Health Psych Test 1

The illness/wellness continuum

Holds death at one end, and optimal wellness at the other

Health

A positive state of physical, mental, and social well-being (not simply the absence of injury or disease) that varies over time along a continuum

Dietary diseases

Result from malnutrition

Infectious diseases

Acute illnesses caused by harmful matter or microorganisms, such as bacteria or viruses, in the body

Chronic illnesses

The main health problems and causes of death in Canada

The mind/body problem

The question of the relationship between the mind and body

Biomedical model

Proposes that all diseases or physical disorders can be explained by disturbances in physiological processes, which result from injury, biochemical imbalances, or bacterial/viral infection

Risk factors

Characteristics or conditions that are associated with the development of a disease or injury

Risk factors for cancer

Smoking, high alcohol consumption, obesity

Risk factors for heart disease and stroke

Smoking, high blood pressure, high dietary cholesterol, obesity, lack of exercise

Risk factors for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)

Smoking

Risk factors for accidents

Alcohol'/drug use, not wearing a seatbelt

Personality

A person’s cognitive, affective, or behavioral tendencies that are fairly stable across time and situations

Psychosomatic medicine

Studies conditions in which both the mind and body are involved

Behavioral medicine

Grew out of behaviorism and is interdisciplinary

Biopsychosocial model

Expands the biomedical view by adding to biological factors connections to psychological and social factors

System

A dynamic entity with components that are continuously interrelated

Sociocultural

Involving or relating to social and cultural factors

Ethnicity

People who identify with each other based on shared nation/household, society, language, history

Culture

The characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people who share a similar context

Sex

The biological classification of individuals as male or female based on physical characteristics present at birth

Gender

The attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a given culture associates with a person’s biological sex

Race

Socially constructed label or category based largely on physical characteristics such as skin color, though it can overlap with ethnicity

Religion

Organized system of beliefs, practices, rituals, and symbols

Socioeconomic status

Differences between people’s resources, prestige, and power within a society

Health disparities

Inequalities in health or healthcare between groups

Stigma

Negative feelings and attitudes about individuals based on specific qualities or characteristics they possess

Lifespan perspective

Characteristics of a person are considered with respect to their prior development, current level, and likely development in the future

Mortality

The occurrence of death, generally on a large scale

Morbidity

Illness, injury, or disability

Prevalence

Number of cases of a disease, illness, or disability

Incidence

Number of new cases of a disease, illness, or disability reported during a specific period of time

Epidemic

A situation in which the incidence, generally of an infectious disease, has increased rapidly

Pandemic

An epidemic that has increased to international of worldwide proportions

4 goals of health psychology

1. Identify the cause and diagnostic correlates of health, illness, and dysfunction

2. Promote and maintain health

3. Prevent and treat illness

4. Analyze and improve health care systems and health policy (going farther than the individual)

Health psychology began in (year)

1980s

Biggest change that must be made to healthcare

Asking about living conditions, and MAKING A DIFFERENCE to stop health issues from recurring

Left side of illness/wellness continuum

Health gets progressively worse

Right side of illness/wellness continuum

Health gets progressively better

Effect of medical treatment on illness/wellness continuum

Begins on left side, can bring a person back to neutral

Effect of healthy lifestyles on illness/wellness continuum

Can bring person back to neutral, or can bring them to far right

Early culture causes of disease

Sorcery, object intrusion, supernatural possession, losing one’s soul

Early culture treatment for disease

Magic rituals, trephination

Ancient greece and rome causes of disease

Humoral theory of illness

The 4 humours

Blood, black bile, yellow bile, phlegm

Ancient greece and rome treatment for disease

Eat well, avoid excesses, achieve humoral balance

Plato’s proposal

Body and mind distinction

New innovation by Galen

Dissecting animals, discovered illness can be localized

Middle ages cause of disease

Demons, God’s punishment for doing evil

Middle ages treatment for disease

Priests treated illness, often involved torturing body to drive out evil spirits

St Thomas Aquinas’ contribution

Rejected the mind/body problem, saw them as interrelated

The renaissance perspective

1. Body as a machine

2. Mind and body were separate but could communicate through pineal glands

3. Believed animals and no souls and human souls leave their body at death

After the renaissance

Science and medicine grew rapidly, surgery became more popular (antiseptic techniques and anesthesia)

Importance of psychology in health

Health problems are now chronic rather than acute, so biomedical model is not as helpful. Biomedical model doesn’t factor in that people are unique

Elements of the biopsychosocial model

Where the person lives, their environment, their appraisals, their stressors, their community/family

Role of biological factors in health

Function and structure of physiology, complex systems operating together, genetic predispositions

Cognition

Mental activity that encompasses perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, etc

Emotion

Subjective feelings that affect and are affected by our thoughts, behavior, and physiology

Motivation

Process that initiates someone to do something, its direction, and persistence

3 formally recognized indigenous groups in Canada

First Nations, Inuit, Metis

Intersex

General term for a variety of conditions in which people are born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit the “typical” definitions of female or male

Sexual orientation

One’s sexual and emotional attraction to others based on their sex and/or gender

Gender identity

Person’s deeply felt sense of being female or male, man or woman, or neither

Minority status

Occurs any time a group of people is singles out to receive differential or unequal treatment by those who maintain the majority of power in a particular region or country

Theory

Tentative explanation of why and under what circumstances certain events occur

Qualities of a good theory

Clearly stated, brings together known facts, relates information that previously seemed unrelated, enables us to make predictions

Variable

Any measurable characteristic of people, objects, or events that may change

Independent variable

Studied for its potential or expected influence

Dependent variable

Assessed because its value is expected to “depend” on the independent variable

Experiment

Controlled study in which researchers manipulate an independent variable to study its effects on a dependent variable

Placebo

Inert or inactive substance or procedure

Double blind procedure

Occurs when both the experimenters and the participants are unaware of which group is which

Criteria for a cause-effect conclusion

Levels of indep and dep variables corresponded, cause preceded the effect, all other plausible causes have been ruled out

Correlation coefficient

Can range from +1.00 to -1.00, with + meaning the variables increase/decrease together, and - meaning the variables change in opposite directions

Correlational studies

Nonexperimental investigations of the degree and direction of statistical association between two variables

Quasi-experimental studies

Look like experiments because they have separate groups of subjects, but they are not because the subjects were not randomly assigned

Retrospective approach

Uses procedures that look back at the histories of the subjects

Prospective approach

Uses procedures that look forward in the lives of individualsC

Cross-sectional approach

Different individuals of different ages are observed at the same time

Longitudinal approach

Involves the repeated observation of the same individuals over a long period of time

Cohort effect

The influence of having been born and raised at a different time

Twin studies

Focused on differences in characteristics shown in monozygotic and dizygotic twins

Adoptions studies

Compare traits of adopted children with those of their natural parents and adoptive parents

Epigenetics

A process in which chemical structures with or around the DNA govern how, when, and how much a gene acts

Ecological momentary assessment

Uses devices to cue and collect data on individuals in their regular day-to-day living

Comorbidity

Having multiple conditions/illnesses/injuries at the same time

Research questions

Narrow/specific, appropriate, testable

Experimental group

The group of people who receive a treatmentT

Control group

The group of people who receive no treatment

3 types of non-experimental studies

Correlational, quasi-experimental, genetic

Positive association

Both variables are moving in the same direction

Negative association

Variables moving in opposite directions

Effect size

Magnitude of a correlation (the closer to 1 or -1, the stronger)

Conclusions from quasi-experimental studies

Correlational

Health behaviour

Activity people perform to maintain or improve their health

Well behaviour

Activity people undertake to maintain or improve current good health or avoid illness

Symptom-based behaviour

Activity people who are ill undertake to determine the problem and find a remedy

Sick-role behaviour

Activity people undertake to treat or adjust to a health problem after deciding that they are ill and what the illness is

Primary prevention

Actions taken to avoid disease or injury

Secondary prevention

Actions taken to identify and treat an illness or injury early with the aim of stopping or reverisng the problem