W11: Health and Well-Being

Question 1

Define stressor.

Answer 1

Anything that causes stress.

Question 2

Define stress.

Answer 2

An unpleasant state of arousal in which people perceive the demands of an event as taxing or exceeding their ability to satisfy or alter those demands.

Question 3

How does our body respond to stress?

Answer 3

Through General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): a three-stage process by which the body responds to stress.

Question 4

Explain the General Adaptation Syndrome.

Answer 4

General Adaptation Syndrome is a three-stage process by which the body responds to stress. The three stages are shock, resistance, and exhaustion.

During shock, our body mobilizes its resources to ward off the threat. Resistance to stress is low at this point.

During resistance, our body experiences normal levels of resistance to stress. The body maintains mobilizing resources to fight, remaining aroused and alert.

However, if stress persists, our body goes into the exhaustion stage. At this stage, our body becomes vulnerable.

Question 5

What happens when stress persists?

Answer 5

Our body remains at the exhaustion stage where we overuse our body resources. This increases our risk for illness.

Question 6

Fill in the blanks: Stress is an ________ _________ reaction to ________.

Answer 6

Stress is an adaptive, short-term reaction to threat.

Question 7

How many ways are there to cope with stress?

Answer 7

Two: problem-focused and emotion-focused.

Question 8

What is problem-focused coping?

Answer 8

Cognitive and behavioural efforts to reduce stress by overcoming the source of a problem.

Question 9

What is emotion-focused coping?

Answer 9

Cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage emotional reactions to stressors rather than trying to change the stressors themselves.

Question 10

What are the limitations of problem-focused coping?

Answer 10

May cause greater stress.

1. Physiologically taxing to exert control.
2. Overcontrolling the situation.
3. Not all events are within our control or important enough to worry about.

Question 11

How many types of emotion-focused coping mechanisms are there? What are they?

Answer 11

Three: distraction (shutting down), emotion expression (opening up), and out of (self) focus.

Question 12

Explain shutting down.

Answer 12

We use focused distraction as opposed to mere suppression of unwanted thoughts.

Question 13

Explain emotion expression.

Answer 13

We express our inner feelings to ourselves and others around us.

Question 14

Is emotion expression always useful?

Answer 14

No, it depends on who we confide in. Opening up can cause is even greater distress when we are rejected, get unwanted advice, or when we are betrayed.

Question 15

What experiment shows emotion expression?

Answer 15

Pennebaker’s Expressive Writing. He asked college students to talk into a tape recorder or talk for 20 minutes about traumas.

Pennebaker found that students who opened up exhibited a decline in visits to health centres over the next 6 months.

Question 16

Explain out of (self) focus.

Answer 16

We use out of focus when self-focus intensifies negative moods, especially for those with low self-esteem because this brings out personal shortcomings. When self-focused, people with a negative self-concept experience more negative moods than those with a positive self-concept. This results in a self-perpetuation feedback loop: bad mood – self-focus – worse mood.

Difficult tasks can absorb a bad mood when self-focus is detrimental. These tasks can include: exercise, writing, and meditation.

Question 17

What is social support?

Answer 17

Helpful coping resources provided by friends and other people.

Question 18

Fill in the blank: social support is a form of _________ coping.

Answer 18

proactive

Question 19

What is the benefit of having social support?

Answer 19

We can use our social resource to cope with stress. For example:

1. Married people are more likely to survive cancer for 5 years (implicitly assumes that married people get higher social support from spouses).
2. More socially active men are less likely to die than others of a similar age.

Question 20

_________ cultures are more likely to seek help from others in times of stress than __________ cultures.

Answer 20

Individualistic; collectivistic.

Question 21

Why are people from collectivistic cultures less likely to seek out social support?

Answer 21

They do not want to strain relationships by asking for help in a collectivistic society where social groups > self.

Question 22

People from collectivistic cultures prefer __________ social support.

Answer 22

Implicit.

Question 23

Define implicit social support.

Answer 23

Thinking about or being close with others without openly asking for help.

Question 24

In a study by Chen (2012), Americans gave more ________-focused support while the Japanese gave more ________-focused support.

Answer 24

Emotion; problem.

Question 25

How many times of well-being are there? What are they?

Answer 25

Two: affective and cognitive.

Question 26

What are the three key predictors of happiness?

Answer 26

Social relationships, employment status, physical and mental health.

Question 27

What is the link between happiness and social relationships?

Answer 27

People who associate happiness with social aspects in life are happier.

Question 28

What experiments support this?

Answer 28

1. Diener & Seligman (2002). People who were very happy had higher peer rating of their relationships, self-rating of relationships, and tend to spend more time with others than alone.
2. Shin et al. (2018): “Write down 3 words that come to your mind when you think of happiness”. It was found that those who have a social schema regarding happiness engage more in activities that foster social relationships.

Question 29

True or false: the relationship between money and happiness is linear.

Answer 29

False. Both are correlated but not strongly and only up to a certain point. Income change does not influence long-term happiness.

Question 30

Why is the correlation not strong?

Answer 30

1. Social comparison theory: our happiness is determined by how our life is relative to others. In Diener et al. (1999), it was shown that happiness level remained constant despite linear increases in GNP over the years.
2. Hedonic adaptation: we adapt quite fast to our current situation. When we achieve new things, we feel happy but this wears off and we raise our standard of comparison after adapting to a better situation.

Question 31

Is economic growth associated with greater happiness? Explain your answer.

Answer 31

Economic growth is not associated with greater happiness in countries where economic inequality is severe. This is because people feel unfair seeing a small group of people benefitting from wealth. When inequality is high, people may engage in more social comparisons and focus on their relative SES.

Question 32

True or false: we tend to be happier when we spend money on ourselves than if we were to spend it on someone else.

Answer 32

False.

Question 33

True or false: we tend to be happier when spending our money on experiential purchases than materials.

Answer 33

True.

Question 34

Why should we spend money on an experience than materials?

Answer 34

1. Enhance social relations.
2. Form a bigger part of personal identity.
3. Evoke fewer social comparisons.

Question 35

How is inequality related to the correlation between life satisfaction and GDP?

Answer 35

There is a weaker positive relationship (even null) between GDP and LS in countries with higher inequality.