Health Psychology Methods
Biopsychosocial Model & Stress History
Stress and Health
Close Relationships & Social Support
Socioeconomic Status & Racial/Ethnic Disparities
100
What type of study is this? “Professor Dunkel Schetter took mothers who delivered low-birth-weight babies and asked them to report whether they experienced stressful events throughout their pregnancy”
Correlational
100
What was the difference in how illness was perceived during the Stone Age and Middle Ages vs. after?
Illness didn’t have much to do with one’s body, health had more to do with the type of person an individual was or with external influences (evil spirit or God)
100
What are the two different appraisals?
Threat → demands are greater than the resources; we see both an autonomic response and an HPA response
Challenge → resources are greater than demands; we see an autonomic response but not an HPA response
100
What is the stress-buffering hypothesis?
Social support acts as a buffer against stress that helps you avoid the negative health consequences of stress; social support is a reverse to stress and a resource that blunts the effects of stress when it is at high levels
100
True or False: Health disparities are due only to less access to health care.
FALSE
200
What type of study is this? “Professor Bower randomly assigned people to either receive yoga or no-treatment control group and measured stress levels. What kind of study design did she use?”
True experiment
200
What are the four types of stressors and explain them.
Physical → these stressors are things that all animals (human and not) might list as stressful
Psychological → these stressors are things that generally only humans would consider stressful
Acute Stressors → these stressors demand immediate attention and don’t last long, they tend to appear suddenly and most physical stressors fall into this category
Chronic Stressors → these stressors do not require immediate attention, but last a long time and are a constant source of worry
200
What does stress do to your body?
Mobilizes energy, raises heart rate/blood pressure, slows digestion, slows growth, slows reproduction, blunts pain, speeds aging, harms brain/memory, and suppresses the immune system
200
What are the four different types of social support?
Informational: advice, suggestions, and information
Instrumental: money, time, and concrete help
Emotional: empathy, concern, caring, love, and trust
Appraisal: feedback, affirmation (affirm their views), and social comparison; think of the situation this way
200
What kind of construct is race?
Social!
300
What is health psychology?
It’s the scientific contribution of psychology (thoughts, emotions, and behaviors) to:
The promotion and maintenance of health
The prevention and treatment of illness
The identification of the causes of health, illness, and dysfunction
The analysis and improvement of the healthcare system
300
What is the biomedical model of illness? What makes it not a good model?
The biomedical model of illness → illness is based on an organ not functioning right or bio-chemicals in the body being out of balance, so all illness has a biomedical cause
Can be cured with drugs; you just have to find the right ones
The body is separate from the mind
This model is good for curing acute illnesses, but the most common causes of death today are chronic illnesses, things like heart disease, and require a change in behavior
300
Explain what the HPA axis is and the process.
Hypothalamic pituitary adrenocortical (HPA) axis → general adaptation syndrome (responsible for bleeding ulcers, enlarged adrenal glands, and shrunken lymph nodes); release of cortisol
A stressor is processed in the hypothalamus, which then has a CRF-releasing factor (corticotropin-releasing factor) that then goes to the anterior pituitary (another gland in your brain). The anterior pituitary releases ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) through the blood, which then goes to your adrenal cortex (sits above your kidneys,) which then releases cortisol. It takes about 20 minutes after a stressor for the cortisol to be released.
300
What is the direct effects hypothesis?
Social support is always helpful, no matter what; stress is only one factor of poor health, so it would be helpful even when you aren’t stressed
300
True or False: There is more genetic variability Within races than there is between races.
TRUE
400
What type of study is this? “Professor Sumner took people with and without PTSD and randomly assigned them to experience stress or not and measured endothelial dysfunction.”
quasi-experimental
400
What current model do we use today and describe it.
Biopsychosocial model
Biological - organs, cells, tissues, biochemicals
Psychological - motivations, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, emotions
Social - society, culture, community, family, social class
- Having a biomedical defect indicates disease potential, not disease existence
- Beliefs about illness and behaviors matter
- Two people with the same biomedical problem may have different disease outcomes, and successfully treating the biomedical problem doesn’t necessarily make the patient healthy
400
Explain the autonomic nervous system.
autonomic nervous system → controls involuntary/automatic bodily functions(perspiration, breathing faster, digestion, arousal, salivation, etc.)
Sympathetic nervous system → activated when a stressor is present; releases catecholamines (adrenaline/noradrenaline and epinephrine/norepinephrine); AKA “fight or flight”; trying to mobilize energy to help you deal with the stressor
Influences organs that move waste out of the body (colon, large intestine, bladder), and food waste is expelled
Parasympathetic nervous system → suppressed under stress; this system causes you to be calm (growth, digestion, energy storage); AKA “rest and digest” and “feed and breed”
Influences organs that digest and store food (stomach & small intestine) and the food is not digested or stored
400
What effect do insecure attachments have on health?
Higher rates of: stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure, number of symptoms, health care usuage, and pain
400
Summarize the relationship between SES, education, income, and life expectancy.
The the higher you are on the SES ladder, the more education you have, and the more income you have, the longer your life expectancy will be.
500
Explain the types of studies we can use and then list in order from least to most causal.
Quasi-experiments - one factor is manipulated while we measure another variable that cannot be manipulated
Correlation - collecting data and looking at the relationship they have
True experiment - being able to manipulate every variable, random assignment, etc.
Longitudinal observational - measuring a certain factor over time
Correlational, longitudinal observational, quasi experimental, true experiment
500
What are the four key moments in stress research?
Walter Cannon: fight or flight
Stress causes physiological changes, and these changes then help to mobilize the body to fight or flee
Useful - helps you respond quickly to threats
Problem - disrupts normal functioning
Hans Selye: General Adaptation Syndrome
General adaptation syndrome → a nonspecific response of the body to any demand placed upon it
Rats being injected with an ovarian extract, being injected with saline solution, and being put in uncomfortable/taxing situations caused enlarged adrenal glands, shrunken lymph nodes, and bleeding ulcers
They have the same response for any stressor and any organism
Holmes and Rahe: Stressful Life Events in Humans
Found a consistent relationship between the number of stressful events someone experiences and how often they were sick
It includes both positive and negative events!
Lazarus and Folkman: Stress Appraisals
What matters is not what event occurs but how we perceive and interpret that event
Appraisal → the process of perceiving and interpreting the event
First, you have a primary appraisal, where you ask “is the event harmful or threatening?”, if you decide that there is a threat, then you move on to secondary appraisals, where you ask “are my coping capabilities and resources sufficient to overcome the harm or threat posed by the event?”
500
What is Cohen’s stress and cold study?
What was the purpose of the study?
To test if highly stressed participants are more likely to get a cold than less stressed participants
Methods?
Day 1: check into “cold research unit”
Day 2: complete questionnaires on stress and other factors
Day 3: random assignment to receive the cold virus or placebo
Day 4-11: measure cold symptoms
Results?
Higher stress levels were associated with a greater likelihood of developing a cold after being infected with a respiratory virus
A greater duration of a stressor was also associated with a risk of catching a cold
500
When looking at the maternal behaviors and offspring health in rats, what did we find and why?
Pups that are raised by a relaxed, high-nurturing mother become a relaxed adult (even if they are genetically predisposed to becoming anxious) and pups that are raised by an anxious, low-nurturing mother become anxious adults
Maternal behavior (like licking/grooming and arched-back nursing) changes epigenetics and DNA methylation because it silences the stress genes (and this can be passed down through generations)
500
What is culture and why is it important?
Culture → the word we use to describe different social groups (skin color, ethnic background, language, customs/traditions, SES/social class/income)
Health disparities/health inequities → differences in mental and physical health based on culture