psych 9c // chapter 11

• Health psychology is a field that involves the application of psychological principles to promote health and well-being.
• Well-being is a positive state that includes striving for optimal health and life satisfaction.
• The biopsychosocial model is an approach to psychological science that integrates biological factors, psychological processes, and social-contextual influences in shaping human mental life and behavior. According to this model, health and illness result from a combination of factors, particularly biological conditions (e.g., genetic predisposition), behavioral factors (e.g., lifestyle and stress), and social contexts (e.g., cultural influences, family relationships, and settings like work or school).
• The "tightness-looseness spectrum" is an idea proposed by psychologist Michele Gelfand that describes cultures along a spectrum, where “tighter” cultures place greater value on adherence to social norms than “looser” cultures do.
• Health disparities are differences in health outcomes, such as illness or death rates, between groups of people based on factors including age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, and disability.
• The immigrant paradox is the pattern among immigrant communities in which foreign-born immigrants to the United States have better health than people in later generations do.
• Acculturation is the adoption of American culture, including dietary habits, substance use, and level of physical activity, among newcomers to the country.
• A person's socioeconomic status is their relative standing in society as a function of resources such as income, wealth, and education.
• The socioeconomic status health gradient is the pattern in which people with lower socioeconomic status have worse health than people with higher socioeconomic status.
• Health behaviors are actions people can take that promote well-being, prevent the onset of disease, and slow disease progression.
• Metabolic syndrome is a constellation of risk factors including high blood sugar, insulin resistance, high blood levels of unhealthy cholesterol, and cardiovascular disease that increases susceptibility to illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
• In general, the more people exercise, the better their physical and mental health. Those with better fitness in middle age are likely to enjoy much longer lives, are less likely to have heart problems, and are at much lower risk for most types of cancer.
• The availability heuristic is the tendency to believe information that comes most easily to mind.
• Optimism bias is the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive events and underestimate the likelihood of negative events.
• Aerobic exercise promotes the growth of new neurons, which result in a larger brain. The brain region that experiences the most growth is the hippocampus, which is important for memory and cognition. Regular aerobic exercise can also significantly increase a person’s brain volume, including both white and gray matter.
• Stress is a type of response that typically involves an unpleasant state, such as anxiety or tension.
• A stressor is something in the external situation that is perceived as threatening or demanding and therefore produces stress.
• A coping response is any attempt made to avoid, escape from, or minimize stress.
• Eustress is stress resulting from positive events.
• Distress is stress resulting from negative events.
• Major life stressors are one of the three categories of stressors, and refers to changes or disruptions that strain central areas of people’s lives.
• Chronic stress is one of the three categories of stressors, and refers to a set of ongoing challenges often linked to long-term illness, poverty, or caregiving.
• Daily hassles are one of the three categories of stressors, and refers to small, day-to-day irritations and annoyances whose combined effects can be comparable to the effects of major life changes.
• Discrimination-related stress is a type of stress experienced by members of marginalized groups, ranging from overt racial hostility to microaggressions.
• A stressor activates two systems, triggering a fast-acting sympathetic nervous system response and a slower-acting response resulting from a complex system of biological events known as the HPA axis.
• The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is a body system that is involved in stress responses.
• The hypothalamus first activates the sympathetic nervous system, which activates the adrenal glands to release epineprine and norepinephrine. The resulting physical reaction includes increased heart rate, redistribution of the blood supply from skin and digestive organs to muscles and the brain, deepening of respiration, dilation of the pupils, inhibition of gastric secretions, and an increase in glucose released from the liver.
• The fight-or-flight response is a term coined by physiologist Walter Cannon that refers to the physiological preparedness of animals to deal with danger by either fighting or fleeing.
• In the HPA axis, the hypothalamus sends a chemical message to the pituitary gland, which sends a hormone that travels through the bloodstream and eventually reaches the adrenal glands, triggering the secretion of the stress hormone cortisol.
• Cortisol circulates throughout the body, increasing the amount of glucose in the bloodstream and saving energy by slowing some processes, such as digestion. Cortisol also circulates to various brain areas, especially the hypothalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala.
• Proposed by endocrinologist Hans Selye, general adaptation syndrome is a consistent pattern of responses to stress that consists of three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
• The alarm stage is the first stage in general adaptation syndrome, which involves the emergency fight-or-flight response and the physiological responses, such as the release of cortisol and epinephrine, that are aimed at boosting physical abilities while reducing activities that make the organism vulnerable to infection after injury.
• The resistance stage is the second stage in general adaptation syndrome, which involves the body’s preparation for longer, sustained defense from the stressor.
• The exhaustion stage is the third stage in general adaptation syndrome, which involves the process where various physiological and immune systems fail, starting with body organs that were already weak before the stress.
• The tend-and-befriend response is a phrase coined by psychologist Shelley Taylor referring to the tendency to protect and care for offspring and form social alliances rather than fight or flee in response to a threat.
• Prolonged stress can have paradoxical effects. Brain regions that have receptors for cortisol can become less sensitive to the effects of cortisol over time if they are exposed to it too often.
• Excessive stress disrupts working memory, and chronic stress has also been associated with long-term memory impairments. Excessive cortisol damages neurons in brain areas such as the hippocampus, which is important for storing long-term memories.
• Allostatic load is the cumulative “wear and tear” on biological systems, including the stress, digestive, immune, cardiovascular, and hormonal systems, among others, after repeated or chronic stressful events.
• The immune system is the body’s mechanism for dealing with invading microorganisms such as allergens, bacteria, and viruses.
• Lymphocytes are specialized white blood cells that make up the immune system.