AP Psychology Unit 5- Health Psychology Flashcards!!

Studying for the AP EXAM!!! This is motivation.. you got a 5 on the Mock!!

Health Psychology

examines the relationship between physical health, wellness, behavior, and mental processes

Psychoneuroimmunology

focuses on mind-body interactions

Your thoughts and feelings (psycho) inuence your brain (neuro), which influences the endocrine hormones that affect your disease-fighting immune system

Stress

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

Hypertension

• Elevated blood pressure due to prolonged stress

Headaches

• Stress-induced tension headaches or migraines

Immune Suppression

• Reduced immune function leading to increased illness

Stressors

a chemical or biological agent, environmental condition, external stimulus, or an event seen as causing stress to an organism.

They can be motivating or debilitating and vary in their impact.

Types of Stress Responses

• Eustress

• Distress

Eustress

• : Positive, motivating stress

Distress

• Negative, debilitating stress

Types of Stressors

• Traumatic Events

• Daily Hassles

• Adverse Childhood Experiences

Traumatic Events

• Major life changes or disasters

Daily Hassles

• Minor irritations that build up over time

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

• Early life stressors with long-term effects

The general adaptation syndrome (GAS)

describes the process of experiencing stress

Alarm Reaction

Initial response to stress

Resistance Phase

Coping with the stressor through a fight-flight-freeze response

Exhaustion Phase

Depletion of resources and increased susceptibility to illness

Tend and Befriend

reacting to stress by tending to personal needs and seeking social support

eg: women are more likely to respond to stress by seeking social connection.

Tending

• Taking care of oneself and others

Befriending

• Seeking out social connections and support

Coronary Heart Disease

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

Problem Focused Coping

viewing stress as a problem and working towards a solution

Emotion Focused Coping

managing emotional reactions to stress as a coping strategy

Personal Control

our sense of controlling our environment rather than feeling helpless

Learned Helplessness

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

“you feel a lack of control in stressed situations”

Self Control

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

Meditation

a practice that involves focusing or clearing the mind using mental and physical techniques to train attention and awareness, aiming to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state. 

Positive Psychology

has used scientific methods to study human flourishing.

Subject 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. 

Resilience

Feel Good, Do God 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

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

Social Comparison

We compare upwardly - we tend to believe people who have more than us are happier

We compare downwardly - we tend to be thankful we are not as unhappy as those less fortunate than we are.

Wisdom

• creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, and perspective 

Courage

• bravery, honesty, perseverance, and zest 

Humanity

• : kindness, love, and social intelligence 

Justice

• fairness, leadership, and teamwork 

Temperance

• forgiveness, humility, prudence, and self-regulation 

Transcendence

a state of being that extends beyond the limitations of the self.

Mindfulness Meditation

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

Diathesis- stress model

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

(VERY CLOSELY Related to epigenetics)

Epigenetics

supports the diathesis-stress model by showing how our DNA and environment interact.

Medical Model

 influences us to speak of the mental health of patients. The mental illness needs to be diagnosed on the basis of its symptoms.

Dysfunctional Behaviors

behavior that is harmful or disruptive to yourself or others.

Psychological distress

mental or emotional suffering, caused by LIFE

Stigmatization

when individuals are socially labeled and devalued based on a particular characteristic.

ex: orientation, gender, disease, etc.

American Psychological Association

•  The APA is a scientific and professional organization that represents psychology in the United States. It's responsible for setting ethical guidelines for psychological research.

Psychodynamic

Perspective: Freud

Unresolved Childhood conflicts and unconscious thoughts.

Humanistic

Maslow; healthy personal growth

Lack of social support and the inability to fulfill one’s potential

Behavioral

Pavlov; learning

Maladaptive learned associations

Cognitive

Piaget, Vygotsky; learning, processing

Maladaptive thoughts, beliefs, attitudes or emotions

Biological

Darwin; genetics and immune system

Genetic or physiological predispositions

Evolutionary

Darwin; adaptations

Maladaptive forms of behaviors that enabled human survival

Sociocultural

Piaget: interactions

Problematic social and cultural contexts.

World Health Organization

a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health.) 

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-TR5)

a widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.

International Classification of Mental Disorders

A global diagnostic tool for classifying diseases, including mental disorders.

Schizophrenia

a group of disorders characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking or speech, and negative symptoms

(Split from Reality)

Acute Schizophrenia

sudden onset, often due to a stressor) more likely to result in recovery

Chronic Schizophrenia

Slow Developing, less likely to recover

psychosis

a psychological disorder in which a person loses contact with reality experiencing irrational ideas and distorted perceptions.

delusions

false beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders

hallucination

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

4 Major Types of Delusions

Persecution

Reference

Influence

Grandeur

Persecution

belief others (often loved ones) are conspiring against them

Reference

belief everyday events/ objects have a personal significance (cartoons are talking to you)

Influence

belief you are being controlled by others

Grandeur

belief you have special powers, talents, fame, or wealth

Word Salad

Disorganized Speech (doesn’t make sense coherently.)

ex: “a man begged for a little more “allegro” in the treatment.

Emotions

emotions are mostly inappropriate or mixed in the wrong situations

ex: laughing at a death

Types of Schizophrenia

Paranoid

Disorganized

Catatonic

Paranoid

Hallucinations, delusions of persecution or grandeur, intense jealousy

Disorganized

Breakdown of selective attention; bizarre and childlike thinking and speech; frequent hallucinations; flat affect; neglect of hygiene

Catatonic

Disturbed wild movement or none at all; little reaction to outside world

Cerebral Facotrs

Sensitivity to dopamine: dopamine hypothesis excess dopamine receptors (x6) contribute to positive symptoms

• Dopamine antagonists reduce (+) symptoms, dopamine agonists (cocaine) intensify symptoms

• Abnormal frontal lobe: reduced activity and less synchronized brain waves

  • May contribute to disorganized thinking

• Abnormal thalamic activity: may contribute to hallucinations

• Abnormal amygdala activity: may contribute to paranoia

• Less cortex and interconnections: larger ventricles, brain shrinkage, smaller corpus callosum

Genetic Factors

Many likely culprit genes affect dopamine and myelin 

Epigenetic changes (viral infection, maternal stress, malnourishment) thought to activate genes