Lecture 15 - Social Psychology And Health Flashcards
Name the model:
- Rooted in the idea that mind and body are distinct, separable entities (mind-body dualism)
- Medicine looks to bodily factors, rather than the mind, for explanations of health and disease
Biomedical model
Name the model:
- A model of health that considers the effects of biological, psychological and social factors on health and illness
Biopsychosocial model
What are the main contributors to death and disability today?
Chronic illnesses
What is the process called rumination?
Our highly developed prefrontal cortex allows us to anticipate and dwell on potential and past experiences, prolonging our stress.
What is the general adaptation syndrome?
Postulated that the body mounts a similar set of responses to a broad array of stressors.
- Stress is the nonspecific response of the body to any demand
What role does the hypothalamus play in the stress response?
It plays a key role in coordinating motivated behaviours required for survival, including the fight-or-flight response.
- It receives input from the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala
What is the sympathetic nervous system?
A physiological system that governs the body’s immediate response to a stressful event, enabling the ability to fight or flee.
What initiates the sympathetic nervous system arousal?
The hypothalamus
What are the changes effectuated by the activation of the sympathetic nervous system ?
Increased blood pressure and heart rate
Sweating
What is the parasympathetic nervous system?
- the brake pedal
- Acts antagonistically to the sympathetic nervous system
- Once the emergency has passed, it restores the body to a normal state, allowing resources to be devoted to life-sustaining processes such as digestion and growth
How is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal Axis activated?
1) Hypothalamus initiates a chemical cascade that stimulates pituitary gland
2) Hormone released by the pituitary gland stimulates a different part of the adrenal glands
3) the adrenal glands release hormones including cortisol
4) the cortisol mobilizes sugar for fuel, increases heart rate and blood pressure, directs attention towards the threat and contributes to the formation of flashbulb memory
how does the body dysregulate the stress response?
The cortisol acts on the hypothalamus, turning down that chemical cascade and helping the body return to a normal state following stress
What does repeated, prolonged activation of the HPA axis do?
It can compromise its functioning.
- Chronis stress can also impair the Parasympathetic nervous system, leaving the sympathetic nervous system unchecked
What are the effects of chronic stress on the cardiovascular system?
- Chronic activation of the sympathetic system and HPA axis can lead to the buildup of plaque on arterial walls, which increases the risks of a heart attack
What are the effects of chronic stress on the immune system?
- Prolonged experiences of stress compromise the immune system
- Stress can slow down wound healing
- It can result in increased glucocorticoid resistance of immune cells, leading to heightened inflammation. This leads to better chance for a number of diseases, depression, cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease
Which stressors are more stressful?
Uncontrollable stressors
What are stressors?
The events that are most likely to be stressful
What is perceived stress?
A subjective evaluation of stress in response to events, depending on appraisal
What is the stress appraisal theory?
Appraisals of an event and our role in it shape our emotional experience of the event, and our physiological reactions to it.
- Stress is what happens when the demands of the situation exceed our ability to cope
What is a primary appraisal?
A person’s perception of the demands or challenges of a given situation
What is a secondary appraisal?
A person’s perception of his or her ability to deal with the demands of a given situation
What is the exaggerated perceptions of personal control?
The feeling that we have more control over outcomes than is objectively justifiedé
- People who feel less control over stressful events are at a greater risk for depression
- the sense of control can change appraisal from threat to challenge
- the mere sense of having control can attenuate the impact of the stressor
- can foster problem-focused coping
What is dispositional optimism?
It is characterized by generalized positive expectations for the future
What are the effects on individuals of an optimistic disposition?
- Less cortisol; reactivity to stressors
- Less likely to develop cold symptoms after exposure to cold virus
- Show better recovery post surgery and cancer treatment
- improvements in cardiac health
- Improves social functioning
What is associated with loneliness?
- Heightened risk of morbidity and mortality
- Physical or objective social isolation and subjective sense of loneliness
Why is loneliness related to negative health outcomes?
- Evolutionary perspective —> safer in a group, more vulnerable when alone
- when alone —> hypervigilance for social threat, anxiety and hostility + increased sleep fragmentation + heightened HPA axis + altered immune gene expression and increased inflammation + depressive symptomatology
What is social support?
The degree to which people believe they can turn to other people for information, help, advice or comfort
What do people who report having a larger and more supportive social network have?
- Lower blood pressure
- Lower levels of stress hormones
- Stronger immune systems
- Decreased likelihood to develop depression and other pathologies
- increased lifespans
What is the hormone oxytocin?
It is a complex hormone with different kinds of effects. It appears to play an anxiolytic function, reducing feelings of anxiety and inhibiting cortisol.
Also called the cuddle hormone
What part of the brain is activated when viewing pictures of attachment figures?
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex
What is the effect of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex?
- Inhibitory effect on threat-related neural regions
- Inhibits SNS and promotes PNS activity
- Inhibits cortisol release
