch of medicine that investigates factors that contribute to health or disease in a particular population.

Question 21

What is a risk factor?

Answer 21

Any characteristic or condition that occurs with greater frequency in people with a disease than in people free from the disease.

Question 22

What is illness behavior?

Answer 22

The activities undertaken by people who experience symptoms but have not yet received a diagnosis.

Question 23

What is sick role behavior?

Answer 23

The behavior of people after diagnosis, whether from a health care provider or through self-diagnosis.

Question 24

What are personal factors?

Answer 24

People’s way of viewing their own body, their level of stress, and their personality traits.

Question 25

What is neuroticism?

Answer 25

A tendency toward strong and often negative emotional reactions.

Question 26

What is a lay referral network?

Answer 26

A network of family and friends who offer information and advice before any official medical treatment is sought.

Question 27

What is the hospital patient role?

Answer 27

Conforming to the rules of a hospital and complying with medical advice.

Question 28

What is adherence?

Answer 28

A person’s ability and willingness to follow recommended health practices.

Question 29

What is optimistic bias?

Answer 29

A belief that the person will be spared the negative consequences of nonadherence that afflict other people.

Question 30

What is conscientiousness?

Answer 30

Reliable relationship to adherence and improved health.

Question 31

What is social support?

Answer 31

Tangible and intangible help a person receives from family members and friends.

Question 32

What are continuum theories?

Answer 32

Theories that seek to explain adherence with a single set of factors that should apply equally to all people regardless of their existing levels or motivations for adhering.

Question 33

What is reciprocal determinism?

Answer 33

Influences of the behavior, environment, and person.

Question 34

What is self-efficacy?

Answer 34

A person’s beliefs in their capacity to exercise some measure of control over their own functioning and environmental events.

Question 35

What are outcome expectations?

Answer 35

People’s beliefs that those behaviors will produce valuable outcomes.

Question 36

What is positive reinforcement?

Answer 36

Positively valued stimulus increases probability that behavior will occur.

Question 37

What is negative reinforcement?

Answer 37

Removing a negatively valued stimulus increases probability that behavior will occur.

Question 38

What is punishment?

Answer 38

Changes behavior by decreasing the chances that a behavior will be repeated.

Question 39

What are stage theories?

Answer 39

Propose that people pass through discrete stages as they attempt to change their behavior.

Question 40

What is the motivational phase?

Answer 40

Phase in which a person forms the intention to either adopt a preventative measure or change a risk behavior.

Question 41

What is the volitional phase?

Answer 41

When a person attempts to make a change and maintain that change over time.

Question 42

What is behavioral willingness?

Answer 42

Person’s motivation at a given moment to engage in risky behavior.

Question 43

What are implementation intentions?

Answer 43

Specific plans that people can make that identify not only what they intend to do but also where, when, and how.