Health Psychology Exam #1

Allostatic load

What is the name for repeated and prolonged stressors? Also called wear-and-tear?

health

What is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity?

physical, mental, and social

What are the three compoents of health?

increasing

Is the presence of psychology in medical education decreasing or increasing?

Early 1900s

In what time period was the curriculum focus not focused on psychology at all, and sciences such as anatomy, bacteriology, biochemistry, and historiology were the only focus?

conflict between what physicians and psychologists wanted, and psychology was still young

What were some of the conflicts in the early 1900s with applying psychology in the medical field curriculum?

1870s and 1970s

When was the first psychology research lab established? When was the first health psychology field established?

risk factors, shifts in illness over the past century, wealth disparities, and health disparities

Why is psychology important to health?

risk factors

What are factors associated with disease?

biology/genetics, behavior, emotions, traits, and social environment

What are five risk factors mentioned in the slides?

infectious diseases to chronic illnesses

What has the shift in illness been over the past century?

infectious diseases (acute)

What are diseases that are quick, outcome happen fast, and are caused by bacteria or viruses?

chronic illness

What type of illness is slow, and the conditions can last for years, the causes of these often have a behavioral component?

neonatal conditions, heart disease

What is the leading cause of death in low-income countries. What about high-income?

tuberculosis, pneumonia, diseases of the heart, and diarrhea

What are the leading causes of death in 1900-1940s?

heart disease, cancer, COVID-19, and accidents

What are the leading causes of death in 2019/2020-2022?

47 years

What was the lifespan in 1900?

77.7 years

What was the average lifespan in 2006?

prehistory, Greeks, middle ages, and renaissance

What are the four stages of "historical views" of illness and psychology?

disease was possession by evil spirits, and treatments was "releasing" those spirits

What was the historical perspective in prehistory?

health and diseases were based on either a balance or imbalance of the body, the mind was separate and had little influence over the body

What was the historical perspective for the Greeks?

greeks

Who had the earliest writings of physiology, mind, and disease?

focus on the biology of the disease, invention of the microscope and autopsy, and separated the mind and body to avoid superstition

What was the historical perspective in the renaissance through the current times?

Psychosomatic medicine, which is the idea that hyperactive autonomic nervous system activity negatively impacts health

What do modern views of health focus on?

Type A

What type of personality is linked to cardiovascular disease?

health psychology

What is the field that is devoted to understand the psychological influence on how people stay healthy, why people become ill, and how they respond?

systems

What is a dynamic entity where components are continuously interrelated?

Biopsychosocial model

What type of model integrates biology (micro), psychology, and social factors(macro) into a model of health, focuses on both health and illness, and is an extension of the biomedical model?

biomedical model

What model views health as the absence of disease? Focuses on the biological aspects of health? It sees social and psychological factors as irrelevant?

disruption of normal functioning

Within the biomedical model of health, what is illness?

illness does have a biological component

What are the pros of the biomedical model?

reductionistic, ignores impact of the mind and body, focus is on illness, not health

What are some of the cons of the biomedical model?

addresses physical needs and others, stresses importance of supportive empathetic communication amongst patients and providers

What are the two implications of biopsychosocial model?

fixes the physical problem, stresses strong patient-provider interactions, and takes into account mental health

What are the two implications of biopsychosocial model?

Morbidity

What is illness, disability, deviation from wellness?

Prevalence

What are the Number of currently observed cases (new and continuing)?

Incidence

What are the number of newly observed cases?

epidemic

What is a rapidly increasing incidence rate?

Variable

What is a factor that can change in an experiment?

correlational study

What is a research project designed to discover the degree to which two variables are related to each other? This does not mean causation?

retrospective approach

What is a research strategy whereby the histories of subjects are examined for their relationships to recent conditions, such as health problems?

prospective approach

What is a research strategy whereby characteristics of subjects are measured and later examined for their relationships to future conditions, such as health problems?

cross-sectional study

What is research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time?

longitudinal study

What is research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period?

stressor (stimulus), strain, and transactions

What are the three conceptualizations of stress?

stressor

What is a stimulus and environmental factors that most people find upsetting?

strain

What is the psychological and physiological responses to a stress? (often known as wear-and-tear)

transactions

According to physiological measures, what is the perception of environmental demands and coping resources?

it is the response to a stressor, based upon the perceived discrepancy, that results in strain

What is stress, in relation to the three conceptualizations?

Physiological model of stress

What are the early models of stress that place a heavy emphasis on the reactivity to the stressor?

Reactivity

What is a change in physiological functioning?

sympathetic nervous system

What nervous system is the body using to prepare for action? This includes, dilated pupils, inhibit salivation, heartrate increases, relaxes airways, inhibits activity of stomach, stimulates release of glucose, and inhibits gallbladder, and secretes epinephrine and norepinephrine?

parasympathetic nervous system

What type of nervous system is the rest and digest system? This encourages the constricting of pupils, stimulate saliva, slow heartbeat, constrict airways, stimulates activity in the stomach and intestines, as wells as inhibits the releases of glucose?

Hypothalamus

What part of the brain is important for motivation? and help maintain homeostasis?

Hypothalamic-pituitary adrenocortical axis

What is the connection between cerebral cortex and physical responses?

tend and befriend

What is the idea that stress may elicit socially affiliative behaviors, and females tend to do this more often?

Oxytocin, sex roles

What hormones are affiliative behaviors influenced by? Also, what is another reason that tend-and-befriend developed?

General Adaptation Syndrome

What is a major extension of fight-or flight, and this examines prolonged stressors?

Hans Selye

Who developed GAS?

researched ovarian hormones in rats, the results showed enlarged adrenal glands, shrunken lymph nodes, and ulcers

How was GAS researched, and what were the results?

alarm, resistance, and exhaustion

What are the three phases of GAS?

mobilization, coping with the stressor as the body uses and replaces resources, the depletion of physiological resources

What is the alarm, resistance, and exhaustion stages of GAS?

highlights some of the usual responses to stress, and was the first model to link prolonged stress to physical illness

What are the Pros of GAS?

too general, does not factor in perceptions, individual differences, and does not address illness

What are the Cons of GAS?

events are occurring repeatedly

What is the repeated-hits allostatic load?

chronic events occur, and the magnitude of reactivity lacks adaptation

What is taking place when there is a "lack of adaptation" in relation to the allostatic load?

hormones, cardiovascular responses, immune function, skin conductance, brain activity

How does one physiologically measure stress?

corticosteroids and catecholamines

What are the hormones that are usually measured in stress measures?

cytokines and the ability to fight of pathogens

What are the things that researchers use when looking at immune function as an measure for stress?

objective, reliable, and quantifiable

What are the pros of physiological measures?

expense, can create stress, and affected by non-stress

What are the cons to physiological measures?

focus whether individuals experience an event, whether chronic or acute

When dealing with the stimulus definition for stress, what is it?

major life events and daily hassles

What are the two distinctions for stress, in stimulus models?

major life events

What does the social readjustment rating scale (SRRS) measure, in terms of the amount of adjustment needed? And higher scores on this measure, mean a higher risk of illness?

broad and representative range of stressors, highlights importance of environments, quick and easy, valid, and objective

What are some of the pros to the stimulus perspective?

ignores individual differences, vague, memory issues, emphasize events rather than conditions, and rare

What are some of the cons of the stimulus perspective?

Uplifts

What are "positive experiences such ... hearing good news, the pleasure of a good night's rest, and so on.?

Hassles

What are "irritating, frustrating, distressing demands that characterize everyday transactions with the environment."

primary appraisal

Within the person x environment model what type of appraisal is determining the personal meaning of the event?

initial appraisal

What type appraisal, a part of primary, says that an event is irrelevant, good, and stressful?

harm-loss is an assessment of damage/harm, threat is the expectation of future harm, and challenge is an opportunity for growth

Within stressful appraisals, there are three types of perceptions, what are those, and what do they mean?

secondary appraisal

What type of appraisal is the assessment of coping resources? Often asking are resources enough, and do they match?

smoking, sleep disturbances, fast food, decreased medical adherence

What are some of the health behaviors linked with stress?

adopting the sick role

What is the process of feeling overwhelmed and sick, and one is failing to meet obligations, but realizing that it is ok.

greater reaction to threat, still showed reaction to no threat, showed more aggression, and had more atherosclerosis

In the study on heart rate reactivity in monkeys, what was shown by high reactors?

Initiation

What is the action that causes something, in relation to health, this is where stress can cause DNA damage and oncogenic viruses?

oncogenic viruses

What are viruses that increases oncogene expression in virus infected cells?

promoting tumor cells life and decreases immune system cell activity against tumors

There can be a progression of certain health issues due to stress, there are two things noted in the lectures under progression?

perceived and received support

What are the two major ways that social support is defined?

perceived support

What type of support refers to people's perceptions that they have someone to count and is associated with positive health outcomes?

received support

What type of support refers to behaviors actually engaged in by others, this is less consistently linked with health (due to confounding with stress)?

tangible/instrumental support

What type of support is aimed at directly addressing a problem / stressor?

Informational Support

What type of support is Giving advice / suggestions on how to deal with a problem?

emotional support

What type of support is aimed at addressing negative emotions?

Belonging / Companionship Support

What type of support is relationships that establish a sense of connection?

social network index, perceived social support, received social support, and lab support procedures

What are four ways that we can measure social support?

perceived social support means reduced stress, and thus better health

What are the psychological/behavioral pathways in regards to support?

social support results in greater "dipping" in blood pressure during sleep, and this results in reduced cardiovascular reactivity and enhanced recovery

What is the research in regards to physiological pathways with social support?

main effect

What type of effect says that social support is good all the time regardless of the situation?