Health Psychology Test 1

Front 1

Health psychology is devoted to doing what?

Back 1

Understanding the psychology behind staying healthy, getting sick,and our responses to illness

Front 2

According to the book, what is the definition of health?

Back 2

a complete state of physical, meantal, and social well-being....NOT just the absence of disease or illness.

Front 3

Health psychologists focus on 5 main things. What are they?

Back 3

1. Health promotion/ maintenance
2. The psych aspects of prevention and treatment of illness
3. The etiology and correlates of health, illness, and dysfunction
4. Analysis of health care systems
5. Improving interventions for staying healthy and getting better.

Front 4

Define etiology.

Back 4

The origins or causes of illness.

Front 5

What do health ppsychologists think of the mind-body relationship?

Back 5

They believe the mind and body are indistinguishable and work as one system. Other ppl think they are separate systems.

Front 6

Describe conversion hysteria and name its founder.

Back 6

Freud- unconscious conflicts cause physical disturbances symbolic of the repressed conflict.
ex. glove anesthesia , sudden loss of speech

Front 7

Acute disorders

Back 7

short term illnesses

Front 8

Chronic illnesses

Back 8

slowly developing diseases that ppl live with for a long time. They usually can't be cured but may be managed.

Front 9

Epidemiology

Back 9

studies the frequency, distribution, and causes of disease in a population

Front 10

Morbidity

Back 10

# of cases of a disease

Front 11

How can morbidity be expressed? (2 ways)

Back 11

1. Incidence (# of new cases in a certain pd of time)
2. Prevalence (proportion of the population with the disease at a certain moment in time)

Front 12

Mortality

Back 12

# of deaths due to the disease.

Front 13

Why is epidemiology so important?

Back 13

You don't need to know the cause to know the impact.

Front 14

What was the famous example of epidemiology?

Back 14

John Snow-studied cholera epidemic in London. Homes near certain water lines had higher rates of cholera. Result: shut off lines and ended epidemic.

Front 15

Why are expanded health care services so important to health psychologists?

Back 15

1. Modifying risky behaviors to prevent illness can save you $$
2. They help design the services bc they have done lots of research on what makes ppl happy/unhappy w their health care.
3. The healthcare industry provides tons of jobs.

Front 16

Case Study

also note pro/con

Back 16

A detailed, in depth study of 1 person

Pro: Gives lots of info, great for rare and special cases

CON: Can't generalize to other ppl. This magnifies SAMPLING ERROR.

Front 17

Correlational studies

also note pro/con

Back 17

tell the degree of a relationship btw 2 variables such as the # of stressful events in your life and a heart attack.
PRO: shows direction of influence (+ or -)

CON: can't determine causation. It might be due to a 3rd variable

Front 18

Cross-sectional studies

also note pro/con

Back 18

compares groups at one point in time such as anxiety btw psych and nonpsych majors on the 1st day of class.

PRO: shows diffces btw groups

CON: Can't see trends over time.

Front 19

Longitudinal Studies

also note pro/con

Back 19

Compares groups over time

PRO: shows developing trends/changes


CON: Expensive, takes a long time.

Front 20

Experiment

also note pro/con

Back 20

manipulation of independent variable to observe its egffect on the dependent variable.

PRO: shows causation, controls placebo and nocebo

CON: can be too fake/artificial, losing reality of things.

Front 21

Placebo

Back 21

+ effects due to + expectations
(ex. sugar pill)

Front 22

Hawthorne Effect

Back 22

Improvement due to attention (ex. Doctor)

Front 23

Nocebo

Back 23

- Effects due to - Expecttion
(ex. voodoo death)

Front 24

Factual statement

Back 24

Objectively true

ex. weeds are plants.

Front 25

Value statement

Back 25

subjective opinion

ex. weeds are pests

Front 26

What is the problem with defining illness as a statistical deviation?

Back 26

Some illnesses are common and some healthy qualities are rare like slow twitch muscles in long distance runners.

Also, who sets the STANDARD by which deviation is measured??

Front 27

What's the problem in defining illness in terms of pain?

Back 27

some pains aren't illness-related such as menstrual cramps or aching muscles after a workout.

also,some illnesses don't include pain.

Front 28

what's the problem with defining illness in terms of impaired functioning?

Back 28

some low functioning ppl arent ill and some high functioning ppl are ill.

Front 29

What is the con for defining health as the absence of disease?

Back 29

a couch potato and an athlete can be considered healthy by this all or none categorical definition.

Front 30

What is the con for defining health as the absence of disease?

Back 30

a couch potato and an athlete can be considered healthy by this all or none categorical definition.

Front 31

What are the pros/cos of defining health as the acquisition of a positive state?

Back 31

PRO: considers health and not just illness

CON: blindness is defined as unhealthy

Front 32

What is the only definition of health that is a DIMENSIONAL definiton?

Back 32

health defined as movement in a positive direction. it is on a continuum and is the one used by the WHO.

Front 33

What do questionnaires have to have?

Back 33

good psychometric qalities like reliability and validity

Front 34

Health psych is a growing field partially because diseases have shifted from being mostly ____ in the 1900s to being mostly ____ in the 2000s.

Back 34

acute ------> chronic (due to lifestyle)

Front 35

Biopsychosocial Model

Back 35

health and illness are consequences of the interplay between biological, psychological, and social factors

Front 36

Biomedical Model

Back 36

illnesses are explained on the basis of aberrant biological processes.

Problems: 1-reduces illness to low level process
2-single factored based on biological stuff only.
3-emphasizes illness over health
4-believes mind and body are totally separate

Front 37

Systems Theory

Back 37

Says that all levels of organization in any being are linked to each other hierarchically and that a change in one will cahnge all the others.

Front 38

What is stress?

Back 38

A negative emotional experience followed by predictable physical/emotional changes that are directed either toward changing the stressful event or getting used to its effects

Front 39

What is a stressor?

Back 39

stressful events

Front 40

Define person-environment fit.

Back 40

the degree to which a person's needs and the environment's needs complement each other

Front 41

What are the 3 stages of Fight or Flight?

Who came up with the idea?

Back 41

Cannon

1. Threat
2. Arousl of the sympathetic nervous and endocrine systems
3. Mobolization to Fight or flee

Front 42

What are the 3 stages of the General Adaptation Syndrome Theory?

Whose theory is it?

Back 42

1. Alarm
2. Resistance: you try to cope w the threat
3. Exhaustion: occurs if you can't overcome the threat

Selye

Front 43

What's the deal with the 3rd stage of Selye's Theory?

Back 43

The exhaustion is responsible for physiological damage which sets the stage for disease.

Front 44

What are the criticisms of the Fight or Flight and General Adaptation Syndrome Theories?

Back 44

1. They ignore psychological factors
ex. appraisal (evaluation), personality
2. Assumes all stressors give the same response
3. Assumes the response only occurs AFTER the stressor (does not include anticipation/anxiety)

Front 45

Describe the Tend and Befriend Theory.

Whose was it?

Back 45

Taylor

Affiliation occurs under stress, esp in females
oxytocin (stress hormone) reacts with estrogen. high levels of oxytocin make you more relaxed
-It is adaptive bc you can protect you and you offspring.

Front 46

Lazarus came up with an idea called ___________.

Back 46

The Appraisal Process

Front 47

What are the 2 types of appraisal?

Back 47

1. Primary: try to fig out the event's meaning. Is it +/-/neut?
2. Secondary: perceived ability of yourself to cope with things

Front 48

Define harm.

Back 48

The assessment of damage already caused by an event.

Front 49

Define threat.

Back 49

the assessment of possible future damage that may be brought about by the event

Front 50

Define reappraisal.

Back 50

Ongoing reevaluation of an event.

Front 51

Define challenge.

Back 51

the potential to overcome anf possibly profit from the event.

Front 52

What is the experiment that showed the importance of primary appraisal in the stress experience?

Back 52

The one where difft groups watched genitalia surgery in tribes and had difft autonomic arousal responses.

Front 53

Whay is studying stress important?

Back 53

It causes physiological distress and leads to changes in the body that can have long or short term effects on one's health.

Front 54

How do you measure stress in terms of physiology?

Back 54

BP, HR, Breathing rate, biochemical analyses (cortisol, catecholamine)

* * To make sense of these measurements you have to know your own personal baseline * *

Front 55

What is reactivity?

Back 55

the degree of change that occurs in bodily responses as a result of stress. it can make you vulnerable to illness

Front 56

Why is recovery after stress important?

Back 56

bc if you take a long time to recover it might mean that damage has occured in your body, and your cortisol takes longer to replenish, opening your illness opportuinity window.