Hoofdstuk 4

Question 1

Social Support

Answer 1

refers to comfort, caring, esteem, or help available to a person from other people or groups
- received support + perception of support

Question 2

Social Support provides 4 basic functions

Answer 2

1) emotional/esteem support
- conveys empathy, caring, concern, positive regard and encouragement toward the person (=comfort, reassurance + sense of belonging and love)

2) Tangible/instrumental support
- direct assistance

3) Informational Support
- advice, directions, suggestions or feedback

4) Companionship Support
- availability of others to spend time with you

*measure social support –> social support questionnaire

• the amount of social support individuals receive appears to depend on their gender and sociocultural group membership

Question 3

To explain how social support may influence health, 2 theories

Answer 3

1) Buffering Hypotheses
- social support affects health by protecting the person against the negative effects of high stress
- with high support: low appraisal of stress
- social support may modify people’s response after the initial appraisal

2) Direct Effects Hypothesis
- maintains that social support benefits health and well-being, regardless of the amount of stress people experience
- high support = strong feelings of belonging + esteem

• the buffering and direct effects hypotheses apply when a stressor occurs, but the health effects of social support may result from preventing stress as well

Question 4

Stress Prevention Model

Answer 4

suggests that social support may be helpful, because it provides advice or resources that help us avoid or minimalize exposure to stressful events and circumstances
- levels of stress exposure are an important influence on allostatic load and social support could contribute to better health by reducing this overall burden

Question 5

Another psychosocial factor, that modifies the stress people experience (next to social support)

Answer 5

is the degree of control people feel they have in their lives = Personal Control

Personal Control - the feeling that people can make decisions and take effective action to produce desirable outcomes and avoid undesirable ones

Question 6

Behavioral Control

Answer 6

involves the ability to take concrete action to reduce the impact of a stressor (lessen intensity/shorten reaction)

Question 7

Cognitive Control

Answer 7

ability to use thought processes or strategies to modify the impact of a stressor (very effective in reducing stress)

Question 8

Internal Locus of Control

Answer 8

people who believe they have control over their successes and failures possess this
- I-E scale is used for measuring the degree of internality/externality of a person’s belifs about personal control

Question 9

Self-Efficacy (bandura)

Answer 9

the belief that we can succeed at a specific activity we want to do:
- outcome expectancy
- self-efficacy expectancy

Question 10

Learned Helplessness (Martin Seligman)

Answer 10

people can learn to be helpless by being in uncontrollable situations that lead to repeated failure
- principal characteristic of depression

• the revised theory proposes that people who experience uncontrollable negative events apply a cognitive process called attribution, in which they make judgments about 3 dimensions of the situation:

1) internal/external: people consider whether the situation results form their own personal ability to control outcomes or from external causes that are beyond anyone’s control

2) stable/unstable: people assess the situation results from a cause that is long-lasting (stable) or temporary (unstable)

3) global/specific: people consider whether the situation results from factors that have global and wide-ranging effects or specific and narrow effects

Question 11

People who believe bad events result from internal, stable and global factors

Answer 11

while good events result from external, unstable and specific factors have a Pessimistic Explanatory Style
- attributing negative events to external, unstable and specific causes = Optimistic Explanatory/ Attributional Style

Question 12

One of the best-developed health-related measures of personal control

Answer 12

is the multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scales (18 items, divided in 3 scales)

1) internal locus of control

2) powerful-others’ health locus of control
(belief that one’s health is controlled by other people)

3) chance locus of control (belief that luck or fate controls health

Question 13

Hardiness

Answer 13

personality traits that differentiate people who do/don’t get sick under stress

3 characteristics:
1) Control: people’s belief that they can influence events in their lives
2) Commitment: people’s sense of purpose or involvement in the events, activities and with the people in their lives
3) Challenge: refers to tendency to view changes as incentives or opportunities for growth rather than threats to security

Question 14

Sense of Coherence (Antonovsky)

Answer 14

tendency of people to see their worlds as comprehensible, manageable/meaningful

Question 15

Resilience

Answer 15

high levels of 3 interrelated positive components of personality –>self-esteem, personal control and optimism

Question 16

Type A Behavior pattern

Answer 16

4 characteristics:
1) competitive achievement orientation
2) time urgency
3) anger/hostility
4) vigorous vocal style

• the structured interview has been considered the gold standard for measuring Type A
• Type A responds more quickly and strongly to stressors, often interpreting them as threats to their personal control

Question 17

Type B

Answer 17

tends to be more easygoing and philosophical about life

Question 18

Reactivity

Answer 18

response to stressor/strain includes a physiological component, such as increased blood pressure catecholamine or cortisol levels compared to base level

• Type A often show greater reactivity to stressors than type B (especially during competitive-stressful social interactions)

Question 19

CHD Coronary Heart Disease

Answer 19

• illnesses in which atherosclerosis narrows the coronary arteries which supply blood to the heart muscle
• anger/hostility is the main Type A behavior in the link with CHD
• Cook-Medley Hostility Scale

Question 20

Diathesis-Stress Model

Answer 20

the view that people’s vulnerability to a physical or psychological disorder depends on the interplay of their predisposition to the disorder (diathesis) and the amount of stress they experience

Question 21

The magnitude of change in heart rate

Answer 21

(bij respiration, als het parasympatisch systeem wil ont-stressen) = Vagal Tone, caused by Vagus Nerve
* higher vagal tone = lower risk of cardiovascular disease

Question 22

Part of reactivity involves activation of the adrenal glands, both by sympathetic Nervous system stimulating these glands anvia the

Answer 22

Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis

Question 23

The metabolic syndrome is a set of risk factors:

Answer 23

• including high levels of cholesterol and other blood fats
• elevated blood pressure
• high levels of insulin in the blood
• impaired ability of insulin to facilitate transportation of glucose out of the bloodstream and large fat deposits in the abdomen

Question 24

Increases in cortisol and epinephrine

Answer 24

are associated with decreased activity of T-cells and B-cells against antigens

Question 25

Psychoneuroimmunology

Answer 25

focuses on the relationships between the psychosocial processes and the activities of the nervous endocrine and immune systems (these systems form a feedbackloop to the brain)

Question 26

Psychophysiological Disorders

Answer 26

refers to physical symptoms or illnesses that result from the interplay of psychosocial and physiological processes

Question 27

Asthma attacks

Answer 27

combination of 3 factors: allergies, respiratory infections and biopsychosocial arousal (stress/exercise)

Question 28

Tension-type headache (muscle contraction headache)

Answer 28

caused by combination of a central nervous system dysfunction and persistent contraction of the head and neck muscles (2x per week of meer uren/dagen/weken)

Question 29

Migraine Headache

Answer 29

result from dilation of blood vessels surrounding the brain and a dysfunction in the brainstem and trigeminal nerve that extends throughout the front half of the head

Question 30

Primary or essential hypertension

Answer 30

causes of high blood pressure are unknown

Secundary: usually caused by disorders of other body systems/organs (kidneys, endocrine system)

Question 31

Normotensive

Answer 31

people with normal blood pressure

Question 32

Processes that link stress and CHD

Answer 32

1) stress envokes increases in lipids and inflammatory substances in the blood, cardiovascular reactivity, and increases in catecholamine and corticosteroid release by the endocrine glands

• when chronic = damage to heart and arteries
• rupture of coronary artery plaques
• bloodclot

2) Cardic Arrythmia = cardiac episode (sudden death)

3) Stress is associated with behavioral risk factors for CHD (smoking/alcohol)