• Behavioral Medicine: the integration of behavioral and medical knowledge to health and disease

• 3 goals: figure out and change behavioral sources of illness, decrease people’s suffering, and increase the length and quality of life

• Health psychology: the study of the interaction between psychology and the physical health of the body

• Health psychologists study: the phases of stress response and adaptation; how stress and health are affected by various factors

• Stress: the way that we appraise and deal with challenges, threats, and events in our life

• Eustress: good stress (a wedding; a good event that can still cause a challenge)

• Distress: bad stress (hurricane, death, catastrophe, etc.)

Stress Appraisal:

Which of the following might be a predictable outcome of stress according to Hans Seyle’s General Adaptation Syndrome?

1. Your teacher gives a pop quiz; your heart pounds and you feel a bit nauseated

2. You always seem to catch a cold during final exam week, when you need to study the most

3. You are able to remain alert and in control as you help a family member through weeks of serious illness

4. All of these could be predicted by the General Adaptation Syndrome

• Stressful life events include:

• Catastrophic events (earthquakes, combat stress, floods)

• Life changes (death of a loved one, divorce, loss of job, promotion)

• Daily hassles (rush hour traffic, long lines, job stress, burnout)

• Burnout: physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion brought on by persistent job-related stress

• Coronary heart disease: clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; leading cause of death in the United States

• Personality Types:

• Type A: Friedman and Rosenman’s term for people who are competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, anger-prone

• Type B: Friedman and Roseman’s term for easygoing, relaxed people

Who is the best example of Type A personality?

1. Bonnie, a relaxed, fun-loving professor

2. Susan, a brilliant , self-confident accountant

3. Clay, a reflective, open-minded artist

4. Andre, a competitive, easily-angered journalist

Psychophysiological illness: “mind-body” illness; any stress-related physical illness, if your lifestyle does not control your body, eventually your body will control your lifestyle

• Lymphocytes: two types of white blood cells that are part of the body’s immune system

• B lymphocytes: fight bacterial infections

• T lymphocytes: attack cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances

• Aerobic exercise: sustained exercise that increases heart and lung fitness; may also alleviate depression and anxiety

• Modifying Type A lifestyle can reduce recurring heart attacks

• The religion factor of health is multidimensional

Aerobic exercise ___ the body’s production of serotonin and ___ its production of endorphins?

1. Increases; increases

2. Decreases; decreases

3. Decreases; increases

4. Increases; decreases

In a classic experiment, obese patients whose daily caloric intake was dramatically reduced only lost 6 percent of their weight. This limited weight loss was due, at least in part, to the fact that their dietary restriction had led to:

1. A proliferation of their lymphocytes

2. The inhibition of their dopamine reuptake

3. A sharp decrease in their metabolic rates

4. A dramatic surge in their cholesterol levels

• Most lost weight is regained

• Feel-Good, Do-good Phenomenon: people’s tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood

After receiving exciting news about the birth of a healthy grandson, Mr. Haney was easily persuaded to contribute a generous sum of money to a neighborhood church. This best illustrates the:

1. Two-factor theory

2. Adaptation-level phenomenon

3. Relative deprivation phenomenon

4. Feel-good, do-good phenomenon

• Subjective well-being: self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life

• Life satisfaction increases when one places love over money; money doesn't buy happiness according to research

• Adaptation-level phenomenon: tendency to form judgments relative to a “neutral” level; defined by our prior experience

• Relative deprivation: perception that one is worse off relative to those with whom one compares oneself

Research finds:

Happy people tend to:                                                

• Have high self esteem (in individualistic countries)

• Be optimistic, outgoing, and agreeable

• Have close friendships or a satisfying marriage

• Have work and leisure that engage their skills

• Have a meaningful religious faith

• Sleep well and exercise

 Happiness does not relate to:

• Age

• Gender (women are more often depressed, but also more often joyful)

• Parenthood (having children or not)

• Physical attractiveness

• Positive psychology: scientific study of human functioning, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive

• Three pillars of positive psychology:

• Positive well-being

• Positive character

• Positive groups, communities, and cultures

Emotional ups and downs

• Emotional ups and downs tend to balance out; moods typically rebound

• Friday and Saturday are the most positive mood days

• Early morning to midday are the most positive times of day

• Usually, even tragedy is not permanently depressing. The surprising reality: the duration of emotions is overestimated; resilience and adaptability are underestimated

Eleven research-based suggestions for improving your mood and increasing your satisfaction with life:

1. Realizing that enduring happiness may not come from financial success

2. Take control of your time

3. Act happy

4. Seek work and leisure that engage your skills

5. Buy shared experiences rather than things

6. Exercise

7. Give your body the sleep it wants

8. Give priority to close relationships

9. Focus beyond self

10. Count your blessings and record your gratitude

11. Nurture your spiritual self

Modules 36-38

• Social psychology: scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another

• Attribution theory: tendency to give causal explanation for someone’s behavior, often by crediting either the situation or the person’s disposition

• Attitude: the belief and feeling that predisposes one to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events

• The Fundamental Attribution Error: tendency for observers, when analyzing another’s behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal deposition; we think a behavior demonstrates a trait

• Social thinking: how we explain someone’s behavior affects how we react to it

• Our behavior is affected by our inner attitude as well as by external social influences

• Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon: tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request

• Role: set of expectations about a social position; defines how those in the position ought to behave

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory: we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognition) are inconsistent

• When we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes

Bart complied with his friends’ request to join them in smashing decorative pumpkins early one Halloween evening. Later that night he was surprised by his own failure to resist their pressures to throw eggs at passing police cars. Bart’s experience best illustrates the:

1. Bystander effect

2. Foot-in-the-door-phenomenon

3. Fundamental attribution error

4. Frustration-aggression principle

Professor Stewart wrote a very positive letter of recommendation for a student despite his having doubts about her competence. Which theory best explains why he subsequently began to develop more favorable attitudes about the student’s abilities?

1. Cognitive dissonance theory

2. Social exchange theory

3. Two-factor theory

4. Scapegoat theory

Early in the day, you see a fellow student in the cafeteria spill a whole tray of food as she trips over something on the floor. You think to yourself “Wow, she sure is clumsy!” Later on in the day, you also trip in the cafeteria and spill your tray. You think to yourself, “Wow, this floor is uneven and dangerous, someone should fix it!” This illustrates the psychological concept called:

1. Foot-in-the-door

2. Bystander apathy

3. Fundamental attribution error

4. Out-group bias

• Conformity: adjusting one’s behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard

• Normative social influence: influence resulting from a person’s desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval

• Norm: an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior

• Prescribed “proper” behavior

• Asch conformity studies: about ⅓ of people will agree with obvious mistruths to go along with the group

• Social facilitation: improved performance of tasks in the presence of others

• Occurs with simple of well-learned tasks but not with tasks that are difficult or not yet mastered 

• Social loafing: tendency for people to in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually held accountable

• Deindividuation: loss of self-awareness and self-restraint

• Happens when people are in group situations involving anonymity and arousal (ex: riots, KKK rallies, concerts, identity-concealed online bullying)

• Group polarization: enhancement of a group’s prevailing attitudes through discussion within the group

• Groupthink: mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides realistic appraisal of themselves

• Prejudice: an unjustified (usually negative) attitude toward a group (and its members)

• Involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action

• Stereotype: a generalized belief about a group of people

• Ingroup: “Us” - people with whom one shares a common identity

• Outgroup: “Them” - those perceived as different or apart from one’s ingroup

• Ingroup bias: tendency to favor one’s own group

• Scapegoat theory: theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame

• The Just-World Phenomenon: tendency of people to believe the world is just; people get what they deserve

• Aggression: any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy

• Frustration-Aggression principle: principle that frustration - the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal - creates anger, which can generate aggression

• Conflict: perceived incompatibility of action, goals, or ideas

• Social traps: a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior

• The Mere Exposure Effect: repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them

• Youthfulness may be associated with health and fertility

• Friends share common attitudes, beliefs, and interests

• Passionate love: an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another; usually present at the beginning of a love relationship

• Companionate love: deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined

• Equity: a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give into it

• Self-disclosure: revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others

• Altruism: unselfish regard for the welfare of others

• Bystander effect: tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present

• Social exchange theory: theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs

• Superordinate goals: shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation