Stress And Illness Kill Me

Front 1

What are the five psychological variables that can modulate and trigger the stress response in us?

Back 1

-Outlets of Frustration-outlet must distract you from stressor, must be positive for you, cannot generate its own stress. ex. exercise

-Social support-people with good social support life longer, can exist on a community-level

-Predictability-we handle stress better when we expect/predict it, lack of it can trigger stress

-Control-control modulates stress, lack of controls triggers it

-Perception-that things are getting better

Front 2

When is predictability not helpful in terms of reducing the stress response?

Back 2

-when stressors occur to often
-warning come too far ahead or too soon before the stressor
-stressor is so extreme that knowing about it makes the stress worse
-warning is so vague that knowing about it worsens the stress

Front 3

When can an inappropriate sense of control over situations actually be unhealthy?

Back 3

-believe you have stressors you can control when they are out of your control
-attribute more personal control that really exists

Front 4

What is the incidence and age of onset of depression?

Back 4

-Incidence has been increasing over time: by 2020, depression predicted to be among the top two causes of medical disability in the world

-Age of onset is decreasing with time: We are getting the disease earlier in life

Front 5

Why are women more likely to be diagnosed with depression?

Back 5

-Ruminative tendencies, lack of power and control

Front 6

What is the clinical definition of depression?

Back 6

-Persist for at least 2 weeks
-Reach a high level of severity (10% of people diagnosed with clinical depression go on to commit suicide)

Front 7

What are 5 symptoms of depression?

Back 7

a.Anhedonia (Alex Zatura)
(Loss of pleasure in things that used to provide you pleasure)

b.Guilt

c.Cognitive Distortions (Aaron Beck): Funeral/Thanksgiving family dinner experiment.
("Glass is always half empty")

d.Other vegetative symptoms (eating and sleeping)

e.Memory problems

Front 8

What are the 3 factors that influence depression?

Back 8

1. Genetics: Adoption and twin studies
- runs in families
-having an identical twin with depression means that the other has a 50% risk

2. Overactive Immune System
-chronic illness or an autoimmune disease involved over-activation of immune system

3. Hormone Function: Biological basis for the increased incidence of depression in women
-people that secrete too little Thyroid hormone (TH) can develop major depression

Front 9

Does depression lead to increased stress?

Back 9

-"Stress Generation"-people prone to depression tend to experience stressors at a higher rate

-lack of support system- end up becoming socially isolate, confirming your sense of being rejected

Front 10

Does stress make you more likely to be depressed (relationship between life stressors and first episode of depression)

Back 10

-people undergoing an immense amount of stressors, usually give way to depression
-first episode usually comes from recent or signifcant stress

Front 11

How do excess GCCs increase risk of depression (Cushing Syndrome)? Atypical depression. Use of anti-glucocorticoids as anti-depressants?

Back 11

-elevated GCCs affect three neurotransmitter systems thought to be dysfunctional in depression: serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine
-Cushing Syndrome patients are more likely than average to become clinically depressed
-Atypical depression is the exception because their GCC levels are low
-bad side effects but provides relief to patients with high-GCC depression

Front 12

Studying stress and anhedonia in rats

Back 12

-• Can be studied in rats by allowing the rat to self-stimulate or electrically activate the neurons in the pleasure centers of its brain by pressing a lever
-If allowed to the rat will stimulate itself

Front 13

Evidence for Learned Helplessness in Humans. How does your locus of control influence learned helplessness?

Back 13

- takes a surprisingly small amount of uncontrolled stress to make human give up and develop learned helplessness-may be because we are so used to being in control of our lives

Front 14

What are the 4 components of anxiety?

Back 14

1. Cognitive: Expectation of diffuse and certain danger

2.Somatic: Heart palpitations, nausea, chest pain, shortness of breath, stoman aches, headaches

3. Emotional: Feelings of fear, worry or dread

4. Behavioral: Voluntary or involuntary behavior aimed at escaping or avoiding source of anxiety

Front 15

Anxiety vs. Depression: Cognitive distortion, and coping

Back 15

-Cognitive Distortion-both are rooted from, both often overestimate risks and the likeihood of bad outcome
-Coping- with depression patients give up to cope, with anxiety constantly attempt to mobilize a coping response

Front 16

Anxiety vs.Depression: Catecholamine overactivation vs. Glucocorticoid overactivation

Back 16

-Anxiety is more catecholamine: norepinephrine and epinephrine

-Depression is more GCC

Front 17

Implicit learning/memory and anxiety – how does mild/transient vs. severe/prolonged stress influence this type of learning?

Back 17

-it enhances implicit learning.
-implicit learning is a conditioned response
-example: women who suffered a tramatic assult gets nervous when she sees a familiar looking man

Front 18

How does the function and connections of the amygdala contribute to our anxious/fear response? What do we know about the function of the amygdala in anxious individuals?

Back 18

-subjects in brain scanner, flash scary pictures subliminally and lights show up

Front 19

Compare the influence of stress (mild/transient and severe/prolonged) and GCCs on implicit (amygdala) and explicit (hippocampus) memory.

Back 19

Stress and GCCs in amygdala-synapses become more excitable, neurons make more connections with each other
-opposite of the effects in hippocampus

Front 20

What are the three different types of anxiety disorders discussed in class?

Back 20

-Generalized Anxiety Disorder
-Phobia
-Panic Disorder

Front 21

What is panic? How do cognitive-behavioral theories and the biopsychosocial model explain the development of panic disorders?

Back 21

-experience of intense fear
-cognitive-behavioral theories of panic propose that PD patients have two problems: symptoms of fight-flight stress response occur when there are not signs of danger, PD patients can't mentally relate to this physical response

Front 22

Personality and response to stress: perception, coping, and response varies between individuals.

Back 22

how you perceive, respond, and cope with stressors has a huge influence on your stress response
-perception is how you view the situation - it is good is it bad
-response is what are you going to do about it - are you going to control it or not
-coping is whether or not you look for an outlet or not

Front 23

Stress and Personality in the Primate – why are they a good model for studying the effects of personality on stress in humans? How did Sapolsky do this research on baboons in Africa?

Back 23

-they are good model because they are also similar to us because they are smart,
long-lived, and highly social animals
-observed their daily lifestyle/stressors

Front 24

What are the characteristics of a Type-A personality?

Back 24

- competitive
- verbally aggressive
- unable to relax
- easily angered and hostile
- very time-conscious

Front 25

What is the association between Type-A’s and heart disease? When does personality have the biggest impact in terms of heart disease risk?

Back 25

-this personality type showed a higher rate of coronary heart disease
-increasing or reducing their hostility component of Type A can affect the risk

Front 26

Anger and hostility in the Type A personality profile: What happens to subjects who feel anger but don’t express it? What type of provocation is the worst for hostile individuals? What lifestyle risks does a hostile personality carry with it?

Back 26

- their physiological stress response gets even higher
-socially provoking situations are the worse of hostile individuals
-driving people away

Front 27

What is a repressive personality? Social conformity, inhibition of negative affect, stress response and illness.

Back 27

-These are people who live rule-bound, structured, highly planned lives
-when giving their emotions anonymously, give less "repressed" answers
-do not express nor recognize these emotions in others
-low immune system, high GCC levels

Front 28

Type B Stress-Resistant Personality

Back 28

-Relaxed, easy going
-Not time-urgent, not overly competitive
-Does not exhibit the same patterns of hostility and anger

Front 29

Hardy Personality: Kobasa study, personality attributes of commitment, control, and challenge.

Back 29

-in Kobasa study “hardy” individuals were able to survive and actually seemed to thrive on the pressures of corporate
-commitment a sense of purpose and meaning in life and relationships
control a feeling of having control in one's life
-challenge flexible and able to adapt

Front 30

Sarah Blackmore and the tickling experiment: lack of predictability (where & when).

Back 30

-the surprise and unpredictable element is important
-when, subject moves the lever and at an unexpected time delay, if delay more than 0.3 seconds subject is tickled
-where, subject move the lever, direction of movement foam pad is unexpected, is the foam pad deviates from the lever movement by more than 90 degrees subject is tickled

Front 31

Dopamine’s role in pleasure pathways of the brain

Back 31

highest during appetitive stage when reward is anticipated (intermittent reward very pleasurable), students “in love” experiment.

Front 32

Dopamine’s role in motivated behavior

Back 32

energizes you to respond to the incentives of the reinforcement

Front 33

40. How do stress and substance abuse influence each other? Why does acute stress make drugs more reinforcing?

Back 33

-drugs of abuse make you feel less stressed
-the increase of dopamone caused by stress get associated to the drug

Front 34

Acute and prolonged pre-natal stress makes you more likely to abuse drugs: Why?

Back 34

Stress makes drugs more addictive if stressor present on a short-term basis directly before contact with the drug

Front 35

What does rank mean in human society?

Back 35

who feels more dominant

Front 36

What kinds of physical and psychological stressors do you face as a poor human? How well do you cope with stress when you are poor?

Back 36

-physical-Manual labor (greater risk of work-related accidents), Multiple jobs (not getting enough sleep), No car (having to walk to work and the grocery store), Hunger etc. etc
-psychological-lack of control, lack of predictability
-coping is inefficient, do not have the resources, can not plan for the future

Front 37

What is socioeconomic status? What kinds of diseases or health problems are associated with having low socioeconomic status (low SES)? What is the SES gradient and disease relationship?

Back 37

-measured by a combination of income, occupation, housing conditions, and education
-low SES had been associated with a higher risk of Cardiovascular disease, Respiratory disease, Ulcers, Psychiatric disease, Certain types of cancers
-the relationship is the poorer on gets the sicker one gets

Front 38

46. Low SES predicts a poor health outcome – describe the Nun Study that demonstrated the direction of this causality.

Back 38

-In a nunnery, shared same income, occupation, healthcare, housing, and education
-Had the same SES for most of their adults lives
-In old age patterns of disease and life expectance could be predicted by SES they had before they joined the nunnery

Front 39

Why does low SES predict a poor health outcome? Is it access to health care? Is it the lifestyle of the poor? Discuss the arguments and counter-arguments for the each of these theories.

Back 39

-Poor do not have access to the same medical care that the wealthy have, May not have health insurance, may not be able to have preventative check-ups

Front 40

How does stress relate to the SES gradient and disease? What is the subjective SES? Why are societies with more income inequality worse off in terms health and mortality?

Back 40

-• Psychological stress is key: Not about how you actually are, but about how poor you think you are (compared with people around you)
-Subjective SES predicts health is well as your actually SES does, its what you think matters
-because everyone is comparing themselves to the more fortunate, in a community with balance there would be no one to compare

Front 41

What kinds of physical and psychological stressors do you face as a low-ranking baboon? What is your baseline stress response? How do you cope with an out-of-the ordinary stressor?

Back 41

-Physical-higher ranking males take away you food, prevent you from being groomed or simply beat on you because they lost a fight
-psychological-lack of control, predictability, no outlets