HPsych 1 Flashcards
What is health psychology?
Contribution of psychology to:
- Promotion and maintenance of health
- Prevention and treatment of illness
- Identification of pychological factors affecting illness
- Analysis and improvement of healthcare and health policy
What is the biomedical model of health?
Illness is understood only in terms of biological and physiological processes
Treatment involves physical intervention (surgery, drugs)
What is the biopychosocial model of health?
3 major factors contributing to health:
Psychological
- Cognition
- Emotion
- Behaviour
Biological:
- Physiology
- Genetics
- Pathogens
Social:
- Class
- Employment
- Support
Contrast how the biomedical model and the biopsychosocial model of health might view responsibility for the patients health and treatment
Biomedical:
- Patient is not responsible for health, disease is out of their control
- Illness should be treated with drug therapy or surgery
- Medical professionals have sole responsibility for treatment
Biopsychosocial:
- Patient is not a passive victim of disease but has a responsibility for their own health
- Treatment should be a mix of traditional physical treatment, social and pychological support
- Treatment is in the hands of MDTs, patient and social support groups
Compare the views of the biomedical and the biopsychosocial models on the role of psychology in health and illness
Biomedical:
- Physiology and pychologigy are separate and do not influence each other (only a small relationship between illness and depression)
Biopsychosocial:
- Psychological factors can be the sole cause of illness or integrate with illness to exacerbate or otherwise affect
Why is the biopsychosocial model of health necessary for modern medicine?
Sees patients as real people
Recognition of influence of thought, feelings, motivations and behaviours of patients can help us treat them more effectively (E.g. Diagnosis and reactions to diagnoses, treatment adherence)
Shows that doctors have a changing role in health (E.g. smoking cessation)
Doctors see people with mental problems
Health promotions focus can be placed on reduction of biopsychosocial risk factors, not just avoidance of pathogens
What is a stereotype?
Generalisations we make about specific social groups and members of those groups
‘rule of thumb’
Often erroneous / Overlook diversity
Prone to emphasis of negative traits
Resistant to change
How do humans store knowledge, relate this to function
Knowledge is stored as mental representations organised into schemata, groups of interrelated information
Members of the same group share characteristics
E.g. Fruit schema
Schema function:
- Save processing power
- Allows us to anticipate things/makes things more predictable
- Avoids information overload
How does the concept of schema explain human’s tendency to stereotype?
Member of social groups can be percieved to share some characterisitics (grouped into one schema).
Describe the concept of in-group/out-group
We identify with groups and a way to gain self identity and self esteem (our in-group E.g. Medical students)
Comparisons to others in our group builds self esteem
More likely to focus on positives of our group
More likely to focus on negatives of out groups (Sterotyping)
Describe how sterotyping can lead to negative behaviours
We have cognitive stereotypes that may in turn cause:
Prejudice (Evaluative and affective):
- Negative attitudes towards other groups
- Pre-judgement of others based on negative sterotypes
Discrimination (Behavioural):
- Behaving differently with people of different groups based on their group membership
Give an example of how sterotypes lead on to discrimination
Assumption made on someone based on age
Prejudice leads to us prejudging them based on our Stereotype
Action on this assumption is Discrimination
When are we most likely to rely on sterotypes?
When stresed, time pressured, fatigued or suffering information overload
How can we challenge our own stereotypes?
Getting to know members of other groups
Reflection on our actions and thoughts
Give an example of stress/time influencing our reliance on stereotypes
The policeman’s dilemma:
More black than white unnarmed people shot in a simulation showing officers both armed and unarmed people of various races in rapid sucession
Shows that under time constraints the officers relied on their stereotype of black people as more of a threat/more violent to make a quick decision on who to shoot
