Health Psychology: Key Concepts, Theories, and Demographics

Health psychology is the study of how:

All of the above: psychologists help people adjust to illness; psychosocial factors affect health behaviors; psychological/behavioral factors influence health

One of the main reasons for the rise of health psychology was:

A change in causes of death from acute infectious illness to chronic, behaviorally-based illness

According to Baum, the major psychosocial factor that impacts illness is:

Stress

Per the biopsychosocial model, health is ______ and is the result of ______ factors.

A positive state of well-being; psychological, social, and biological

Putting on sunscreen to prevent skin cancer is an example of:

Primary prevention (preventative behavior)

Morbidity rates refer to the:

Proportion of disease in a population

Top 2 leading causes of death in the U.S. as of 2000:

Heart disease and cancer

Why do people live to ~80 today vs ~50 a century ago?

Better sanitation and vaccinations (decline of infectious disease)

The decline in deaths from cancer, stroke, and heart disease is largely due to:

Decreases in smoking

Which is NOT true of illness behaviors? (illness vs sick role)

'Illness behaviors refer to activities after a diagnosis is received' is false; illness behaviors occur BEFORE diagnosis (sick role behaviors come after)

Which personality trait is NOT linked to seeking medical attention?

Hostility (anxiety and neuroticism are linked)

True about demographics and seeking medical attention:

European Americans are more likely to seek medical attention than African Americans

Model predicting care seeking from lay beliefs about cause, time-line, and controllability of disease:

The Common Sense Model

What explains the breakdown in communication in patient/doctor interaction?

Practitioners' personal characteristics AND verbal communication between doctor and patient

Which provider characteristics convey technical competence (what patients value most)?

Personal characteristics like empathy, respect, and thoroughness

What problem did Ellen Langer's TV/plant-choice study improve on?

The loss of personal control associated with being treated as a non-person in the hospital

What percentage of patients do not adhere to their medication?

50%

Which disease is NOT associated with problems with treatment adherence?

Cancer (diabetes, hypertension, and pulmonary disease are)

Believing you are less likely than others to experience the effects of nonadherence is called the:

Optimistic bias

Which emphasizes the importance of cognitions or beliefs about the disease or treatment in determining adherence?

Continuum theories (both continuum and stage theories emphasize cognitions)

Which theory was first applied to health behavior and developed specifically to explain health behavior?

Health Belief Model

Which model posits that self-efficacy and outcome expectations determine behavior?

Social Cognitive Theory

Belief that an illness will last a very long time is which illness representation?

Time-line

Which theory suffers from a lack of ability to predict intentions rather than behaviors (intention-behavior gap)?

Theory of Planned Behavior

Which stage theory says we move back and forth between 5 stages of carrying out health behaviors?

Transtheoretical Model (Stages of Change)

Which stage theory has two stages (motivation to action) and says each stage needs different approaches?

Health Action Process Approach (HAPA)

An agreement between provider and client specifying rewards for 'good' and punishments for 'bad' behaviors:

Contingency contract

Which variables are MOST predictive of treatment adherence?

Disease characteristics AND treatment characteristics

Of all the theories, which is best at predicting health behaviors?

Social Cognitive Theory

Which patient demographics are associated with treatment adherence?

All of the above: sex, race, age

The Health Belief Model: two sets of variables predicting adherence:

1) Perceptions of disease threat (severity, susceptibility) and 2) perceptions of consequences (benefits and costs)

NOT true about the Theory of Planned Behavior:

It is a stage theory of adherence (false; it is a continuum theory)

Which Transtheoretical stage involves taking the necessary actions to get ready to engage in treatment?

Preparation

The interaction-based approach to stress (Lazarus) emphasizes:

Stress occurs when an individual evaluates whether they can cope with an event they appraise as stressful

Daily hassles scales are ______ predictive of mental health than major life events.

More

Stressor type: events that are part of everyday life from physical and psychosocial environment:

Daily hassles

The 'wear and tear' on the body from prolonged activation of the physiological stress response:

Allostatic load

Who first identified specific stressors predictive of illness?

Holmes (Holmes & Rahe)

Main criticism of the General Adaptation Syndrome (Mason): it neglected ______.

Psychological responses to stress

Selye focused on diseases of adaptation, associated with which stage?

Exhaustion (body's capacity to resist finally breaks down)

GAS three stages:

Alarm (defenses mobilized), Resistance (body adapts to stressor), Exhaustion (capacity to resist breaks down)

Scale by Holmes & Rahe with 43 weighted life events:

Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)

Behavioral technique of tightening and relaxing muscles while breathing in and out:

Progressive relaxation

Coping refers to:

Thoughts and behaviors used to manage internal and external demands of a stressful situation

True or False: Coping can be maladaptive.

True (can result in greater stress or poorer health)

Doing something constructive to minimize harm from the stressor is ______ coping.

Problem-focused

Structural support refers to:

The number of social ties a person has

Alameda County Study finding:

Strong link between social support and longevity (as strong as smoking or sedentary lifestyle)

True about internal locus of control (Rotter):

Belief you control your own life/destiny AND linked to better adaptation to chronic illness

______ is linked to positive cardiac health in women and 80 other conditions.

Optimism

Model: two factors cause disease, a predisposition plus a stressor:

Diathesis-Stress Model

Field studying interactions among behavior, nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system:

Psychoneuroimmunology

How does PNI differ from Selye's GAS?

It studies behavior, nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system in constant conversation with one another

How does stress impact the immune system?

Via the peripheral nervous system, hormones from the endocrine system, and poor health behaviors (all of the above)

What are telomeres?

Compounds on the ends of chromosomes linked to longevity

What shortens telomeres?

Life stress, ambivalent relationships in women, and mental disorders like depression and anxiety (all of the above)

Health outcome NOT associated with shortened telomeres:

Susceptibility to infection (cancer, shortened longevity, and cardiovascular disease are)

Prediction that depression comes from genetic predisposition activated by a major life stressor:

Kindling hypothesis

Stress management techniques shown effective at modulating stress effects on disease/immunity:

Hypnosis and meditation

Disease NOT impacted by stress:

Diabetes (CVD, premature births/underweight babies, and cancer are)