Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Chapter 11Health, Stress, and Coping

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Health Psychology and Behavioral Risk Factors

• Health Psychology: Uses behavioral principles to prevent illness and promote health– Behavioral Medicine: Applies psychology to manage

behavioral problems– Lifestyle Diseases: Diseases related to health-

damaging personal habits– Behavioral Risk Factors: Behaviors that increase the

chances of disease, injury, or premature death– Disease-Prone Personality: Personality type

associated with poor health; person tends to be chronically depressed, anxious, and hostile

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Ways to Promote Health

• Refusal Skills Training: Program that teaches young people how to resist pressures to begin smoking

• Life Skills Training: Teaches stress reduction, self-protection, decision making, self-control, and social skills

• Wellness: Positive state of good health and well-being

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Stress

• Mental and physical condition that occurs when a person must adjust or adapt to the environment– Includes marital and financial problems– Eustress: Good stress (e.g., travel, dating)– Distress

• Stress Reaction: Physical response to stress– Autonomic Nervous System is aroused

• Stressor: Condition or event that challenges or threatens the person

• More damaging when considered__________________• Intensified when perceived as a ___________________

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Burnout

• Prolonged, stress can lead to burnout.• Burnout: Job-related condition (usually in helping

professions) of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. Has three aspects:– Emotional Exhaustion: Feel “used up” and “empty”– Cynicism or detachment from others– Feeling of reduced personal accomplishment

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Appraising Stressors

• Primary Appraisal: Deciding if a situation is relevant or irrelevant, positive or threatening

• Secondary Appraisal: Deciding how to cope with a threat or challenge

• Perceived lack of control is just as threatening as an actual lack of control

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Threats and Frustration

• Problem-Focused Coping: Managing or altering the distressing situation

• Emotion-Focused Coping: Trying to control one’s emotional reactions to the situation

• Frustration: Negative ________ state that occurs when one is prevented from reaching desired _________.– External Frustration: Based on external conditions

that impede progress toward a goal– Personal Frustration: Caused by personal

characteristics that impede progress toward a goal

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Reactions to Frustration

• Persistence• More vigorous responding• Circumvention• Aggression: Any response made with the intention of doing

harm• Displaced Aggression: Redirecting aggression to a target

other than the source of one’s frustration• Scapegoating: Blaming a person or group for conditions

they did not create; the scapegoat is a habitual target of displaced aggression

• Escape: May mean actually leaving a source of frustration (dropping out of school) or psychologically escaping (apathy)

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Conflicts

• A stressful condition that occurs when a person must choose between contradictory needs, desires, motives, or demands

• Avoidance-Avoidance Conflicts: • Appraoch-Approach Conflicts:• Approach-Avoidance Conflicts:• Double Approach-Avoidance Conflicts:

– Vacillation: When one is attracted to both choices; seeing the positives and negatives of both choices and going “back and forth” before deciding, if deciding at all!

• Multiple Approach-Avoidance Conflicts:

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Anxiety

• Feelings of tension, uneasiness, apprehension, worry, and vulnerability – We are motivated to avoid experiencing anxiety

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Freudian Defense Mechanisms: Psychological Defenders of You!

• Defense Mechanisms: Habitual and unconscious (in most cases) psychological processes designed to reduce anxiety– Work by avoiding, denying, or distorting sources of

threat or anxiety– If used short term, can help us get through everyday

situations– If used long term, we may end up not living in reality– Protect idealized self-image so we can live with

ourselves

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Freudian Defense Mechanisms: Some Examples

• Denial: Most primitive; • Fantasy• Intellectualization• Isolation• Repression: • Projection:• Rationalization: • Reaction Formation:• Regression

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Learned Helplessness (Seligman)

• Acquired (learned) inability to overcome obstacles and avoid aversive stimuli; learned passivity– Occurs when events appear to be uncontrollable– May feel helpless if failure is attributed to lasting,

general factors

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Depression

• State of feeling despondent defined by feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness– One of the most common mental problems in the

world– Childhood depression is dramatically increasing– Some symptoms: Loss of appetite or sex drive,

decreased activity, sleeping too much• Mastery Training: Responses are reinforced that lead to

mastery of a threat or control over one’s environment– One method to combat learned helplessness and

depression

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

How to Recognize Depression (Beck)

• You have a consistently negative opinion of yourself.• You engage in frequent self-criticism and self-blame.• You place negative interpretations on events that usually

would not bother you.• The future looks grim.• You can’t handle your responsibilities and feel

overwhelmed.

Suicide – IdeationsGesturesSerious Attempts

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Immunity (Similar to “Survivor?”)

• Immune System: Mobilizes bodily defenses like white blood cells against invading microbes and other diseases

• Psychoneuroimmunology: Study of connections among behavior, stress, disease, and immune system

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Stress Management

• Use of behavioral strategies to reduce stress and improve coping skills

• Progressive Relaxation: Produces deep relaxation throughout the body by tightening all muscles in an area and then relaxing them

• Guided Imagery: Visualizing images that are calming, relaxing, or beneficial

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Stress Management (cont'd)

• Stress Inoculation: Using positive coping statements internally to control fear and anxiety; designed to combat:– Negative Self-Statements: Self-critical thoughts that

increase anxiety and lower performance• Coping Statements: Reassuring, self-enhancing

statements used to stop negative self-statements

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Chapter 12Psychological Disorders

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

What is Normal?

• Psychopathology: Scientific study of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders

Normality takes into account 3 things:• Subjective Discomfort: Feelings of discomfort,

unhappiness, or emotional distress• Statistical Abnormality: Having extreme scores on some

dimension, such as intelligence, anxiety, or depression• Social Nonconformity: Disobeying societal standards for

normal conduct; usually leads to destructive or self-destructive behavior

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

What Is Normal? (cont'd)

• Situational Context: Social situation, behavioral setting, or general circumstances in which behavior takes place

• Cultural Relativity: Judgments are made relative to the values of one’s culture

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Clarifying and Defining Abnormal Behavior (Mental Illness)

Maladaptive Behavior: Behavior that makes it difficult to function, to adapt to the environment, and to meet everyday demands

Mental Disorder: Significant impairment in psychological functioning

DSM – IV – TR (Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

Mental Disorders v. Insanity

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Insanity

• Definition: A legal term; refers to an inability to manage one’s affairs or to be unaware of the consequences of one’s actions– Those judged insane (by a court of law) are not held

legally accountable for their actions– Can be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric

hospital– Many movements today are trying to abolish the

insanity plea and defense; desire to make everyone accountable for their actions

– How accurate is the judgment of insanity?

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Clarifying and Defining Abnormal Behavior (Mental Illness) (cont'd)

• Psychotic Disorder: Severe psychiatric disorder characterized by hallucinations and delusions, social withdrawal, and a move away from reality

• Organic Mental Disorder: Mental or emotional problem caused by brain pathology (i.e., brain injuries or diseases)

• Mood Disorder: Disturbances in affect (emotions), like depression or mania

• Anxiety Disorder: Feelings of fear, apprehension, anxiety, and distorted behavior

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Clarifying and Defining Abnormal Behavior (Mental Illness) (cont'd)

• Somatoform Disorder: Physical symptoms that mimic disease or injury (blindness, anesthesia) for which there is no identifiable physical cause

• Dissociative Disorder: Temporary amnesia, multiple personality, or depersonalization (like being in a dream world, feeling like a robot, feeling like you are outside of your body)

• Personality Disorder: Deeply ingrained, unhealthy, maladaptive personality patterns

• Sexual and Gender Identity Disorder: Problems with sexual identity, deviant sexual behavior, or sexual adjustment

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Clarifying and Defining Abnormal Behavior (Mental Illness) Concluded

• Substance Related Disorders: Abuse or dependence on a mind or mood-altering drug, like alcohol or cocaine– Person cannot stop using the substance and may

suffer withdrawal symptoms if they do • Neurosis: Archaic; once used to refer to excessive

anxiety, somatoform, dissociative disorders, and some kinds of depression

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Specific Phobias

• Irrational, persistent fears, anxiety, and avoidance that focus on specific objects, activities, or situations

• People with phobias realize that their fears are unreasonable and excessive, but they cannot control them.

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Social Phobia

• Intense, irrational fear of being observed, evaluated, humiliated, or embarrassed by others (e.g., shyness, eating, or speaking in public)

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) • Extreme preoccupation with certain thoughts and

compulsive performance of certain behaviors• Obsession: Recurring images or thoughts that a person

cannot prevent – Cause anxiety and extreme discomfort– Enter into consciousness against the person’s will– Most common: Being dirty or wondering if you

performed an action (turned off the stove)

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Compulsions

• Compulsion: Irrational acts that person feels compelled to repeat against his/her will– Help to control anxiety created by obsessions– Checkers and cleaners

Introduction to Psychology: Kellogg Community College, TalbotChapter 11

Schizophrenia: The Most Severe Mental Illness

• Psychotic disorder characterized by hallucinations, delusions, apathy, thinking abnormalities, and “split” between thoughts and emotions– Does NOT refer to having split or multiple

personalities