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Health Psych > Week 6: Coping, Resilience & Social Support > Flashcards

Week 6: Coping, Resilience & Social Support Flashcards

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1
Q

What are stress moderators?

A

Modify how stress is experienced and the effects it has

Between second and third stage of primary & secondary appraisals

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2
Q

What is coping?

A

The thoughts and behaviours used to manage internal and external demands of situations that are appraised as stressful

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3
Q

What are the characteristics of coping?

A

1) It is a SET OF RESPONSES b/w person and envmt that OCCURS OVER TIME
2) It involves BOTH positive and negative responses

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4
Q

How does personality and indiv. differences relate to coping?

A
  • Negative and positive affect
  • Psychosocial resources
      • Optimism
      • Sense of control
      • Self-esteem
      • Conscientiousness
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5
Q

What is negative affectivity (NA)?

A

Pervasive experience of anger/hostility, anxiety, and depression (aka neurotic)

Stereotypic Type “A” and “D”

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6
Q

What is chronic NA linked to?

A
  • Elevated levels of stress indicators
      • E.g. Cortisol, inflammation & risk factors for coronary heart disease
  • Poor health habits
      • E.g. Heavy drinking and drug use
  • Poorer response to treatments
  • Illusions of poor health
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7
Q

What is positive affectivity (PA) / positive emotions linked to?

A
  • Better mental & physical health; longer life
  • Lower levels of stress indicators & better immune function
  • Investing more time & effort to deal with stressors and obstacles
  • Other positive traits & psychological resources that improve coping
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8
Q

What are the types of psychosocial resources?

A
  • Optimism
  • Psychological control
  • Self-esteem
  • Conscientiousness
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9
Q

How does optimism relate to coping?

A

Promotes active and persistent coping efforts

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10
Q

What is psychological control?

A

Believing that one can influence and change one’s behaviour and environment

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11
Q

What are the aspects of psychological control?

A

Primary (perceived) control: Self-efficacy
Secondary control: Collective efficacy, through working with family, friends, clinicians, therapists

CBT and relaxation therapy aim to improve psychological control

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12
Q

How does self-esteem relate to coping?

A

Linked to more effective coping, but typically under low or moderate stress compared to high stress

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13
Q

How does conscientiousness relate to coping?

A

Linked to longer life, healthier behaviours and habits, higher adherence to treatment

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14
Q

What is psychological resilience?

A

Resilience is a kind of psychological resource that also modifies the experience of stress

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15
Q

How does resilience relate to coping?

A

Helps indivs. bounce back from bad experiences and adapt flexibly to changing demads of stressful situations

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16
Q

What are the traits/characteristics linked to higher resilience?

A
  • Grit
  • Sense of coherence about one’s life
  • Sense of purpose/meaning in one’s life
  • Having strong religious beliefs
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17
Q

What is coping style?

A

An inclination toward dealing with stressful events in a particular way

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18
Q

What are the types of coping styles?

A
  • Approach vs. avoidant coping
  • Problem-focused vs. emotion-focused coping
  • Proactive coping
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19
Q

What is approach coping style?

A

Gathering info and/or directly taking action to confront stressors

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20
Q

What is avoidant coping style?

A

Escaping from or minimising efforts at confronting stressors

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21
Q

How does approach coping and avoidant coping differ?

A
  • Approach more adaptive than avoidant
  • Approach coping - ST anxiety but overall LT benefits
  • Avoidant coping - relieve ST anxiety but may not promote LT adaptive responses to stressors
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22
Q

What is problem-focused coping?

A

Attempts to do something constructive to address the stressor

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23
Q

What is emotion-focused coping?

A

Efforts to regulate emotions experienced due to the stressor

24
Q

What is emotional approach coping?

A

A strategy that involves clarifying and working through the emotions experienced in relation to a stressor

25
Q

What are the benefits of emotion-focused coping?

A

Soothing, enables ppl to affirm impt aspects of their identity

26
Q

How effective is problem-focused vs. emotion-focused coping?

A

Depends on

  • Type of problem
  • Whether something constructive can realistically be done

E.g. Work-related stressors -> problem-focused approach
E.g. Chronic/terminal illness -> emotion-focused approach

27
Q

What is proactive coping?

A
  • ANTICIPATING potential stressors and ACTING IN ADVANCE to prevent or reduce their impact
  • Ability to anticipate stressors
  • Being equipped with the coping skills
  • Ability to self-regulate; control, direct and correct their actions
28
Q

What are some types of evidence-based coping interventions?

A
  • Expressive writing
  • Self-affirmation
  • Relaxation training
  • Mindfulness meditation
      • Or mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)
29
Q

What is the rationale for expressive writing?

A

Inhibiting thoughts, emotions and behaviours related to stressors or traumatic events can increase physiological stress reactivity,

but disclosing emotions can be good for health

30
Q

What are the research findings for expressive writing?

A

Pennebaker & Beall (1986):

  • Undergrads who wrote about a traumatic/stressful event (compared to trivial topics) were immediately more upset, but this did not last
  • Imptly, they were less likely to visit student health center in next 6 months
31
Q

What are the possible reasons for undergrads who did expressive writing being less likely to visit the student health center in the next 6 months?

A
  • Allows disinhibition, clarification of one’s emotions and affirming one’s impt personal values
  • Allows rationalisation and switching focus from negative to positive aspects of the situation
  • Meaning-making through organising thoughts in writing
  • Makes sharing with others easier, and in turn, they receive emotional support
32
Q

What is a contingency of expressive writing?

A

Less helpful when one is still meaning-searching, i.e. have yet to find a meaning

33
Q

What is self-affirmation?

A

A specific form of writing intervention where indivs. are asked to write about a personal value and how it is important (positive affirmation) before undergoing a stressful task (e.g. taking an exam)

34
Q

What are the effects of self-affirmation?

A

Reduce physiological stress reactivity and feelings of distress in response to a stressor
- Lower BP, HR

35
Q

What are the reasons why self-affirmation helps?

A
  • Reminds ppl of their various resources and abilities
  • Self-expansion; broadening their own perspective of who they are
  • Orient one towards approach and proactive coping styles
36
Q

What is relaxation training?

A

Deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, transcendental meditation, guided imagery, yoga, listening to joyful music

37
Q

What is the goal of relaxation training?

A

To reduce arousal - the physiological experience of stress

38
Q

What are the effects of relaxation training?

A

Reliably reduces HR, BP, muscle tension, inflammatory response, feelings of anxiety and psychological tension

39
Q

What is mindfulness meditation/MBSR?

A

Involves striving for a state of mind marked by heightened awareness of the present, focusing on the moment, and accepting and acknowledging it without becoming distracted or distressed by stress

40
Q

What are the issues with mindfulness meditation/MBSR?

A
  • Inconsistent definitions of mindfulness, novice, experts
  • Methodology: Very small Ns, non-standardised length, RCTs that lack “active” controls
  • Failure to disclose COIs
  • Failure to monitor/report adverse events; mindfulness mediation is contraindicated for some disorders e.g. BPD, schizo, PTSD
  • Too much mindfulness can backfire
41
Q

What is the most rigorous test for any intervention?

A

Large-scale (large N) RCTs with active control groups

42
Q

What is social support?

A

The information from others that one is loved and cared for, esteemed and valued, and part of a network of communication and mutual obligations

43
Q

What are some sources of social support?

A

Parents, spouse or partner, relatives, friends, social and community circles

44
Q

What are some forms of social support?

A
  • Tangible assistance
  • Informational support
  • Emotional support
  • “Invisible” support
45
Q

What is tangible assistance as a form of social support?

A

Providing material help, e.g. lending money to a friend

46
Q

What is informational support as a form of social support?

A

Sharing info or experiences from someone who has gone through the same problems

47
Q

What is emotional support as a form of social support?

A

Providing care and concern for a friend/family member facing a stressor, as well as assuring them that support is available

48
Q

What is “invisible support” as a form of social support?

A

People can feel bad about receiving too much help, causing social support to backfire.

Providing invisible support such that the recipient is unaware of receiving help can help reduce feelings of guilt and burden

49
Q

How does social support relate to physiological responses?

A

Social support can:

  • mitigate immune dysfunction and physiological reactivity
  • buffer against developing colds
  • cause less stress reactivity
  • lower neural activity to stress
50
Q

What are the two hypotheses for the role of social support as a stress moderator?

A

Direct effects hypothesis: Social support is beneficial anytime - during both stressful and nonstressful times
– Typically supported when social support is assessed as size of social networks

Stress buffering hypothesis: Social support is beneficial mainly under stressful times, & has no particular enhancing effects when there is no stress
– Typically supported when social support is assessed as number of people who would be available to provide help when needed

51
Q

What are the threats to social support?

A
  • People who express too much distress to others may drive people away, undermining their own social support
  • Too much or overly intrusive “support”
  • Ppl whom you assume to be sources of social support may not actually provide the right support
52
Q

Can bad relationships affect your health?

A

Chiang et al. (2012)
Results on inflammation levels:
- Positive interactions < Negative interactions
- Positive interactions < Competitive interactions
- Competitive interactions: Leisure-related interactions < Academic- or work-related

=> Chronic negative and competitive social interactions with ppl you share a r/s with can lead to chronic inflammation that affect your health

53
Q

Are dogs or cats better for your health?

A

Pet-owners who performed the stress task in the presence of their pet, spouse, or friend had sig. smaller increases in HR and BP

And recovered to baseline more quickly than non-pet owners

Findings did not differ b/w dog- or cat-owners

54
Q

What is the result of a lack of social support?

A

Loneliness / social isolation

  • Powerful predictors of health and longevity, particularly among the elderly
  • Predicts depression, suicide
  • Predicts poorer health

Low income elderly have even weaker social support

55
Q

What are some challenges for enhancing social support?

A
  • More ppl are living alone (elderly, unmarried)
  • Having less friends today than those in the past
  • How can we enhance our own social support, as well as support for others?
  • How effective is social support through social media?

Health Psych (10 decks)

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