Intro to Health Psych

Question 1

Health Psychology

aggregate of specific ___, ____ & ____ ____ of the discipline of psychology to ….(4)

Answer 1

educational, scientific & professional contributions

1. Health Promotion & Maintenance
2. Prevention or Treatment of Illness
3. Identifying Etiology & Correlates of Health, Illness & Dysfunction
4. HC Systems & Formulation of Health Policy

Question 2

History of Health Psych

(4)

Answer 2

Historically, philosophers have wavered between view that mind & body are part of same system & that they are separate ones

Psychosomatic Medicine

Behavioral Medicine

Biomedical Model

Biopsychosocial Model

Question 3

Psychosomatic Medicine

• time period
• contributees (3)
• main assumption

Answer 3

• 1930s
• Freud & conversion hysteria
• Dunbar & Alexander build on concepts

main assumption: medical complaints viewed as being result of underlying chronic emotional conflict

• Relied too much on subjective & verbal interventions

Question 4

Behavioral Medicine

• time period
• main assumption

Answer 4

• based on behavioral approaches of 60’s & 70’s

main assumption: behavior is learned rather than innate

• believe that health is affected by what we do rather than what we think

Question 5

Behavioral Medicine/Model

• defining characteristics (2)

Answer 5

Has 2 defining characteristics:

1. Interdisciplinary- from psych, sociology & other areas of medicine

• Stressed an integration of biomedical & behavioural approaches

2. Behaviourism- Grew out of the behaviourism perspective of psychology

Question 6

Behavioral Medicine/Model

• major hypothesis
• development?

Answer 6

major hypothesis at this time was “gradient reinforcement”

• lag time b/w behavior & reinforcement = delayed gratification
• developed into Health Psychology in 70s

Question 7

Biomedical Model

• Issues? (3)

Answer 7

• proposes that all diseases or physical disorders can be explained by disturbances in physiological processes, which result from injury , biochemical imbalances & bacterial infections

Issues:

1) reductionist
2) ignores individual differences
3) focuses on illness not health

Question 8

Biopsychosocial Model

• assumption?
• health/illness are viewed as a product of? (3)

Answer 8

practitioner must understand social & psychological factors that contribute to illness in order to treat it properly

• views health & illness as product of combo of factors

1) cognition - ability to think, remember, interpret, learn & problem solve

2) emotion - subjective feeling that affects/affected by thoughts, behaviour & physiology

3) motivation - internal process that gets individual to start, choose direction & persist with some activity

Question 9

Implications of Biopsychosocial model (4)

Answer 9

1. maintains that biological, psychological & social factors are important determinants of health
2. clear communication among health care practitioners & social scientists
3. Guides health psychologists in their research efforts
4. Makes explicit the significance of relationship b/w practitioner & patient