most recent (old exams and chps 11, 13, 14)

Health psychology

field that involves the application of psychological principles to promote health and well-being

Well-being

positive state that includes striving for optimal health and life satisfaction

Biopsychosocial model

approach to psychological science that integrates biological factors, psychological processes, and social-contextual influences in shaping human mental life and behavior

"tightness-looseness" spectrum

tighter cultures place greater value on adherence to social norms than looser cultures do; relative tightness or looseness of a culture is related to how closely people in that culture follow public health guidelines

Health disparities

differences in health outcomes, such as illness or death rates, between groups of people; based on age, gender, socioeconomic status, etc

Why do health disparities exist?

genetic variation in susceptibility to some diseases, access to affordable health care, and cultural factors such as dietary and exercise habits

Racial bias in health disparities

people from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in the United States receive lower-quality care, spend less time with medical practitioners, and are offered fewer procedures than White individuals; people of color also have less trust in the medical system due to racism

Immigrant paradox

the pattern among immigrant communities in which foreign-born immigrants to the United States have better health than people in later generations do; caused by poor diet, alcohol/substance use, loss of culture and social networks, the stress associated with discrimination/stigma

Socioeconomic status

relative standing in society as a function of resources such as income, wealth, and education;

Socioeconomic status health gradient

disparity where people with lower socioeconomic status have worse health (even when accounting for health care); occurs because living with low socioeconomic status is associated with stress, lower access to healthy resources, more dangerous environments

Health behaviors

actions people can take, such as eating a plant-based diet and being physically active, that promote well-being, prevent the onset of disease, and slow disease progression

Healthy diet

having a healthy diet is a big factor for preventing chronic diseases; best to eat natural foods, not too many calories, and mostly plant based foods

Metabolic syndrome

a constellation of risk factors that includes high blood sugars, insulin resistance, high blood levels of unhealthy cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease; results from poor nutrition

Overeating problem

stems from the sheer variety of high-calorie foods, the large portions now served in many restaurants, and individual responses to food cues (heavier people have higher activity in reward regions of the brain when they see tasty-looking foods)

Smoking risks

smoking is blamed for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States and decreases the typical smoker's life by more than 12 years; causes heart disease, respiratory ailments, and various cancers; nicotine causes the addiction, making it hard to quit

Exercise benefits

the more people exercise, the better their physical and mental health; enhances memory and cognition; helps with CV health; aerobic exercise can help wounds heal faster

Availability heuristic with death

we are more likely to believe information that comes to mind first; so due to the media, people are more likely to be afraid of plane crashes (highly reported) than more common causes of death (like CV disease)

Stress

type of response that typically involves an unpleasant state, such as anxiety or tension

Stressor

something in the external situation that is perceived as threatening or demanding and therefore produces stress; varies person to person

Coping response

any attempt made to avoid, escape from, or minimize a stressor

Stress gap

key to stress is the gap between the demands of the situation and our resources to cope with them; there is no gap when we feel confident that we can meet the challenges; larger gaps are more likely to effect physiological states

Eustress

the stress of positive events; ex: preparing for a party that you are looking forward to

Distress

the stress of negative events; ex: being trapped in traffic when you are running late

Stress scale

a person's stress level could be determined by adding up the points for every event the person had experienced in the previous year; different events had different point values; higher scores are associated with poorer health

Major life stressors

changes or disruptions that strain central areas of people's lives; ex: having a child, a pandemic

Chronic stress

a set of ongoing challenges often linked to long-term illness, poverty, or caregiving; ex: having or caring for someone with a chronic illness

Daily hassles

small, day-to-day irritations and annoyances; ex: driving in heavy traffic, dealing with difficult people; can turn into to chronic stressors if they happen frequently enough

Discrimination-related stress

experienced by members of marginalized groups; characterized by events ranging from overt racial hostility to microaggressions such as avoiding eye contact; acts like a chronic stressor

Systems activated by stressors

activates two systems: a fast-acting sympathetic nervous system response and a slower-acting response (resulting from a complex system of biological events known as the hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis)

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis

body system involved in stress responses

Sympathetic nervous system's stress response

stress response starts in the brain with the knowledge of a stressor; hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system, which activates the adrenal glands to release epinephrine and norepinephrine; causes the physical stress response (fight or flight)

Fight-or-flight response

physiological preparedness of animals to deal with danger by either fighting or fleeing; evolutionarily important for survival

HPA axis' stress response

the hypothalamus sends a signal to the pituitary gland; pituitary gland sends a hormone to the adrenal glands; adrenal glands release cortisol (stress hormone); cortisol increases survival systems and prepares body for injury (but halts other systems)

Immune system

the body's mechanism for dealing with invading microorganisms such as allergens, bacteria, and viruses; effected by cortisol

Cortisol's effect on hypothalamus

when cortisol reaches the hypothalamus, it triggers a negative-feedback loop to turn off the HPA axis

Cortisol's effect on hippocampus and amygdala

cortisol signals the hippocampus and amygdala to encode memory and process emotions related to stress

Chronic stress' effects on stress response

chronic stress can cause brain regions to become less sensitive to cortisol, causing the stress response to continue for longer (even in absence of stressor); excessive stress disrupts working memory and causes long-term memory impairments (excessive cortisol damages neurons important for memory storage); stress interferes with the ability to retrieve long-term memory

Selye's general adaptation syndrome

a consistent pattern of responses to stress that consists of three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion (hallmarks of nonspecific stress response); symptoms include enlarged adrenal glands, diminished immune system function, and stomach ulcers

Alarm stage

same emergency reaction as fight-or-flight response; physiological responses (release of cortisol and epinephrine) boost physical abilities and reduce vulnerabilities; brief reduction in immune system

Resistance stage

body prepares for longer, sustained defense from the stressor; immunity to infection and disease increases somewhat as the body maximizes its defenses

Exhaustion stage

various physiological and immune systems fail; body organs that were already weak before the stress are the first to fail

Allostatic load

the cumulative "wear and tear" on biological systems, including the stress, digestive, immune, cardiovascular, and hormonal systems, among others, after repeated or chronic stressful events; over time experiences can cause the systems to become "stuck" in certain states and less responsive to changing conditions

Epigenetics on stress

stress experienced by mothers may be passed along to their offspring through epigenetics; highly stressful experiences can affect behavior across generations

Tend-and-befriend response

the tendency to protect and care for offspring and form social alliances rather than fight or flee in response to threat; most common with stressed women (but men do it as well)

Stress' effect on the immune system

short-term stress boosts the immune system, whereas chronic stress weakens it, leaving the body less able to deal with infection; ex: bacteria can cause stomach ulcers when the immune system is less active due to stress

Lymphocytes

specialized white blood cells that make up the immune system; the three types are B cells, T cells, and natural killer cells; stress diminishes the effectiveness of white blood cells

B cells

produce antibodies, protein molecules that attach themselves to foreign agents and mark them for destruction; can remember specific invaders, making for easier identification in the future

T cells

assist in attacking the intruders directly and also in increasing the strength of the immune response

Natural killer cells

especially potent in killing viruses and also help attack tumors

Type A behavior pattern

a pattern of behavior characterized by competitiveness, achievement orientation, aggressiveness, hostility (biggest indicator), restlessness, impatience with others, and an inability to relax; predicts heart disease

Stress' effect on heart problems

people often cope with stress through behaviors that are bad for health; personality traits like hostility and depression have negative effects on social networks, increasing stress; negative personality traits and stress can produce direct physiological effects on the heart

Physiological effects of stress on the heart

stress decreases blood flow by making blood vessels less able to dilate, contributing to coronary heart disease and sudden cardiac death; possibly due to cortisol production

Primary appraisals

part of the coping process that involves making decisions about whether a stimulus is stressful, benign, or irrelevant

Secondary appraisals

part of the coping process during which people evaluate their response options and choose coping behaviors; occurs if the stimuli are determined to be stressful

Anticipatory coping

coping that occurs before the onset of a future stressor; ex: parents rehearsing how they will tell the kids about the divorce

Emotion-focused coping

a type of coping in which people try to prevent having an emotional response to a stressor; strategies include avoidance, minimizing the problem or the feelings, trying to distance oneself from the outcomes of the problem, or engaging in behaviors such as overeating or drinking

Problem-focused coping

a type of coping in which people take direct steps to confront or minimize a stressor; generating alternative solutions, weighing their costs and benefits, and choosing between them; this coping often occurs when people perceive stressors as controllable

Positive reappraisal

a cognitive process in which a person focuses on possible good things in the current situation; looking for the silver-lining; ex: telling yourself that stress is your body's way of helping you through the situation

Downward comparison

comparing oneself to those who are worse off; ex: helps people cope with serious illnesses

Creation of positive events

a strategy of giving positive meaning to ordinary events; ex: taking joy from watching a sunset

Stress resistant

people who are capable of adapting to life changes by viewing events constructively

Hardiness

stress resistant personality trait; hardiness components include commitment, challenge, and control; committed to their daily activities, view threats as challenges or as opportunities for growth, and see themselves as being in control of their lives; these people are high in resiliance

Broaden-and-build theory

positive emotions cause people to expand their view of what is possible in a situation (broaden) and develop new ideas and relationships (build); people who are resilient experience positive emotions even when under stress

Seligman's happiness components in positive psychology

(1) positive emotion and pleasure, (2) engagement in life, and (3) a meaningful life; now Seligman argues that a successful life involves not only happiness but good relationships and a history of accomplishment

Assessing well-being

you can assess well-being by asking people questions about various aspects of their lives, such as emotional health, quality of work environment, physical health, health behaviors, and access to food and shelter; well being varies across the US and across countries (highest satisfaction in wealthiest countries)

Positive emotions relation to better health

higher levels of hope were associated with reduced risk of illnesses; higher levels of curiosity were associated with reduced risk of hypertension and diabetes; positive emotions are related to better health; being generally positive, predicts living longer and better immune systems; correlational

Social interactions and better health

people with larger social networks live longer, have better health, and are less likely to die when ill; chronic loneliness is linked with numerous psychological and health problems; people with social support experience less stress overall

Buffering hypothesis

the idea that other people can provide direct emotional support in helping individuals cope with stressful events; the person who receives the social support can feel gratitude, which reduces stress and loneliness

Spirituality with better health

people who are religious report greater feelings of well-being than people who are not religious; promote social relationships and feelings of gratitude

Personality

a person's characteristic thoughts, emotional responses, and behaviors

Personality trait

a pattern of thought, emotion, and behavior that is relatively consistent over time and across situations

Gordon Allport's definition of personality

there is a mental nature of personality and personality arises from both biological processes and external environments (psychophysical system); personality is also organized (part of coherent whole), dynamic, and causes people to have characteristic behaviors and thoughts

Genetic and environmental factors

people have genes that can predispose certain personality traits, but the experiences of the individual determine if these traits are expressed

Loehlin and Nichol's twin studies

looked at over 800 pairs of twins; across a wide variety of traits, identical twins proved much more similar than fraternal twins; genetic influence accounts for about half the variability between individuals for all personality traits

Adoption studies

adoption studies have shown that two people who were raised together (but have no genetic relation) are no more alike personality-wise than two strangers; personalities of adopted children bear no significant relationship to those of their adoptive parents; genes still have an overall small effect on personality relative to other factors

Dispositions

behavioral, mental, or emotional response tendencies; human behavior such as personality are so complex that no single gene can account for them but a certain combination of genes paired with a lifetime of experiences might result in dispositions

Temperaments

biologically based tendencies to feel or act in certain ways; broader than personality traits

Buss and Plomin's three basic characteristics that can be considered temperaments

activity level, emotionality, sociability

Activity level

the overall amount of energy and action a person exhibits

Emotionality

the intensity of emotional reactions

Sociability

the general tendency to affiliate with others

Gene-environment correlation

the phenomenon in the nature/nurture debate represented by the relation between temperament and life decisions; genes and environment affect not only behavior but also each other; people move to diff environments depending on their temperaments

Long-term implications of temperaments

temperament at age 3 predicted personality structure and various behaviors in adulthood

Inhibited children

inhibited infants respond to situations/strange objects by becoming startled and distressed; this is a biologically pre-determined temperament that leads to these infants being shy; inhibited individuals have higher amygdala activity when viewing novel faces; social factors can lead to inhibited infants not being shy

Trait approaches

approaches to studying personality that focus on how individuals differ in personality dispositions

Allport and Odbert

they counted the number of words in the dictionary that could represent personality traits; they found 18,000

Cattell's factor analysis

Catell asked participants to fill out personality tests that asked them about different traits; he had narrowed down Allport and Odbert's 18,000 words; he then used factor analysis to group similar traits; through factor analysis, he grouped 16 basic dimensions of personality

Five-factor theory

the idea that personality can be described using five factors on a spectrum: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (OCEAN); each factor describes a broad trait that is made up of several related and more-specific facets

Outcomes of 5 factor tests

same five factors appear whether people rate themselves or are rated by others; people's scores predict a wide variety of behaviors and life outcomes (different factors uniquely predict different outcomes); some cross-cultural differences emerge in traits not represented in tests

Eysenck's biological trait theory

initially proposed that personality traits had two major dimensions: introversion/extraversion and emotional stability (consistency in moods/emotions); later proposed a third dimension of personality traits: psychoticism/constraint (ability to control impulses/think about others); differences in arousal produce the behavioral differences between extraverts and introverts

Jeffrey Gray's approach/inhibition model

personality is rooted in two motivational functions: to approach rewards and to avoid pain; evolved to respond efficiently to reinforcement and punishment; this theory was developed into reinforcement sensitivity theory of personality

Reinforcement sensitivity theory of personality (rRST)

model of the relationships between learning and personality that contains the behavioral approach system, the behavioral inhibition system, and the fight-flight-freeze system; brain regions involved in emotion and reward underlie the three rRST systems

Behavioral approach system (BAS)

the brain system involved in the pursuit of incentives or rewards; "go" system; linked to extraversion

Behavioral inhibition system (BIS)

the brain system that monitors for threats in the environment and therefore slows or inhibits behavior in order to be vigilant for danger or pain; "slow down" system; sensitive to punishment, so it cautiously inhibits or slows behavior when there are signs of danger; related more to anxiety than to fear; linked to neuroticism

Fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS)

the brain system that responds to punishment by directing an organism to freeze, run away, or engage in defensive fighting; "stop or escape" system; promotes protection from harm by remaining motionless or escaping

Humanistic approaches

approaches to studying personality that emphasize how people seek to fulfill their potential through greater self-understanding

Self-actualization

process in which people seek to fulfill their potential for personal growth through greater self-understanding

Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation

Maslow believed that the desire to become self-actualized is the ultimate human motive

Carl Roger's person-centered approach

he emphasized people's subjective understandings of their lives; thought the therapist should create a supportive and accepting environment and deal with the client's problems and concerns as the client understood them

Roger's idea of unconditional positive regard

parents should accept and prize their children no matter how the children behave; a child raised with unconditional positive regard would develop a healthy sense of self-esteem and would become a fully functioning person