Post on 30-Dec-2015
Stress
• A negative emotional state occurring in response to events that are perceived as taxing or exceeding a person’s resources or ability to cope
Health psychology
• The branch of psychology that studies how biological, behavioral, and social factors influence health, illness, medical treatment, and health-related behaviors
Biopsychosocial model
• The belief that physical health and illness are determined by the complex interaction of biological, psychological , and social factors
Stressors
• Events or situations that are perceived as harmful, threatening, or challenging
Daily hassles
• Everyday minor events that annoy and upset people
Conflict
• A situation in which a person feels pulled between two or more opposing desires, motives, or goals
Acculturative stress
• The stress that results from the pressure of adapting to a new culture
Fight-or-flight response
• A rapidly occurring chain of internal physical reactions that prepare people either to fight or take flight from an immediate threat
Catecholamines
• Hormones secreted by the adrenal medulla that cause rapid physiological arousal; include adrenaline and noradrenaline
General adaptation syndrome
• Selye’s term for the three-stage progression of physical changes that occur when and organism is exposed to intense and prolonged stress. The three stages are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion
Corticosteroids
• Hormones released by the adrenal cortex that play a key role in the body’s response to long-term stressors
Immune system
• Body system that produces specialized white blood cells that protect the body from viruses, bacteria, and tumor cells
Lymphocytes
• Specialized white blood cells that are responsible for immune defenses
Psychoneuroimmunology
• An interdisciplinary field that studies the interconnections among psychological processes, nervous and endocrine system functions, and the immune system
Optimistic explanatory style
• Accounting for negative events or situations with external, unstable, and specific explanations
Pessimistic explanatory style
• Accounting for negative events or situations with internal, stable, and global explanations.
Type A behavior pattern
• A behavioral and emotional style characterized by a sense of time urgency, hostility, and competitiveness
Social support
• The resources provided by other people in times of need
Coping
• Behavioral and cognitive responses used to deal with stressors; involves efforts to change circumstances, or your interpretation of circumstances, to make them more favorable and less threatening
Problem focused coping
• Coping efforts primarily aimed at directly changing or managing a threatening or harmful stressor
Emotion-focused coping
• Coping efforts primarily aimed at relieving or regulating the emotional impact of a stressful situation
Robert Ader (b. 1932)
• American psychologist who, with immunologist Nicholas Cohen, first demonstrated that immune system responses could be classically conditioned; helped establish the new interdisciplinary field of psychoneuroimmunology
Walter B. Cannon (1871-1945)
• American physiologist who made several important contributions to psychology, especially in the study of emotions. Described the fight-or-flight response, which involves the sympathetic nervous system and the endocrine system
Janice Kiecolt-Glaser (b. 1951)
• American psychologist who, with immunologist Ronald Glaser, has conducted extensive research on the effects of stress on the immune system
Richard Lazarus (b. 1922)
• American psychologist who helped promote the cognitive perspective in the study of emotion and stress; developed the cognitive appraisal model of stress and coping with co-researcher Susan Folkman
Martin Seligman (b. 1942)
• American psychologist who conducted research on explanatory style and the role it plays in stress, health, and illness
Hans Selye (1907-1982)
• Canadian endocrinologist who was a pioneer in stress research; defined stress as “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand placed on it” and described a three-stage response to prolonged stress that he termed the general adaptation syndrome