Chapter 13 - Stress, Coping, and Health.
* The biopsychosocial model holds that physical illness is caused by a complex interaction of biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors.
* Health psychology is concerned with how psychosocial factors relate to the promotion and maintenance of health and with the causation, prevention, and treatment of illness.
* Stress is any circumstance that threaten or are perceived to threaten one's well being and that thereby tax one's coping abilities.
* Frustration occurs in situations where the pursuit of some goal is thwarted.
* Conflict occurs when 2 or more incompatible motivations or behavioral impulses compete for expression (Should I or shouldn't I?).
* 3 types of conflict:.
- approach-approach- a choice must be made between 2 attractive goals.
(e.g. you can't afford both-should u buy the blue sweater or the.
gray jacket?) This is the least stressful type of conflict.
- avoidance-avoidance- a choice must be made between 2 unattractive goals.
(e.g. keep collecting unemployment cheques or accept.
degrading job at car wash?) Highly stressful type.
- approach-avoidance- a choice must be made about whether to pursue a single goal.
that has both attractive and unattractive aspects.
(e.g. being offered a job promotion with much more pay.
but you"ll have to move to a new city you hate) Quite stressful.
* Life Changes are any noticeable alterations in one's living circumstances that require readjustment.
* Holmes and Rahe - Social Readjustment Rating Scale measures life change as a form of stress. Respondents indicate how often they experienced any of the 43 events. The numbers are added and the result is an index of the amount of change related stress the person has recently experienced.
* Pressure involves expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way.
* Pressure is strongly related to measures of mental health.