PSYC 1002 Final Exam

Health

A complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity

Health Psychology

Understanding psychological influences on how people stay healthy, why they become ill, and how they respond when they do get ill. Study prevention and treatment of illness, improvement of healthcare system

Stress

A subjective feeling produced by events perceived as uncontrollable and threatening. A response to the perceived demands of the situation

Experience of Stress

Depends on what event one notices and how one chooses to appraise or interpret them

Stress Effect

Can have a positive effect when it helps performance or a negative effect when it causes upset or illness

Stressors

Events that lead to stress and have several common attributes that produce a state of feeling overwhelmed or overloaded. Uncontrollable and can be acute (specific moment, short duration) or chronic (continues, no time limit)

External Sources of Stress

Environmental, social, interpersonal, life events, daily hassles

Internal Sources of Stress

Lifestyle choices, negative self-talk, thought patterns, stressful personality types

Frustration

The pursuit of some goal is thwarted. Most are brief and insignificant

Internal Conflict

Two or more incompatible motivations or behavioural impulses compete for expression. Generates a considerable psychological distress

Change

Any substantial alterations in one’s living circumstances that require readjustment

Pressure

Expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way. Under pressure when expected to execute task quickly and efficiently

Type A Personality

A personality type characterized by high levels of competitiveness and achievement motivation, urgency, and hostility, often leading to stress and increased risk of heart disease.

Type B Personality

Relaxed and unhurried, less likely to seek competition, less likely to be aroused to anger, and are rarely driven in a compulsive manner

Emotional Reactions/Depression and Heart Disease

Those that have strong emotional reactions might trigger heart attacks in individuals with coronary disease. Elevated rates of depression have been found among patients suffering from heart disease. Depression can double one’s chance of developing heart disease.

Personal Control Personality

Having a general sense of personal control reduces stress and can lead to the development of problem-solving strategies to cope with the stress

Hardiness Personality

Characterized by a sense of commitment (rather than alienation), control and a perception of problems as challenges. Correlated with better health

Conscientiousness

Those who are high in conscientiousness are less likely to exhibit unhealthy habits. Rely on constructive coping strategies, are persistent in their efforts and promote better adherence to medical advice. They are also associated with higher educational attainment.

Major Life Events

Significant occurrences that can cause stress or change in an individual's life, such as marriage, divorce, starting a new job, or the death of a loved one. People who experience a lot of stress are more likely to have a serious illness over the next year due to stress lowering the functioning of the immune system

Daily Hassles

Provide the most stress in most people’s life. People with a lot of minor stress suffer more from psychological and physical symptoms

Poverty

Undermines sources of social support and leads to a sense of powerlessness. Related to threatening and uncontrollable life events. Effects more minority and female-headed families

Acculturative Stress

The individual is trying to navigate between the demands of two different cultures (two ways of behaving). Weak native/weak new culture = marginalization, weak native/strong new = assimilation, strong native/weak new = separation, strong native/strong new = integration

Emotional Response to Stress

Common responses are anger/annoyance, anxiety and sadness/grief. Positive and negative emotions are to be expected in response to stress and one’s ability to talk about them makes a difference. High emotional arousal can also hurt coping. Performance peaks at optimal levels of arousal for a task

Fight or Flight Response

Physiological reaction to threat in which the autonomic nervous system mobilizes the organism for attacking or fleeing

General Adaptation Syndrome

Three-stage response of the body to stressors (alarm, resistance, exhaustion)

Alarm Stage

Acute response to stress to mobilize the body’s defense. Fight or flight response

Resistance Stage

If the stressor continues, then the body adapts and appears normal while maintaining balance until resistance is depleted. Body uses resources at above average rate, even though fight-or-flight response subsided

Exhaustion Stage

If the stressor is constant, the ability to resist is eventually exceeded, the person enters the stage of exhaustion. More susceptible to illness, because physiological resources are depleted

Brain-Body Pathways

The hypothalamus stimulates the central part of the adrenal glands to release large amounts of catecholamines into the bloodstream which produce the physiological changes seen in the fight or flight response. Can also send signals that in turn stimulates the adrenal cortex that releases corticosteroids (increase energy and inhibit tissue inflammation)

Shelley Taylor Model

Male responses of fight or flight may be mediated by testosterone. Proposed that females are more likely to protect their young than to flee. Evolutionary perspective - it was more adaptive for females to nurture their offspring and to form social alliances

Psychoneuroimmunology

The field that explores connections among psychological factors (such as attitudes and emotions), the nervous system and the immune system. Acute stressors can produce immunological changes. Chronic stressors leads to an increase downturn in the immune system.

Antigens

Foreign invaders. Include toxins, bacteria, parasites, viruses, and fungi. These are the proper targets of the immune system

Immune System

The body has a few ways to protect itself from invasion: skin membranes, non-specific cells & substances that attack and antibodies that fight antigens

Stress and Immune System

Stress can suppress immune activity. Chronic inflammation resulting from immune system dysregulation can cause illnesses

Immunity and Cancer

When normal cells turn into cancer cells, some of the antigens on their surface change. Cancer cells can reproduce infinitely

Stress & Cancer

Psychological experiences can influence immune functioning and cellular immune response, affecting the occurrence and progression of certain tumors

Psychoneuroimmunology & Cancer

Social support helps with high NK (natural killer cells) response. High levels of stress was associated with low NK cell activity. Patients with high emotional stress exhibit a poor ability to repair damaged cellular DNA

Buffer of Stress with Cancer

Structured group intervention (health education, stress management, social support, etc.) lead to an increase in NK cells and NK cytotoxic activity

Appraisal Events

Primary: Person perceive an event as a threat to goals or irrelevant to them

Secondary: Person evaluates their coping resources and options for dealing with the stress

For stress to be evoked

Coping

Consists of cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person/ There is also an emotional response to stressors that both influence, and is influenced by, our coping response

Giving Up and Blaming Oneself Coping

Individuals come to believe that events are beyond their control. When people are confronted by stressful difficulties, they tend to become highly self-critical

Indulging Oneself Coping

Stress leads to reduced impulse control, resulting in many engaging in unwise patterns of eating, drinking, spending money.

Defense Mechanism

Unconscious reactions that shield individuals from unpleasant emotions so often elicited by stress. Accomplish this through denial (distorting reality so it doesn’t appear so threatening)

Constructive Coping

Relatively healthful, positive efforts that people make to deal with stressful events. Confronting problems directly, based on reasonably realistic appraisals of stress, learning to recognize disruptive emotional reactions

Problem-Focused Coping

A rational approach that attempts to change the situation by changing either something in the environment or how the person interacts with the environment. Both cognitive and behavioural coping, adaptive if the stressor is controllable. Ex. planning, seeking information

Emotion-Focused Coping

The person addressed the emotions that accompany the problem, not the environmental stressor itself. Adaptive if stressor is uncontrollable, includes avoidant coping strategies. Ex. seeking emotional support, meditation

Proactive Coping

The ways people cope in advance to prevent or mute the impact of events that are potential stressors (upcoming test, medical procedure). Focuses on recognizing potential stressors, coping efforts and having resources

Burnout

Physical and emotional exhaustion, negative attitude, and a lowered sense of self-efficacy that can be brought on gradually by chronic work-related stress. Caused by trying to balance everything in one’s life (work, school, finances, relationships)

Positive Effects of Stress

Stress can promote personal growth or self-improvement. Moderate amounts of stress can foster resilience

Social Support

Having an available social support network that is able to facilitate either your problem-focused or emotion-focused coping with a positive impact on: the stress response, immune functioning, perceived stress, mood and emotion, well-being, resilience, self-esteem

Optimism

A general tendency to expect good outcomes. Plays an important role in buffering against stressful events and reducing stress-related illness by dealing with them in more adaptive ways

Humour

Reduces the threatening nature of stressful situations through cognitive reappraisal. Lessens depressive symptoms by reframing the situation as less threatening, fostering positive perspective, reducing tension and discomfort, and attracting social support

Medical Model

Proposed that it is useful to think of abnormal behaviour as a disease

Historic Definition of Abnormal Behaviour

People who behaved strangely were thought to be possessed by demons, be witches or to victims of God’s punishment. If the people’s behaviour was seen as threatening, they were subjected to chains, dungeons, torture and death.

Improvements from Medical Model

They were viewed with more sympathy and less hatred/fear. Early asylums were typically deplorable but progress has been made to make more humane care to those who are mentally ill.

Symptomatology

The study of, or the treatment of, the symptoms of a disease

Abnormal Psychology

Mental illness, disease or disorders

Psychopathology

The study of mental disorders

Pathology

The study of disease

Etiology

The cause or origin of a disease

Psychogenic

Disease originating from the mind

Criteria of Abnormal Behaviour

Deviance (violates cultural standards and expectations), maladaptive behaviour: (everyday adaptive behaviour is impaired) and great personal distress

Stereotypes of Psychological Disorders

Psychological disorders are incurable, they are often violent and dangerous and they behave in bizarre ways and act differently from normal people.

Assessment

The collection, organization, and interpretation of information about a client and their situation. A sequence of steps that aid in gathering data for the purpose of coming to a decision

Purpose of Assessment

Intervention-focused assessment, Screening and Prognosis

Intervention-focus Assessment

Creating a accurate description of client’s current state and needs, with the intent of determining the appropriate treatment actions

Screening

Identifying individuals who may have problems that require clinical attention or may be at risk for developing problems

Prognosis

Combining assessment data with the research literature to make predictions about the patient’s future course of psychological functioning

Diagnosis

The person’s symptoms and behaviours are organized and classified within a set of recognized categories of disordered behaviour

Clinical Utility

Diagnosis should help clinicians to determine the prognosis, treatment plans, and potential treatment outcomes for their patients

DSM

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a system for diagnosing and classifying individuals who are exhibiting disordered behaviours

Prevalence of Psychological Disorders

Over half of the population will have lifetime prevalence of a mental disorder. Overall, one in ten Canadians over 15 years of age reported symptoms consistent with one of the categories of disorder

Mental Disorders

A clinically significant behavioural or psychological pattern that occurs in an individual and is associated with present distress or disability or with a increased risk of suffering death, pain, or loss of freedom. It must be a behavioural, psychological, or biological dysfunction. Can’t be a short term response to an particular event

Five Axes System

Clinical syndrome (anything that may interest clinical attention), personality disorders & intellectual disability, general medical conditions, psychosocial/environmental problems and global assessment of functioning

Anxiety

A manifestation of the fear response. Basic components - physiological, emotional, cognitive, behavioural. Anxiety becomes a chronic problem

Panic Attack

An abrupt surge of intense fear or discomfort that reaches a peak within minutes and must exhibit 4 or more of 13 symptoms

Criteria for Panic Attacks

Pounding heart, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, choking, chest pain, nausea, feeling dizzy, chills, numbness, derealization, fear of losing control and dying

Panic Disorder

Recurrent, unexpected panic attacks followed by at least one month of either worrying about additional panic attacks or maladaptive change in behaviour related to the attacks. Onset of the disorder occur

Agoraphobia

Anxiety/avoidance about places or situations from which escape might be difficult or help may not be available in the event of having a panic attack. Need to have anxiety about two or more situations

Criteria for Agoraphobia

Intense fear triggered by the real or anticipated exposure to a wide range of situations (being in open/closed spaces, away from home alone). May experience thoughts that something terrible might happen

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Excessive anxiety or worry about a number of events or activities. The individual finds it difficult to control the worry and to keep thoughts from interfering with attention to tasks at hand. Must occur more days than not for at least 6 months

Criteria of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Accompanied by at least 3 additional symptoms: restlessness, being easily fatigued, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, sleep disturbance

Phobias

Anxiety about a specific object or situation. The object/situation almost always provokes immediate fear which is out of proportion to the actual danger posed, lasting 6 months and try to avoid

Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)

Intense fear of social situations in which the individual may be scrutinized by others. Fears they will act in a way that will be negatively evaluated. Tries to avoid or endures with intense fear, persistent lasting 6 months

Obessions

Recurrent and persistent thoughts that are experienced at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive and unwanted, cause anxiety or distress. Attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts

Compulsions

Repetitive behaviours or mental acts that the individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly. Aimed at reducing anxiety but these behaviours are not connected in a realistic way, have dysfunctional beliefs

OCD

The obsessions/compulsions are time consuming or cause distress in important areas of functioning. Becomes pathological when the O/C do not pass or are recurrent

Hoarding Disorder

Have difficulty discarding possessions no matter how worthless they are and to avoid the distress that throwing them away would entail. Disrupt normal living arrangements and interfere with their social activities. Increases with age

PTSD

Exposure to a disturbance that causes significant distress or social/occupational impairment for more than 1 month. Must have 1 or more symptom

Persistent Avoidance Symptoms of PTSD

Efforts to avoid distressing memories/feelings associated with the event and/or effort to avoid external reminders that arouse distressing memories. The intensity of one’s reaction at the time of the traumatic event can cause elevated vulnerability to PTSD

Intrusion Symptoms of PTSD

Recurrent, involuntary, and intrusive distressing memories/dreams of the trauma. Flashbacks in which it feels that the trauma is recurring. Intense psychological distress in response to cues

Negative Alterations in Cognitions Symptoms of PTSD

Two or more: Inability to remember important aspect of the trauma, persistent and exaggerated negative beliefs about self, Distorted cognitions about the cause of the trauma, negative emotional state, diminished interest in activities, detachment from others, inability to experience positive emotions.

Alterations in Arousal/Activity Symptoms of PTSD

Two or more: sleep disturbance, irritable behaviour, hypervigilance, problems with concentration, exaggerated startle response, reckless

Major Depressive Disorder

Persistent feelings of sadness and despair and a loss of interest in previous sources of pleasure. Emerge before age 40 and more common in women

Major Depressive Episode Symptoms

Depressed mood, loss of interest, significant weight loss, insomnia, slowed down, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, indecisiveness, recurrent thoughts of death. Symptoms must include at least one of the first two for the 5 experienced and must have one major depressive episode.

Persistent Depressive Disorder (Dysthymia)

Chronically, depressed mood that occurs for most of the day, for at least 2 years and haven’t been without the symptoms for more than 2 months. There has never been a manic episode, with at least two symptoms occuring

Dysthymia Symptoms

Poor appetite/overeating, Insomnia, low energy, low self-esteem, poor concentration, feelings of hopelessness

Bipolar 1

Manic-depressive disorder. Presence of at least 1 manic episode as well as periods of depression

Bipolar 2

1 hypomanic and 1 major depressive episode is required

Dissociative Amnesia

A sudden loss of memory for important personal information that is too extensive to be due to normal forgetting