Stress, Research Methods (Test 1 PSYC 262) Flashcards

1
Q

Biopsychosocial Model

A

Presumes that our health and total well-being are determined by the interaction between 3 things…
1. Biological mechanisms (genetics and healthy lifestyle habits)
2. Psychological processes (mental states and positivity)
3. Social Influences (meaningful friends and family- sociological)
Ex: Allison’s IBS impacting her performance at practice, team spirit, and self esteeme.

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1
Q

Bio-Psychosocial Model

A

1 Biological/Physical Health- free from disease and healthy lifestyle habits
2 Psychological Health- positive self-esteem or “hardiness” (withstand varying conditions and still thrives)
3 Social Health- meaningful relationships and sociocultural factors

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2
Q

Biomedical model

A

believes illness always has a physical cause.
Health = absence of disease. (limited view; no consideration of social or psychological health)
Is an outgrowth of “mind-body dualism” (the idea that the mind and the body are completely separate from one another. the mind is spiritual and not subject to natural law)

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3
Q

Psychosomatic Medicine (Dunbar and Alexander)

A

Linked patterns of personality to specific illnesses. Deals with Freudian theory/ observations.
Positive: started a trend toward the view of illness and health as multifunctional.
Criticisms: many conclusions were based on case studies aka based on the findings of 1 or 2 individuals for the population; since it is based on Freudian theory, hard to agree with; divided acquisition of illnesses thinking that some came from unconsciousness and others not
Example: if a woman has unconscious insecurity about their femininity, that leads them to get breast cancer.

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4
Q

Behavioral Medicine

A

Interdisciplinary field that takes all kinds of branches of medicine and integrates them to learn about health.
Uses principles of LEARNING: classical and operant conditioning

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5
Q

Classical Conditioning

A

Pavlov: learning through association
Ex: in some people with normal blood pressure, when going to the doctor, their blood pressure is at a dangerous level due to an association with the doctor with stress.

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6
Q

Operant Conditioning

A

Reinforcement/ punishment: plays an important role in how people change their behavior to be healthy.
Ex: Someone wants to eat fruit and veggies every day. They could make a chart to check off when they meet their goal. Monitoring in this way is a helpful reinforcer in promoting behavior.

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7
Q

A pattern of Disease and Death is a rise of “Lifestyle Disorders”

A
  • Noncommunicable (not contagious) “lifestyle diseases” tend to have preventable causes - heart disease, cancer, diabetes
  • Chronic (lasting over time rather than acute with a clear beginning and end) disorders - pneumonia, COVID, typhoid
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8
Q

Factors Relate to Mortality/ Risk of Dying

A

Age
- old people are more likely to die than younger
Ethnicity
- leading causes of death varies among ethnicities
Income
- health and wealth correlate
Education
- higher levels of education predict that individuals have healthier habits

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9
Q

Why has the average lifespan increased?
(increased about 30 years since 1900. Turn of the century ~48 years)

A
  • safer drinking water /milk supplies, vaccinations, healthier lifestyles, improved sanitation
  • not primarily due to medical technology
  • Decrease in Infant Mortality in the US
  • Increasing Healthcare Expenditures
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10
Q

Ideal Experiments have…

A

Independent variable (manipulated)
Dependent variable (depends)
Control (held constant)
Random Assignment

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11
Q

ELMA and Hypnosis Experiment

A

Tested if hypnosis treatment with ELMA pain reliever cream could help with the anxiety and pain of cancer patients.
IV: ELMA and hypnosis, ELMA and attention, just ELMA
DV: self-reported pain and anxiety
Control: just ELMA group
**Observer group (blind) also assessed visual distress of patient. **
Conclusion: Hypnosis is effective in managing pain and anxiety. (correlation not causation)

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12
Q

Placebo

A
  • Inactive substance (condition)
  • Appears to be active treatment
  • May produce change because of expectations
    **Characteristics of placebo influence
    effectiveness: Big pill > little pill, Capsule > tablet,
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13
Q

Nocebo Effect

A

experinecing negative outcomes from a placebo because of expectations.

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14
Q

Correlation Coefficient (r)

A
  • Statistical measure of the relationship between
    2 variables
  • number between 0-1.00
  • numbers closer to 1.00 are stronger
  • +/- indicates direction of increasing or decreasing
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15
Q

Positive Correlation

A
  • 2 variables are moving in the same direction
  • decreasing/decreasing or increasing/ increasing
    Ex: height and weight= taller people tend to be heavier
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16
Q

Negative Correlation

A
  • variables that are inverse each other
  • increase/decrease or decrease/increase
    Ex: sleep and stress= less sleep means more stress
17
Q

Ex Post Facto Design (after the factor design)

A
  • correlational
  • not random assignment
  • IV is not manipulated, instead intact groups (participants are picked based on conditions that they already have because it is ethical) “participant variable”
18
Q

Nervous System

A

has 2 branches
- central: spinal cord and brain
- peripheral: autonomic and somatic

19
Q

Autonomic Nervous System (peripheral)

A

responses that happen without our need to voluntarily control them. important in stress response
Has 2 parts that are opposite and mediate each other:
- sympathetic: energizing
- parasympathetic: calming

Ex: digestive processes (we don’t need to think for them to work)

20
Q

Sympathetic (Autonomic) Nervous System

A

Sympathetic: energizing
- responsible for getting the body ready to respond to a stressor.
Ex) tiger going to attack so you ‘fight or flight’ and get adrenaline (heart rate increase, blood pressure increase, breathe faster, pupils dilate)

21
Q

Parasympathetic (autonomic) Nervous System

A

Parasympathetic: calming
- responsible to lower energization.
Ex) lower heart rate, constrict eyes

22
Q

Somatic Nervous System (peripheral)

A
  • nerves that control voluntary movements relative to skeletal muscles.
    Ex) walking, sitting down, picking up a pen
23
Q

Nervous System vs Endocrine System

A

NS
- faster to be activated and calm down
- Neurotransmitters: chemical messangers (serotonin and dopamine)

Endocrine
- slower to be activated and lasts longer
- Hormones: chemical messengers (cortisol)

24
Q

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) Axis

A
  1. Interpret stressor as threatening to challenging
  2. Hypothallus gets activated and secretes CRH hormone
  3. Pituitary gland gets CRH and secretes ACTH hormone
  4. ACTH goes through blood stream and activates Adrenal glands and Nervous System also activates Adrenal Glands
  5. Adrenal glands secrete 3 different hormones…
    • epinephrine/ adrenaline (comes from medulla)
    • Norepinephrine/ noradrenaline (comes from medulla)
    • cortisol (outer later of adrenal glands/ cortex)
25
Q

(EPI-) epinephrine and norepinephrine hormones cause…

A

increase heart rate, blood pressure, dump glucose into blood stream to have energy to deal with stressor

26
Q

Cortisol hormone

A
  • natural anti-inflammatory response
  • helps in the case of injury when dealing with stressors.
  • can create damage to interior lining of blood vessels if produced over long amounts of time (blockages lead to cardiovascular problems like heart attacks and strokes!)
27
Q

“Tend and Befriend” (Dr. Shelly Taylor)

A

Respond to stress with social affiliation and nurturance
- seek out social interaction and support others
- similar to ‘fight or flight’
- women might be more likely to ‘tend and befriend’ than men which is related to the secretion of oxytocin (love hormone)
- due to evolutionary reasons= to protect children so genes can be passed along

28
Q

General Adaptation Model (Hans Selye)

A

general adaptation syndrome: (incorrect) All organisms respond to stress the same way, in 3 stages:
- Alarm: initial phase
- Resistance: organism is trying to deal with stressor
- Exhaustion: organism’s resources have depleted

Believed that most organisms, when exhausted, will return to homeostasis unless faced with (extreme rnx) illness and death as a result of the stress.

29
Q

Lazarus’ Transactional Model

A
  • we experience stress based on event/situation and our appraisal of it
  • 4 step model that is ongoing

Primary Appraisal: what is happening?
Secondary Appraisal: what do I do about it?
Coping strategy: try to improve/ solve stressor
Reappraisal: is strategy working?

30
Q

Implications of Lazarus’ Transactional Model

A
  • could intentionally change primary appraisal by changing perspective of stressor
  • primary appraisal could be affected by short term mental states/ day to day changes
31
Q

Major Life events

A
  • can be good or bad
  • happen only a few times over life
  • don’t happen suddenly; they evolve over time
    (marriage, moving, breakup)
32
Q

Daily Hassles

A
  • physical environment (pollution, clutter, noise)
  • psychosocial environment [not physical] (discrimination, irregular hours)
  • daily uplifts: occur regularly and help you feel better (seeing fav food at dining hall)
33
Q

Daily Hassles have a _______ effect on health than major life events

A

Daily hassles are STRONGER in effect because they
- occur more frequently
- we might not seek out help for them
- accumulation can become a lot of stress

34
Q

Cataclysmic event

A
  • do not evolve over time
  • can result in PTSD
  • ex) natural disaster, tornado, flood, pandemic, war, terrorism
35
Q

PTSD is separated in 3 groups

A
  • intrusion: out of nowhere back in the event (nightmare)
  • numbness/ avoidance: feeling emotionally tuned out and avoiding stimuli
  • Arousal: startle very easily; always fight or flight
36
Q

Ways to measure stress… (2)

A
  1. Physiological/biochemical measures - objective
  2. Self-report questionnaires like SRRS or PCU - experience based

**best stress measurement when done together because physiological measures are subject to outside influences

37
Q

Physiological/ biochemical measures of stress

A
  • blood pressure/ heart rate change (cardiovascular reactivity)
  • galvanic skin response (how sweaty someone is)
  • the rate of breathing change
  • secreting stress hormones (blood, saliva, or urine)

Advantage: cannot intentionally be altered their response to stress (unbiased), can be paired with self-report assessments to improve
Disadvantages: expensive, challenging equipment, hard to interpret, the procedure can be stressful by itself, not perfect

38
Q

Social readjustment scale (SRRS)

A
  • self-report questionnaire; first attempt to link life events to health outcomes.
  • has a long list of potential stressors and ranked them by which needs the most/ least adjustment.
  • assigned a (LCU) life change unit to each
  • added up life change units per person for a year
  • people who had a higher life change score were more likely to become ill (positive, significant correlation)
39
Q

Perceived stress scale (PCU)

A
  • self-report questionnaire; assesses overall levels of stress
  • 10 questions that ask a person to describe on a scale their perception of stressors happening in their life