AP Psychology: Mental and Physical Health Overview

health psychology

a subfield of psychology that explores the impact of psychological, behavioral, and cultural factors on health and wellness.

psychoneuroimmunology

the study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect our immune system and resulting health.

stress

the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.

stressor

an event or situation that causes stress.

eustress

positive stress.

distress

negative stress.

Lewin's Conflict Theory

proposes that choices create conflicts (stress) one must resolve.

Approach-Approach

a choice must be made between two attractive goals.

Avoidance-Avoidance

a choice must be made between two unattractive goals.

Approach-Avoidance

a choice must be made about whether to pursue a single goal that has both attractive and unattractive aspects.

general adaptation syndrome (GAS)

Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three phases — alarm, resistance, exhaustion.

alarm reaction

first stage of the general adaptation syndrome; characterized as the body's immediate physiological reaction to a threatening situation or some other emergency; analogous to the fight-or-flight response.

resistance stage of GAS

second stage; body functions normalize while responding to the stressor. The body attempts to cope with the stressor.

Exhaustion stage of GAS

third stage; body runs out of adaptation energy stores for adjusting to stressor, and resistance drops below normal.

tend-and-befriend response

under stress, people (especially women) may nurture themselves and others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend).

coronary heart disease

the clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; a leading cause of death in many developed countries.

Type A

Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people.

Type B

Friedman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people.

catharsis

in psychology, the idea that 'releasing' aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges.

personal control

our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless.

problem-focused coping

attempting to alleviate stress directly — by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor.

emotion-focused coping

attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to our stress reaction.

explanatory style

a person's habitual way of explaining events, typically assessed along three dimensions: internal/external, stable/unstable, and global/specific.

optimistic explanatory style

accounting for negative events or situations with external, unstable, and specific explanations.

pessimistic explanatory style

Accounting for negative events or situations with internal, stable, and global explanations.

learned helplessness

the hopelessness and passive resignation humans and other animals learn when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.

external locus of control

the perception that outside forces beyond our personal control determine our fate.

internal locus of control

the perception that we control our own fate.

self-control

the ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for greater long-term rewards.

positive psychology

the scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of promoting strengths and virtues that foster well-being, resilience, and positive emotions, and that help individuals and communities to thrive.

subjective well-being

self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life. Used along with measures of objective well-being (for example, physical and economic indicators) to evaluate people's quality of life.

feel-good, do-good phenomenon

people's tendency to be helpful when in a good mood.

adaptation-level phenomenon

our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience.

relative deprivation

the perception that we are worse off relative to those with whom we compare ourselves.

broaden-and-build theory

proposes that positive emotions broaden our awareness, which over time helps us build novel and meaningful skills and resilience that improve well-being.

character strengths and virtues

a classification system to identify positive traits; organized into categories of wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.

resilience

the personal strength that helps people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma.

mindfulness meditation

a reflective practice in which people attend to current experiences in a nonjudgmental and accepting manner.

gratitude

an appreciative emotion people often experience when they benefit from other's actions or recognize their own good fortune.

well-being

a positive state that includes striving for optimal health and life satisfaction.

biofeedback

a system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological state, such as blood pressure or muscle tension.

psychological disorder

a disturbance in people's thoughts, emotions, or behaviors that causes distress or suffering and impairs their daily lives.

medical model

the concept that diseases — in this case, psychological disorders — have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and, in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital.

diathesis-stress model

the concept that genetic predispositions (diathesis) combine with environmental stressors (stress) to influence psychological disorder.

epigenetics

"above" or "in addition to" (epi) genetics; the study of the molecular mechanisms by which environments can influence genetic expression (without a DNA change).

eclectic

method that combines various kinds of therapy or combinations of therapies.

biopsychosocial approach

an integrated perspective that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis.

DSM-5-TR

the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision; a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.

International Classification of Mental Disorders (ICD)

a global system for classifying mental and physical diseases, including psychiatric diagnoses.

insanity

a legal term describing one's inability to be responsible for one's action due to the condition of the mind.

stigma

a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.

anxiety disorders

a group of disorders characterized by excessive fear and anxiety and related maladaptive behaviors.

generalized anxiety disorder

an anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal.

panic disorder

an anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable, minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person may experience terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations; often followed by worry over a possible next attack.

panic attack

an abrupt surge of intense fear or intense discomfort, characterized by several physical and mental symptoms.

Ataque de nervios

a self-labeled syndrome found in Latinos in which they experience a mixture of anxiety, panic, depression, and anger.

phobia

abnormal fear.

acrophobia

fear of heights.

arachnophobia

fear of spiders.

social anxiety disorder

intense fear and avoidance of social situations.

Tajin Kyofusho

the intense fear of offending others that we see in Japan.

agoraphobia

fear or avoidance of situations, such as crowds or wide open places, where one may experience a loss of control and panic.

obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

a disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions), actions (compulsions), or both.

obsessions

persistent ideas, thoughts, or impulses that are unwanted and inappropriate, causing marked distress.

compulsions

Repetitive behaviors or mental acts that are performed to prevent or reduce anxiety.

hoarding disorder

a disorder in which individuals feel compelled to save items and become very distressed if they try to discard them, resulting in an excessive accumulation of items.

posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

a disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, hypervigilance, avoidance of trauma-related stimuli, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for 4 weeks or more after a traumatic experience.

Hypervigilance

state of ongoing anxiety in which the person is constantly tense and alert for threats.

Flashbacks (PTSD)

memories seem to happen in the here and now, reexperiencing traumatic memory.

mood disorders

psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes.

major depressive disorder

a disorder in which a person experiences five or more symptoms lasting two or more weeks, in the absence of drug use or a medical condition, at least one of which must be either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.

persistent depressive disorder

a disorder in which people experience a depressed mood on more days than not for at least two years. (Formerly called dysthymia.)

mania

a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state in which dangerously poor judgment is common.

bipolar disorder

a disorder in which a person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania. (Formerly called manic-depressive disorder.)

cycling

alternating between mania and depression.

bipolar I disorder

the most severe form, in which people experience a euphoric, talkative, highly energetic, and overly ambitious state that lasts a week or longer.

bipolar II disorder

a less severe form of bipolar in which people move between depression and a milder hypomania.

rumination

compulsive fretting; overthinking our problems and their causes.

schizophrenia

a psychological disorder characterized by delusions and hallucinations, among other positive and negative symptoms.

psychotic disorders

a group of disorders marked by irrational ideas, distorted perceptions, and a loss of contact with reality.

delusion

a false belief, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders.

hallucination

false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus.

negative symptoms

symptoms of schizophrenia that are deficits in functioning, such as flattened affect, slowed speech, and reduced movement.

positive symptoms

symptoms of schizophrenia that are excesses of in functioning, such as hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized speech.

delusions of persecution

the belief that the person is being deliberately interfered with, discriminated against, plotted against, or threatened.

delusions of grandeur

A false belief that one is a famous person or a powerful or important person who has some great knowledge, ability, or authority.

catatonia

state of immobility and unresponsiveness lasting for long periods of time.

word salad

flow of unconnected words that convey no meaning to the listener.

chronic schizophrenia

a form of schizophrenia in which symptoms usually appear by late adolescence or early adulthood. As people age, psychotic episodes last longer and recovery periods shorten.

acute schizophrenia

a form of schizophrenia that can begin at any age, frequently occurs in response to an emotionally traumatic event, and has extended recovery periods.

dopamine hypothesis

the idea that schizophrenia involves an excess of dopamine activity.

dissociative disorders

a controversial, rare group of disorders characterized by a disruption of or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior.

dissociative amnesia

a disorder in which people with intact brains reportedly experience memory gaps; people with dissociative amnesia may report not remembering trauma-related specific events, people, places, or aspects of their identity and life history.

dissociative amnesia with fugue

disorder characterized by extreme memory loss that is caused by extensive psychological stress accompanied by moving and assuming a new identity.

dissociative identity disorder (DID)

a rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating identities.

personality disorders

a group of disorders characterized by enduring inner experiences or behavior patterns that differ from someone's cultural norms and expectations, are pervasive and inflexible, begin in adolescence or early adulthood, are stable over time, and cause distress or impairment.

Cluster A

category of personality disorders characterized by eccentric behavior.

Cluster B

category of personality disorders characterized by impulsive behavior.

Cluster C

category of personality disorders characterized by anxious behavior.

paranoid personality disorder

a personality disorder marked by a pattern of distrust and suspiciousness of others.