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What is the term for an event that causes stress?
Stressors
What determines how stressful an event is for you? What realization led stress researchers to arrive at this current understanding of stressors?
Person-environment fit; the interaction between individual perceptions and situational demands.
Researchers found that stress is not just about the event itself, but also about how individuals interpret and cope with it.
What are primary appraisal (all 3 parts) and secondary appraisal?
Primary appraisal: our mind accesses the environment, evaluates whether an event is harmful, a threat, or a challenge
Secondary appraisal: we assess how equipped we are to respond to the stressor
In the fight-or-flight response, what can fight look like? What does flight look like?
Fight: aggression or taking productive action
Flight: literally fleeing or ignoring the problem, going into denial, using substances
What is general adaptation syndrome?
When a stressor keeps happening for a long time and we eventually experience the exhaustion of our physical and emotional resources
What are the stages of the general adaptation syndrome?
Alarm, resistance, exhaustion
What is the tend-and-befriend response?
Caring for others or increasing social behavior
What are the four ways stress increases illness risk?
Hampering the immune system and increasing blood pressure
Tend to fall back into familiar, comfortable health compromising habits like eating, drugs and alcohol
Socially withdraw, push people away or feel unhappy or discouraged
Might delay medical care or slip out of our regular treatment plan
What are the main takeaways from the video on stress we watched in class?
The video emphasized that stress affects both mental and physical health, highlighting the importance of coping strategies and social support in managing stress. Also you can’t die from stress
Which part of our brain assess events as stressors? What part of the brain activates our nervous system to respond? Which part of the nervous system is activated?
Cerebral cortex assess if its a stressor
Hypothalamus activates our sympathetic nervous system to respond
What does the HPA axis do? How does chronic HPA activation affect fat stored?
HPA axis releases cortisol; increases fat storage
What is reactivity?
My response to a stressor depends not only on my assessment of the situation (person, environment and fit), but also on how reactive I am to stress in general (determined by nature and nurture)
What is allostasis? What is allostatic load?
Allostasis is how the body responds to stressors in order to regain homeostasis
Allostatic load: effects of long term exposure to chronic stress building up overtime in conjunction with pre existing risks
What effect does high cortisol levels in a stressed mom have on the fetus?
Having high cortisol levels act as a signal to the fetus that it is time to be born, leading to preterm birth
What kinds of events are more stressful?
Things that are unpleasant, uncontrollable/unpredictable, ambiguous, overwhelming, and important
How does anticipating a stressful event compare with the stress of the event itself?
Anticipating can be as stressful as the actual thing
What is the acute stress paradigm?
Laboratory procedure where when people perform stressful tasks (counting backward by 7s) they become psychologically distressed and show physiological arousal
When helping someone reduce their PTSD symptoms which is the better option: distraction from the triggering event or repeatedly talking about it?
Distraction from the triggering event
What major early life stressors can affect your health into adulthood? How does good parenting affect this?
Low socioeconomic status, expose to violence, acculturative stress(adapting a new culture), living in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, community level stressors, physical/sexual abuse
Good parenting mitigated these effects and those who had good parents had lower inflammation
What are the common sources of work stress? What is the major health risk of not having enough down time during the weekend?
Work overload
Role ambiguity
Role conflict
Lack of good work friends
Lack of control
Unemployment
Chronic stress is the major health risk
What is the Japanese word for death due to working too much?
Karoshi
When it comes to multiple roles, which roles are women vs. men more stressed with?
Women are more stressed by adverse changes in the home and men are more financial and work stress
What are stress moderators? What are the things we do to manage stressors called?
Things that change how a stressor affects us; coping : things we do to manage stress
What is negative affectivity? How does it relate to OCEAN? What are its effects?
Tendency to feel more depressed, anxious and/or hostile; cause relationship/job issues, higher reactivity, use ineffective coping strategies like avoidance or drinking
What is Type D personality?
Negative emotions; Social inhibition and isolation; distressed personality
What are the main psychosocial resources that help protect against stress?
Optimism
Sense of psychological control
High self-esteem
Conscientiousness
Finding meaning in life
Intelligence
How can optimism cause more stress?
When expectations aren’t met, stress is increased and compromised immune function
How can being overly cheerful impact your risk of death?
Suppressing your emotions, strained social relationships from toxic positivity, ignoring health problems: just increase risk of death, you die
What does research say about the effects of religion on health and stress?
It can promote well-being, have greater life satisfaction, personal happiness, helpful with coping with stress and leading to better health practices
What is resilience?
Ability to handle stressors, adapt and bounce back when things go wrong
What kinds of stressors respond well to avoidance-oriented coping vs. approach-oriented coping? Which is better overall?
Distraction is good for avoidance-oriented coping since its short-term; Long term stressors like money problems is good for approach coping since you’re working to make things better
Approach oriented coping is better and more effective
What are problem-focused coping, emotional focused coping, and proactive coping?
Problem- focused coping: working to fix the problem (constructive)
Emotional-focused coping: working through your feelings (regulate emotions)
Proactive coping: planning ahead to avoid problems in the future
What are the main resources that help people cope more effectively?
Money
Social support
Time
Education
Good job
Comfortable life
Positive life events
Few relative stressors
How do health psychologists assess the effectiveness of a person’s coping efforts?
Reducing or eliminating stressors
Tolerating or adjusting to negative events or realities
maintaining a positive self-image
maintaining emotional equilibrium
continuing satisfying relationships with other
enhancing the prospects of recovery (if ill)
What are the main interventions used in coping skills training? What type of psychology do most of these fall under?
Mindfulness meditation, acceptance and commitment therapy, expressive writing, self-affirmation, relaxation training, stress management (combat stress program)
Falls under stress management
What is a stress carrier?
A person in someone’s environment that causes them stress
What is social support? What are the 4 categories of social support?
Social support: messages that you’re valued, cared for and you belong
Giving practical things like money, needed items or helpful task (tangible assistance)
Sharing knowledge about something important or stressful (informational support)
Nurturance, compassion, and assurance that you’re cared for (emotional support)
Help you get without knowing you got it (invisible support) is even more beneficial to your health since you won’t feel any guilt or any inadequacy
How effective is invisible support compared to other kinds?
Knowing it’s there even if the person is unaware, if needed is very beneficial
How can social support be both good for your health and health behaviors and bad for them?
Social support improves health and health behaviors like lowering the likelihood of illnesses and sticking with their medical regimens, but also bad if the group smokes, drinks heavy, or takes drugs, or a lot of stress in the group
What is the direct effects hypothesis? What is the buffering hypothesis? Which is correct?
Direct effects hypothesis: social support is beneficial during stressful and non stressful times
Buffering hypothesis: maintains the physical and mental health benefits
Both are correct
How does having a satisfying marriage affect men vs. women? How does having an unhappy marriage affect men vs. women?
A satisfying marriage is among the most effective, but more so for men
An unhappy marriage is harmful to health, though, especially for women
What is the matching hypothesis?
Social support works best when its matches your partner
What things affect our likelihood of noticing physical symptoms?
Focus our attention on ourselves rather than environment
When were stressed or in a bad mood
Thinking we’ve have an illness/condition from something with a past experience
What is the new term for hypochondriasis?
Illness anxiety disorder
What information fits in each part of a commonsense model of illness?
Identity- name of the disease
Causes- what leads to the illness
Consequences- symptoms, how it may impact the quality of life and how it is treated
Timeline- how long it lasts
Control/Cure- the belief of how well it can be managed
Emotional representation- how you feel about the illness and treatment
Coherence- how will all of this fit together in a reasonable model of illness
What is the lay referral network?
Who is more likely to use health services? What explains gender differences here?
How much of doctors’ time is spend with patients whose symptoms are psychosocial rather than medical?
What are the main reasons for misuse of health services?
What are the four periods of delay?
For HMOs, does it seem like a colleague orientation or a patient orientation would be preferred by patients? Do you typically need a referral or reapproval to see a specialist? What is patient-centered care?
What things make miscommunication between the patient and provider more likely?
What is nonperson treatment?
Doctors of what gender give better care? Doctors prefer patients of what gender?
What portion of patients fail to take all of their antibiotics?
What makes treatment adherence more likely?
What is creative nonadherence?
What are the three main goals of a hospital?
How does anxiety level effect how well a person does after surgery?
What is the goal of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine?
After reading about all of the CAM treatments in the chapter, what is the general consensus of research findings about their effectiveness?
What does research show about the effectiveness of hypnosis for pain management?
What is a placebo? What qualities of the provider, patient, and treatment make the placebo effect stronger?
What is the nocebo effect?
What kind of experiment do drug companies have to use before they can market their drug as effective?
What is the most common reason patients ask their doctors to help them end their lives?
Not being able to deal with the pain
What is a pain behavior?
How do pain and unpleasant emotions interact?
What are the four types of nociception?
Know the basics of the gate-control theory of pain from the video in class: What is the gate and what does it do, what things can close the gate? What type of pain do A-delta fibers vs. C-fibers transmit?
Know the four types of pain: acute, chronic benign, recurrent acute, chronic progressive.
What is the secondary gain people with chronic pain might get from their pain behaviors?
What personality traits and tendencies are correlated with chronic pain?
What is the neurotic triad?
What are the three types of results pain control techniques can achieve?
How do local anesthetics vs. opiates or antidepressants act to reduce pain perception?
What are endogenous opioid peptides?
What is the most commonly prescribed pain medication?
How long does pain relief from surgery tend to last?
How well do relaxation and distraction work to reduce pain?
