Lect1 Intro to psychology and society and health

Question 1

Health and illness are the results of the interaction between the:

Answer 1

Biological (individual, medical), psychological (characteristics to rehabilitating), and social (social structures, determinants of health) factors

Question 2

What is seasonal affective disorder?

Answer 2

Winter blues - there is evidence of a link between increased exposure to sunlight and less depression

Question 3

How do our thoughts impact our health?

Answer 3

Causes changes to our sympathetic nervous system - raising out blood pressure, pulse rate which can over time lead to physical health problems.

Impacts our experience of pain - labels we prescribe impact level of pains and consequent behaviours and negative thoughts

Question 4

Where in the brain may damaging cause a change of personality - an increase in impulsivity?

Answer 4

Frontal lobe

Question 5

Psychology is…

Answer 5

• distinct field of enquiry, a science
• different areas of specialisation and enquiry within psychology
• multiple levels of analysis

Question 6

How do behavioural and molecular levels interact with each other?

Answer 6

Behavioural - what we can do can impact on the molecular level e.g. our genes can be switched on or off nature vs nurture

Molecular-level – our genes can impact on the behavioural level ie what we do. Sensation seeking, the tendency towards extraversion. Affects our interests and how we behave

Question 7

What are the social structures?

Answer 7

The recurring patterns of social interaction through which people are related to each other, such as social institutions and social groups

Question 8

What is sociological imagination?

Answer 8

A term coined by Charles Wright Mills to describe the sociological approach to analysing issues. We see the world through a sociological imagination, or think sociologically, when we make a link between personal troubles and public issues

Question 9

Medical dominance

Answer 9

A general term used to describe the power of the medical profession in terms of its control over its own work, over the work of other health workers, and over health resource allocation, health policy, and the way that hospitals are run.

Question 10

What is the acute care setting for allied professionals?

Answer 10

• Individual needs of the patient are assessed to determine the extent of a problem, taking the present and past physical condition and lifestyle of the patient into consideration.
• Treatment goals are decided upon, in consultation with the patient, and treatment is provided while the patient is in the acute care setting.
• Records are kept and patient progress is communicated to other members of the health care team.
• If patients need to continue treatment, they are provided with necessary health education in the hospital and/or follow-up is organised to be provided in a subacute, rehabilitation, or outpatient setting.

Question 11

What are the four key dimensions of medical dominance that impact on allied health? (Elliot Friedson, 1970)

Answer 11

1. control over the work and knowledge base of other health professions
2. the physician role of diagnosis and treatment
3. the need for the work of others to be requested and supervised by medicine
4. the unequal status of medicine and that of other health professions

Question 12

How is medical dominance affecting allied health professionals?

Answer 12

• doctors having positions of authority within the hospital and health system, and therefore administrative and financial control over allied health professionals
• doctors possessing absolute autonomy over their own work and controlling the amount of autonomy available to allied health professionals
• doctors having direct or indirect control of state recognition of some allied health professions through representation on registration boards.

Question 13

What is social closure?

Answer 13

A term first used by Max Weber to describe the way that power is exercised to exclude outsiders from the privileges of social membership (in social classes , professions, or status groups).

Question 14

What are professionalisation strategies adopted by allied health professions?

Answer 14

• adopting a scientific body of knowledge and a code of professional conduct;
• developing professional associations and accreditation of members:
• establishing a university degree as the entry-level qualification.

Question 15

What is health sociology?

Answer 15

Focuses on the social patterns of health and illness—such as the different health statuses between women and men, the poor and the wealthy, or the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations—and seeks social rather than biological or psychological explanations.

Question 16

What are the social determinants of health?

Answer 16

The social, cultural, political, and economic factors that impact living and working conditions, which directly and indirectly influence individual and population health

Question 17

What is the social gradient of health?

Answer 17

Where the lower a person’s position in the social hierarchy, the poorer their health

Question 18

What is the behaviour?

Answer 18

What we can do can impact on physical and mental health. For example, we exercise to improve our physical health. May also negatively affect us such as smoking.