Individual differences and Coping with illness and disability Flashcards
What are the big 5 components of personality
Remember OCEAN
Openness
- Appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, imagination, curiosity and variety of experiences
Conscientiousness
- Tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully or aim for achievement
Extraversion
- Energy, positive emotions and tendency to seek stimulation/company
Agreeableness
- Tendency to be compassionate and cooperative
Neuroticism
- Tendency to experience unpleasant emotions (anger, anxiety, depression, vulnerability)
- Sometimes called emotional instability
How can the components of personality affect health
Conscientiousness
- Longevity: Adds 7.5 years to lifespan
- Health behaviour across lifespan
- Less likely to engage in harmful behaviours
- More likely to engage in healthy behaviours
- Ways to increase conscientiousness? Eg. text reminders, goal-setting
Neuroticism
- Increased reporting of somatic symptoms e.g. pain
- Higher rates of mental health disorders
- Higher mortality rates e.g. in cardiovascular disease
- Health behaviour
- Higher rates of healthcare usage
- Less adherence to healthy behaviours
- Higher rate of health harming behaviours
What are the definition and limitations of IQ
Definition : (Mental age/Chronological age)*100
Limitations : Averages all domains of intelligence and doesnt consider each as individuals
What makes contributions towards IQ
Genetic contributions account for 1/3 to 2/3 of variation
- No single intelligence gene, but Correlate among siblings
Environmental contributions account for 1/3 to 2/3 of variation
What is crystallised intelligence
The ability to apply previously learned knowledge to current problems
- Improves with age then stabilises
What is fluid intelligence
The ability to deal with novel problem solving situations where personal experience doesnt help
- Steadily declines with ageing
What is empathising
Consists of being able to infer thoughts/feelings of others and having an appropriate response to it
Women are better than men at this
What is systemising
Drive to analyse/construct any kind of system (i.e. identify rules that govern a system in order to predict how the system behaves)
Men are better than women
How do empathising and systemising link to autism and aspergers syndrome
Autism is 4:1 male to female
Aspergers is 9:1 male to female
This is explained by deficits in empathising (social and communication difficulties) and skills in systemising (narrow interests)
What is the transactional definition of stress
Stress results from when the person/environment transactions lead the individual to perceive a discrepancy between demands of the situation & coping strategies available
This can be applied in a medical situation when a person may have the demands of a procedure (the pain) and not have anything they can do about it
Explain the dual process hypothesis with regards to procedural information and sensory information
Procedural information is information regarding the procedures to be undertaken
Sensory information is information regarding sensations that will be experienced
The dual process hypothesis is that procedural information allows patients to match ongoing events with expectations in a non-emotional manner and sensory information works by mapping a non-threatening interpretation onto these expectations
How does perceived control effect distress
Increased perceptions of perceived control during treatment can reduce patient distress
Describe two different types of focused coping
Problem focused
- Efforts directed at changing the environment, or ones own actions/attitudes
- e.g. seeking health information, learning procedures, pacing activity, changing behaviour
Emotion focused
- Efforts directed at managing stress-emotional response to maintain morale and function
- e.g. medication, relaxation, deep-breathing, distraction, praying
How would you help a child cope with treatment
Tell - Use simple language to tell the child what will happen and be up front about it
Show - Demostrate the procedure on an inanimate object (doll) or another person
Do - Only begin when the child understands what is going on
- Can use distraction techniques (toys)
What did the Auerbach study show in regards to information level and distress
Patients with high desire for info were less distressed when given specific information
Patients with low desire for info were less distressed when given generalised info
