Health & well-being Flashcards
What are the 4 models of how personality traits may be linked to health/ illness? Which has the most support? Which gives the clearest preventative strategies?
1) A direct link from biologically based traits to illness (strong support), 2) the personality-illness correlation is spurious; both are linked to the same biological cause e.g. the same gene increases vulnerability to heart disease & hostility, 3) traits cause behaviours which cause illness = gives clear preventative strategies & 4) illnesses cause personality changes e.g. chronic illness reduces E & increases N
Give 3 commonly perceived causes of stress
1) Negative events, 2) Negative appraisals of events & 3) Psychophysiological responses to events
What event causes the most vs. least change (stress) to a person’s life?
Most: death of a spouse. Then: divorce, jail term, death of family member, personal injury/ illness, marriage, pregnancy, outstanding personal achievement. Least: Xmas
What makes stressful events stressful?
Our appraisal of them as being uncontrollable & unpredictable & challenging us beyond our limits. They require re-adjustment of our routines & cause immediate/ LT psycho-physiological responses
Give 2 bodily reactions to stress
Increased levels of the hormone cortisol. Immunosuppression
Name the hormones which cause immunosuppression when released during stress-induced arousal
Catecholamines, corticosteroids
Slower wound healing has been reported in…
Carers of Alzheimer’s patients. Students during an exam period
Students showed decreased _-cell activation & decreased ___ secretion 1 month as opposed to 6 months before an exam
T. Cytokine
Positive mood & especially humour is associated with greater secretion of ___ (antibodies) to find & neutralise bacteria & viruses
immunoglobulin
Is cancer linked to stress?
No, not even in the progression of the disease: initial studies said ‘Yes’ but they looked at life events 1 year prior to diagnosis, whereas cancer development normally begins many years prior to diagnosis. In studies of huge sample sizes & 20-yr follow-ups, no association between N, hopelessness & depression & risk of cancer was found
Lazarus (1984) proposed 2 reasons for individual differences in vulnerability to stress & levels of stress experienced after an event:…
1) Primary appraisal of a situation’s actual threat, 2) Secondary appraisal of the ability to successfully cope with the threat
Name 3 types of coping strategy
1) Problem-focused (try to change the external situation usually by planned action), 2) Emotion-focused (try to change your own emotional reaction to a situation) & 3) Avoidance
Define hardiness. What are its 3 components?
The relative resistance to stress. Belief in personal control over events, commitment to full involvement in life & enjoyment of challenge/seeing challenge as an opportunity to develop. The 3 Cs: control, challenge & commitment
Executives high in hardiness were less likely to… but hardiness does not predict…
Develop illness relative to others exposed to comparative amounts of stress. The amount of distress experienced during negative life events
Over a 10-yr period those with high strain jobs were more likely to develop… (Karasek, 1982)
Heart problems i.e. cardiovascular system reactivity e.g. coronary heart disease (CHD)
What is endocrine system reactivity?
The activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis which releases endocrine hormones (catecholamines & corticosteroids) which can lead to a) sudden cardiac death & b) arteriosclerosis (hardening of arteries)
What are type A & B personalities?
Type A: a hostile, impatient & aggressive workaholic = more likely to develop CHD. Type B: a relaxed, placid & unambitious person
Whilst early research supported the Type A/B distinction, there was a problem: some type A components did not correlate with each other e.g. Eysenck FAed…
scores on the EPQ & Type A/B questionnaire & found that the Type A personality was correlated with 2 independent factors: N & E
What % of the variance in risk for heart disease is explained by a Type A personality? ___ traits are a modest but significant predictor
2%. Hostile
What is type D? Type D people take ___ to recover from heart attacks. It appears to be a mix of…
A depressed & socially inhibited personality. Longer. High neuroticism & low extraversion
Name 2 general criticisms of the type personality theories
1) People don’t fall into categorical types but fall at places on trait continuums, along which people are normally distributed. 2) These personality types are nothing new but simply combinations of previously identified dimensions
The ___ model for vulnerability to cardiovascular disease posits an interaction between…&…
Transactional. Structural (biological) weaknesses & psychosocial (stress, SES) vulnerability. See the ppt box diagram
Matthew’s (1994) found that ___ symptoms on the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) correlated +vely & strongly with _ & -vely a little with _, the latter r of which was lost when _ was partialled out
Somatic (bodily), N, E, N
Note N is more strongly correlated with self-reported, subjective somatic symptoms than…
Objective, organic measures of illness
Correlations fail to establish the ___ of causation e.g. does the experience of physical illness make you more neurotic?
Direction
In a study which did establish causation, Leor (1996) found that coronary deaths in Los Angeles were…
5x higher than normal on the day of the 1994 earthquake
Religiousness is associated with lower anxiety, lower depression, better ___ ___ & living a ___ life. Why?
Physical health. Longer. Religions may promote healthier lifestyles & involvement provides social support & the ability to find meanings in or benefits of experiencing adversity
If you admit to be involved in religion for utilitarian reasons e.g. to promote status or for political goals, then…
being part of that religion does not benefit your ability to respond well to stress (Masters, 2004)
Brayne (1998) found that sun-protective behaviour was ___ correlated with __ but not __ nor __. Why is this important to know?
-vely. P. N, E. So that marketers & government know who they are targeting sun cream etc to
Terracciano (2004) found that smokers scored higher on __ & lower on __ & __ but no differently on __ & __
N, C, A, E, O
What 4 methods of assessment did Saklofske (2007) use to examine healthy behaviours?
1) a version of the Big Five questionnaire, 2) an emotional IQ scale, 3) a health locus of control questionnaire & 4) a coping styles questionnaire
Saklofske (2007) found that N predicted smoking, C predicted…(4 things) & A predicted…(2 things)
C predicted non-smoking, not drinking alcohol, exercising & having a healthy diet. A predicted not drinking alcohol & eating healthily
Saklofske (2007) also found that emotional intelligence correlated with…(2 things), rational coping styles & having an internal locus of healthy correlated with…(1 thing), whereas emotional coping is correlated with…(2 things)
Exercising & having a healthy diet. Having a healthy diet. Smoking & not having a healthy diet (comfort food seeking?)
C is a predictor of longevity & healthy behaviours which are leading contributors to…
Longevity
Bogg & Roberts (2004) found that C was -vely correlated with mortality-associated, unhealthy behaviours e.g….. 2 particular facets of C which were especially strong predictors were…
Risky sex, drug use, excessive alcohol intake, unhealthy eating etc. Traditionalism & self-control
C is associated with 3 additional behaviours in medical settings which relate to medical advice, cancer & HIV - what are they?
Compliance with medical advice, uptake of breast cancer screening & the (slower) rate of HIV disease progression
If improved, compliance to current treatments would be more effective than…. Lack of compliance results from…
Improving the treatments themselves. Forgetfulness & lack of belief in the treatment
There are 20 times more studies on…than…
Depression & health than happiness & health
PA (positive affect) describes…. Name a questionnaire which we can use to measure it
The feelings associated with pleasurable engagement in the environment e.g. excitement. PANAS which measures orthogonal factors of PA & negative affect
Pressman & Cohen (2005) found that the trait PA is associated with…(3 things). The evidence is inconsistent about PA & surviving serious illness
1) Lower morbidity, 2) decreased symptoms & pain & 3) increased longevity among older Pp living in communities
Deary (2009) found that people with higher IQs ___ ___. 70% of women with an IQ of 1 SD above the mean at age 11 were alive at _ _ vs. __% of those with an IQ of 1 SD below the mean. The r between IQ at 11 & 77 was ___
Live longer. 76.
