Health and Social Psychology
Health Psychology
Definition of Health Psychology
Health Psychology: The application of psychological principles and research to enhance health and prevent and treat illness.
Understanding Chronic Diseases
Chronic diseases: Conditions that can be managed but not cured, requiring behavioral and lifestyle changes while maintaining medication adherence.
Social and psychological consequences of chronic diseases include:
Inability to participate in social activities.
Feelings of exhaustion and defeat.
Coping with the concept of living with pain.
Biosocial Perspective
Definition: A viewpoint that health and behaviors are determined by the interaction of biological mechanisms, psychological processes, and social influences.
Three factors affecting health behavior:
Biological: Genetics, inheritance, longevity.
Psychological: Personality traits, coping skills.
Social Conditions: Availability of healthcare, family and friend support.
Understanding Stress
Definition of Stress: The tension, discomfort, or physical symptoms arising from stressors that strain our ability to cope effectively.
Key aspects:
Stress is not merely a stimulus-response; it involves appraisal of events and their perceived stressfulness (stressors).
Stress Reactions: The psychological and physical symptoms that occur in response to stressors.
Trauma: Situations marked by extreme stress that can lead to long-term consequences.
Approaches to Stress
Stressors as Stimuli
Identifying stressful events and characteristics of individuals more likely to experience stress.
Stress as Response
Psychological and Physical Reactions: Measured through surveys, interviews, blood pressure, heart rate, and levels of corticosteroids (stress hormones).
Stress as Transaction
Examining event interpretations and coping mechanisms:
Primary Appraisal: Categorizing potential threats (irrelevant, benign-positive, or threatening).
Secondary Appraisal: Assessing coping abilities against the threat; includes:
Belief in survival vs. likelihood of injury.
Cognitive Reappraisal: Reevaluating original assessments of situations.
Stress Appraisal Process
Appraisal Response Model:
Threat → Panic/Freezing.
Challenge → Arousal/Focus.
Long-lasting stressors (e.g., job security) harm psychological and physical health.
Viewing stressors as challenges can yield positive effects, motivating problem-solving.
Coping Strategies
Problem-Focused Coping: Directly addressing life challenges (e.g., changing study habits).
Emotion-Focused Coping: Reframing stressful events positively (e.g., saying the semester is nearly over).
Types of Stressors
Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS): Identifies stress events by assigning scores based on experience.
Limitations include variability in individual stress perceptions.
Types of stressors:
Catastrophes and Major Life Events: More stressful than routine hassles.
Hassles: Minor annoyances (e.g., misplacing items) cumulatively predict poor mental health more than major events.
Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome
Study on stress responses revealing three phases:
Alarm Phase: The body's initial reaction to stress. The sympathetic nervous system is activated, releasing cortisol and adrenaline, leading to increased heart rate and blood pressure, preparing for fight or flight. Resistance to stress initially decreases.
Resistance Phase: The body attempts to adapt to and cope with the stressor. Physiological arousal remains high, but the body tries to repair damage and reduce stress effects. Prolonged stress can result in persistent high glucose/blood pressure levels.
Allostasis: Ongoing adjustment to new stress levels.
Allostatic Load: Side effects from prolonged stress adaptation, leading to irritability, cognitive issues, and sleep disturbances.
Exhaustion Phase: If the stressor persists, the body's resources become depleted. This leads to fatigue, burnout, depression, and heightened vulnerability to illness, and even death.
Gender Differences in Stress Responses
Fight or Flight: A physiological reaction in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. Common in males, involving aggression or withdrawal.
Tend and Befriend: A stress response common in females, focusing on nurturing activities that protect oneself and offspring (tending) and seeking social support from others (befriending).
Coping with Stress
Exercise: Enhances endorphin release, improves cognitive abilities, strengthens cardiovascular health, and reduces anxiety/depression.
Social Support: Acts as a buffer against life’s challenges, boosts self-esteem, provides resources, and reduces feelings of isolation.
Mindfulness Practices: Promote awareness of thoughts and emotions, improving stress management (e.g., yoga, meditation).
Individual Differences in Coping
Hardiness: Resilient individuals possess attitudes that strengthen coping mechanisms (commitment, control, challenge).
Optimism: Encourages motivation, focus, persistence, and effective stress management.
Spirituality and Religion: Enhance social support access and coping ability.
Social Psychology
Definition of Social Psychology
Social Psychology: The scientific study of how individuals think about, influence, and relate to one another.
Examines the dynamic interplay between individual and group influences.
The Self
Self-Concept: Knowledge and beliefs about oneself; organizes thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Self-Schema: Mental frameworks that shape self-perception; often assessed by asking “Who am I?”.
Looking Glass Self: The perception of how we believe others see us, which influences identity formation.
Spotlight Effect
The belief that others pay more attention to our appearance and behavior than they actually do.
Social Comparison Theory
Individuals evaluate their abilities by comparing themselves to others. Two types:
Upward Social Comparison: Assessing with those perceived as superior (e.g., an exemplary athlete); can serve as motivation.
Downward Social Comparison: Comparing with those perceived as inferior, boosting self-confidence (e.g., comparing performance with lesser peers).
Views of Behavior
Dispositional View: Ascribes behavior to internal characteristics or personality traits (e.g., being late indicates irresponsibility).
Situational View: Attributes behavior to external circumstances or environmental factors (e.g., traffic leading to lateness).
Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to overestimate the influence of dispositional factors on others' behaviors and underestimate situational factors, often overlooking external aspects.
Persuasion
Definition: The process by which messages induce change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. Attitudes are a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors toward a particular object, person, thing, or event.
Applications include politics, marketing, and social interactions.
Persuasive Techniques
Fear vs. Relief: Involves creating anxiety to promote compliance, followed by giving relief to encourage acceptance of requests.
Foot-in-the-Door Technique: starting with a small request to gain eventual compliance with a larger request.
Door-in-the-Face Technique: making a large, unreasonable request first, followed by a more reasonable one which is then accepted.
Low-Ball Technique: Initially quoting a low price, then increasing it after agreement, often due to hidden costs or additional features.
“But You Are Free” Technique: Reminding the target that they have the choice to refuse, enhancing their sense of autonomy, which can increase compliance.
“That’s Not All” Technique: Offering additional incentives or a reduced price for immediate acceptance enhances persuasive impact.
Social Norms
Defined as the unwritten rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society. They guide behavior and influence how individuals act in various situations.
Cultural Differences in Social Norms
Tight Culture: Characterized by strong social norms and little tolerance for deviation. Members are expected to adhere strictly to rules and customs.
Loose Culture: Characterized by weak social norms and higher tolerance for deviation. Individuals have more freedom to express themselves and deviate from conventional behavior.
Conformity
Adjusting opinions or behaviors to match group standards due to real or imagined group pressure.
Solomon Asch's study illustrated conformity through participants' agreement with incorrect answers provided by confederates, even when the correct answer was obvious.
Uniformity of Agreement: Demonstrated that dissent from one group member (an ally) increased correct responses from others, reducing conformity.
Obedience to Authority
The act of following instructions or orders from higher authorities or those perceived to be in power.
Milgram's Obedience Study: Examined moral limits of obedience through participants administering (fake) electric shocks to learners, revealing surprising compliance rates even at high voltage levels, driven by the authority figure.
Variations in situations influenced obedience levels significantly (e.g., physical distance to victim or authority, experimenter's presence, group involvement).
Prosocial Behavior
Definition: Helping others willingly without expecting personal gain, motivated by factors like empathy or moral reasoning.
Bystander Effect: The phenomenon where individuals are less likely to help in emergencies or situations of distress when others are present.
Reasons for Bystander Non-Action:
Pluralistic Ignorance: Misreading cues from others in crisis moments, assuming that if others aren't reacting, there's no real emergency.
Diffusion of Responsibility: Lessens personal accountability in groups, as individuals feel less obliged to act when others are available to help.
Types of Altruism and Helping
Situational Factors Affecting Helping Behavior:
Individuals are more inclined to help if compelled by situational constraints, learned methods of altruism, or empathy.
Individual Differences: Extroverts are generally more likely to help than introverts.
Attitudes and Behavior
Attitudes: A predisposition or a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related.
Components of Attitudes:
Affect: Emotional response to objects (e.g., fear of snakes).
Behavior: How attitudes influence actions (e.g., avoiding snakes).
Cognition: Beliefs about attitudinal objects (e.g., snakes are dangerous).
Confirmation Bias
The tendency to focus on information that confirms pre-held beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.
Cognitive Dissonance
Definition: An unpleasant state of psychological tension arising from holding two or more conflicting cognitions (beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors).
Cognitive dissonance theory suggests people can reduce dissonance by adjusting beliefs, actions, or perceptions (e.g., changing behavior, justifying behavior, or adding new cognitions).
Group Polarization
The tendency for a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members, often due to discussion and reinforcement within the group.
Prejudice and Discrimination
Prejudice: Preconceived negative judgments or attitudes about a group and its members, often based on stereotypes and not on experience.
Stereotypes: Generalized beliefs or oversimplified assumptions about the characteristics of members of a particular group, often inaccurate or harmful.
Discrimination: Negative behaviors or actions towards outgroup members, typically as a result of prejudice and stereotypes.
Contact Hypothesis
Promoting positive intergroup contact under specific conditions (equal status, common goals, intergroup cooperation, support from authority) as a means to reduce conflict and prejudice.
94% effectiveness observed in studies.
Personality Psychology
Definition of Personality
Phrase by Gordon Allport: Personality is a "relatively enduring predisposition affecting behavior in various situations." It refers to an individual's characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Personality is shown to be generally stable but can change due to significant life experiences or interventions.
Psychoanalytic Theory Overview
Freud's psychoanalytic theory posits that unconscious drives and experiences, particularly early childhood ones, shape personality.
Psychic Determinism: All psychological happenings (thoughts, feelings, behaviors) are motivated by prior causes, not by chance.
Symbolic Meaning: All actions, no matter how trivial, are symbolically significant with no true accidents (e.g., Freudian slips).
Unconscious Motivation: Many behaviors and experiences stem from unconscious desires, conflicts, and memories, which are often inaccessible to conscious awareness; commonly illustrated with Freud’s iceberg analogy.
Structure of Personality (Freudian View)
Id: The most primitive part of personality, operating entirely on the pleasure principle, seeking immediate gratification of basic instincts and desires (e.g., hunger, sex, aggression).
Ego: Functions on the reality principle, mediating between the impulsive demands of the id, the moralistic constraints of the superego, and the realities of the external world. It strives for realistic satisfaction of desires.
Superego: The moral conscience of personality, developed from parental and societal standards. It internalizes ideals and provides standards for judgment, creating feelings of guilt or pride.
Defense Mechanisms
Definition: Unconscious methods employed by the ego to protect itself from anxiety and psychological distress arising from conflicts between the id and superego.
Eight Types:
Repression: Blocking traumatic memories or unacceptable thoughts from conscious awareness.
Denial: Refusing to acknowledge or confront distressing realities or external threats.
Rationalization: Creating logical, socially acceptable excuses or justifications for unacceptable behaviors, thoughts, or feelings.
Displacement: Transferring unacceptable impulses or feelings from a threatening target to a safer, less threatening one.
Projection: Attributing one’s own undesirable traits, feelings, or impulses to others.
Regression: Reverting to earlier, more infantile behaviors or thought patterns when stressed or faced with difficulty.
Reaction Formation: Exhibiting exaggerated behaviors, thoughts, or feelings that are the opposite of one’s true, anxiety-provoking impulses.
Sublimation: Redirecting socially unacceptable impulses (e.g., aggression, sexual urges) into constructive, socially approved activities.
Psychosexual Stages of Development
Freud's Five Stages: Proposed that personality develops through a series of stages, each focused on a different erogenous zone, where pleasure-seeking energies of the id are focused.
Oral Stage (Birth-18 months): Pleasure derived from oral activities like sucking, biting, and feeding. Fixation can lead to oral habits (e.g., smoking, overeating).
Anal Stage (18 months-3 years): Pleasure from bowel and bladder control, and coping with demands for control (e.g., toilet training). Fixation can lead to issues with orderliness or messiness.
Phallic Stage (3-6 years): Pleasure involves genital awareness and self-stimulation. During this stage, the Oedipus complex (boys develop sexual desires for their mother and rivalry toward their father) and Electra complex (girls develop sexual desires for their father and rivalry toward their mother) emerge. Resolution involves identification with the same-sex parent.
Latency Stage (6-12 years): Sexual urges are repressed and dormant, as children focus on social and intellectual development, learning, and peer interactions.
Genital Stage (12+ years): Return of mature sexual impulses, directed towards forming healthy, adult romantic relationships.
Critiques of Freud's Theory
Ongoing discourse regarding his concepts in light of modern psychology and possible alternative personality theories, often citing lack of empirical evidence, overemphasis on sexuality, and difficulty in testing.
Overview of Psychological Approaches
Discusses Alfred Adler’s focus on the striving for superiority and humanistic psychology emphasizing self-actualization. Humanistic personality theories offer a more optimistic view, focusing on inherent goodness and the potential for growth, contrasting with the deterministic and pessimistic views of psychoanalytic personality theories which emphasize unconscious conflicts and past traumas.
Carl Rogers' Model of Personality: Focus on the organism (total being), the self (self-concept), and conditions of worth. Emphasizes the need for unconditional positive regard for self-acceptance to bridge the gap between the actual self (who we are) and the ideal self (who we want to be).
Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Stages from basic physiological needs to safety, love/belonging, esteem, and finally self-actualization, detailing a sequential nature of human motivation where higher needs emerge only after lower ones are met.
Self-Actualization: The fulfillment of one's unique potential; achievable by only a minority, exemplified in historical figures known for their profound contributions to society.
Jung's Collective Unconscious
Collective Unconscious: A concept proposed by Carl Jung, referring to a shared reservoir of inherited memories and archetypes (universal symbols and images) that are common to all humanity, transcending personal experience.
Trait Theory: The Big Five Factors
Trait theory describes personality in terms of stable and enduring characteristic patterns of behavior. The "Big Five" (or Five-Factor Model) identifies five broad dimensions of personality:
Openness to Experience: Imaginative, independent, curious, preferring variety.
Conscientiousness: Organized, careful, disciplined, responsible.
Extraversion: Sociable, fun-loving, affectionate, outgoing, energetic.
Agreeableness: Soft-hearted, trusting, helpful, cooperative, compassionate.
Neuroticism (Emotional Stability): Anxious, insecure, self-pitying, prone to negative emotions.
Psychological Disorders
Definition of Psychological Disorders
Psychological disorders, or mental illnesses, involve patterns of behavioral, psychological, or biological dysfunction that are outside cultural norms and cause significant distress or impairment in functioning. They deviate significantly from typical or normal behavior in a given context.
Involves five criteria for defining atypical/abnormal behavior:
Statistical rarity: How uncommon the behavior is in the population.
Subjective distress: The emotional suffering experienced by the individual.
Impairment: Significant functional difficulties in daily life activities.
Societal disapproval: Behavior that goes against prevailing social norms.
Biological dysfunction: Underlying biological problems (e.g., genetic predispositions, brain abnormalities).
DSM-5 Overview
The primary manual used for diagnosis of psychological disorders in the United States, listing diagnostic criteria and codes. It provides a common language for mental health professionals.
Criticisms regarding its content and influences are acknowledged, including concerns about over-pathologizing normal behavior and the potential for diagnostic labeling to lead to stigma.
Anxiety Disorders
Characterized by excessive fear and apprehension, often stemming from various psychological and genetic factors.
Includes:
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): Persistent, excessive, and uncontrollable worry about a variety of events or activities for at least six months. Symptoms include restlessness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, and sleep disturbance.
Panic Disorder: Recurrent, unexpected panic attacks, which are sudden episodes of intense fear or discomfort that peak within minutes. Symptoms of a panic attack include heart palpitations, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, chest pain, nausea, dizziness, derealization, fear of losing control, and fear of dying. Individuals often develop significant worry about future attacks.
Phobias: Intense, irrational, and specific fear of a particular object or situation that leads to significant avoidance. Phobias can often develop through classical conditioning (associating a neutral stimulus with a fearful experience) and be maintained through operant conditioning (avoidance reduces anxiety, reinforcing the phobia).
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a traumatic event (e.g., combat, sexual assault, serious accident). Symptoms include intrusive memories (flashbacks, nightmares), avoidance of reminders, negative changes in thoughts and mood, and hyperarousal (exaggerated startle response, difficulty sleeping).
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Characterized by the presence of both obsessions and compulsions:
Obsessions: Recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced as intrusive and unwanted, typically causing marked anxiety or distress.
Compulsions: Repetitive behaviors (e.g., hand washing, checking) or mental acts (e.g., praying, counting) that an individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession, or according to rules that must be applied rigidly, aimed at preventing or reducing anxiety or distress.
Mood Disorders
Characterized by significant disturbances in mood, with distinctive symptoms and impacts on individuals’ lives.
Key types include:
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD): A persistent state of sadness, loss of interest or pleasure (anhedonia) in most activities, significant changes in appetite or sleep, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, difficulty concentrating, and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide, lasting for at least two weeks.
Bipolar Disorder: Characterized by significant mood swings, with alternating episodes of mania (or hypomania) and depression. Manic episodes involve abnormally elevated or irritable mood, decreased need for sleep, grandiosity, racing thoughts, increased talkativeness, and impulsive or reckless behavior.
Learned Helplessness
A state occurring after a person has experienced a period of negative consequences that are unavoidable or inescapable, leading them to believe that they have no control over their situation and thus cease to attempt to change it. This concept is often linked to the development of depression.
Personality Disorders
Enduring patterns of inner experience and behavior that deviate markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture, are pervasive and inflexible, have an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, are stable over time, and lead to distress or impairment.
Discussed through:
Borderline Personality Disorder: Characterized by instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity. Symptoms include frantic efforts to avoid abandonment, intense and unstable relationships, identity disturbance, self-harming behavior, and chronic feelings of emptiness.
Antisocial Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15. Symptoms include deceitfulness, impulsivity, irritability and aggression, reckless disregard for safety of self or others, consistent irresponsibility, and lack of remorse.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood. Symptoms include a grandiose sense of self-importance, preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success/power, belief that one is "special," sense of entitlement, and exploitative behavior.
Schizophrenia
A severe and chronic psychological disorder characterized by psychosis, including delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking and behavior, and negative symptoms. More prominent in marginalized populations.
Delusions: Fixed false beliefs that are not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence (e.g., persecutory, grandiose).
Hallucinations: Perception-like experiences that occur without an external stimulus (e.g., auditory voices, visual).
Disorganized speech/behavior: Incoherent speech, erratic behavior.
Negative symptoms: Absence of normal behaviors (e.g., flat affect, alogia - reduced speech, avolition - decreased motivation).
Eating Disorders
Serious conditions characterized by severe disturbances in eating behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. Common types include:
Anorexia Nervosa: Characterized by an intense fear of gaining weight, a distorted body image, and significant restriction of food intake, leading to dangerously low body weight.
Bulimia Nervosa: Involves recurrent episodes of binge eating (consuming large amounts of food in a short period) followed by compensatory behaviors such as self-induced vomiting, excessive exercise, or laxative misuse.
Binge-Eating Disorder: Characterized by recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food, often very quickly and to the point of discomfort, followed by feelings of guilt, distress, or shame, but without regular use of compensatory behaviors.
Childhood Disorders
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, and restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. Varies significantly in social and cognitive functioning.
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent patterns of inattention (e.g., difficulty focusing, easily distracted, often loses things) and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity (e.g., fidgeting, excessive talking, interrupting others) that interfere with functioning or development.
Treatment for ADHD: Often involves a combination of medication (e.g., stimulant medications like Ritalin or Adderall, which help rebalance neurotransmitter levels) and behavioral therapy (e.g., strategies for organization, time management, and impulse control).