Stress and Health Vocabulary

A collection of vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes covering health psychology, the cognitive appraisal of stress, physiological reactions, personality types, and coping mechanisms for coping.

Health Psychology

A field study focusing on the relationship between individuals and their actions to prevent illnesses, including how cultural factors influence health.

Stress

The physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to events that are appraised as threatening or challenging.

Stressors

Specific events or factors that cause a stress reaction.

Cognitive appraisal approach

An approach suggesting that the way people think about and appraise a stressor is a major factor in how stressful that particular stressor becomes.

Primary appraisal

The first step in assessing stress, which involves estimating the severity of a stressor and classifying it as either a threat or a challenge.

Secondary appraisal

The second step in assessing stress, which involves estimating the resources available to the person for coping with the stressor.

Distress

The effect of unpleasant and undesirable stressors, often referred to as "bad stress".

Eustress

The effect of positive events, or the optimal amount of stress that people need to promote health and well-being, referred to as "good stress".

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

The three stages of the body's physiological reaction to stress, including alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.

Natural Killer (NK) cell

An immune system cell responsible for suppressing viruses and destroying tumor cells.

Catastrophe

An unpredictable, large-scale event that creates a tremendous need to adapt and adjust as well as overwhelming feelings of threat.

Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)

A scale used to measure the amount of stress in a person's life over a one-year period resulting from major life changes.

College Undergraduate Stress Scale (CUSS)

An assessment that measures the amount of stress in a college student's life, with items like "Being raped" and "Finding out that you are HIV-positive" both rated at $100$.

Hassles

The daily annoyances of everyday life, such as "Missing the bus" or "Too little money".

Pressure

The psychological experience produced by urgent demands or expectations for a person's behavior that come from an outside source.

Uncontrollability

A source of stress related to the degree of control a person has over a particular event or situation.

Frustration

The psychological experience produced by the blocking of a desired goal or fulfillment of a perceived need.

Approach-approach conflict

A conflict in which a person must choose between two desirable goals.

Avoidance-avoidance conflict

A conflict in which a person must choose between two undesirable goals.

Approach-avoidance conflict

A conflict in which a person must choose or not choose a goal that has both positive and negative aspects.

Double approach-avoidance conflict

A conflict in which the person must decide between two goals, with each goal possessing both positive and negative aspects.

Type A personality

A person who is ambitious, time-conscious, extremely hardworking, and tends to have high levels of hostility and anger; linked to heart disease.

Type B personality

A person who is relaxed and laid-back, less driven and competitive than Type A, and slow to anger.

Type C personality

A pleasant but repressed person who tends to internalize his or her anger and anxiety and who finds expressing emotions difficult; linked to cancer.

Hardy personality

A person who seems to thrive on stress but lacks the anger and hostility of the Type A personality; characterized by commitment, control, and seeing problems as challenges.

Optimists

People who expect positive outcomes and are less likely to experience learned helplessness or depressed mood.

Acculturative stress

Stress resulting from the need to change and adapt a person's ways to the majority culture.

Integration

An acculturation method in which the individual tries to maintain a sense of the original cultural identity while also trying to form a positive relationship with members of the majority culture.

Assimilation

An acculturation method in which the individual gives up the old cultural identity and completely adopts the majority culture's ways.

Separation

An acculturation method in which the individual withdraws from the majority culture and tries to maintain the old cultural identity.

Marginalization

An acculturation method in which the individual neither maintains contact with their original culture nor joins the majority culture.

Problem-focused coping

Coping strategies that try to eliminate the source of a stress or reduce its impact through direct actions.

Emotion-focused coping

Coping strategies that change the impact of a stressor by changing the emotional reaction to the stressor.

Concentrative meditation

A form of meditation in which a person focuses the mind on some repetitive or unchanging stimulus so that the mind can be cleared of disturbing thoughts and the body can experience relaxation.