psych quiz chap 11-13

• things that have been linked with happiness include marriage, friendship, college graduation, religion, exercise, gratitude, and experiences
• life events, money, young age, and location are not good predictors of happiness
• flow - a mental state in which we are completely immersed in what we are doing
• affective forecasting - our ability to predict our happiness and others' happiness, we are surprisingly bad at this
• durability bias - we tend to overestimate the duration of our moods
• people with anxiety especially overestimate the longevity of the impact of negative events
• life events don't tend to change our overall happiness in the long term
• hedonic treadmill - the tendency for our moods to adapt to external circumstances
• positive psychology - field of study that emphasizes human strengths
• Seligman's PERMA model of wellbeing - includes five core tenants that indicate happiness and wellbeing across the board
• the PERMA model includes positive emotion, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and accomplishment/achievement
• self esteem - our evaluation of our own worth
• self esteem is positive correlated with happiness, but negatively correlated with loneliness
• positivity effect - tendency to remember more positive than negative information as we get older
• narcissism - personality trait marked by extreme self-centeredness
• experiments are the only way that causal relationships can be proven
• stress - a response that occurs when a stressor strains our ability to cope effectively
• traumatic event - a stressor so severe that it can produce long-term psychological or health consequences
• there are three key approaches to studying stress, those are stress as stimuli, stress as a response, and stress as a transaction
• stress as stimuli - approach to studying stress that focuses on identifying different types of stressful events, ones that are more unpredictable are more distressing
• stress as stimuli identifies categories of stressors, and people who are more susceptible to greater stress response following negative events
• hassles - minor annoyances or nuisances that strain our ability to cope
• social readjustment rating scale (SRRS) - measures the occurrence of stressful life events. the number of stressful life events is correlated with negative psychological and physical outcomes
• hassles scale - measures the occurrence of small nuisances and daily pressures. they are better predictors than major life events on health outcomes
• stress as a response - approach to stress focused on identifying how people react to stress physiologically and psychologically
• posttraumatic growth - the perception of beneficial change or personal transformation in the struggle to overcome adversity. 2/4-3/4 people who have experienced extreme stress express that they experienced this at some level
• general adaptation syndrome - stress-induced pattern that consists of three stages, which are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion
• alarm - excitation of the autonomic nervous system, release of corticosteroids, physical symptoms
• resistance - adaptation to the stressor, finding ways to deal with the stress
• exhaustion - activation decreases, either because the threat is over or because we cannot sustain high levels of stress for an extended period of time
• stress as a transaction - approach to stress focused on identifying how people interpret and cope with stressful events
• primary appraisal - is this situation harmful?
• secondary appraisal - can I cope with this situation?
• problem focused coping - problem solving, tackling challenges head on, used when we feel optimistic/think we can achieve our goals
• emotion focused coping - positive outlook on feelings/situations, engage in behavior that reduces painful emotions, seek emotional support, used when we can't avoid or control a situation
• hardiness - set of attitudes marked by a sense of control over events, and belief in one's ability to change the situation. lack of this belief results in learned helplessness and depression
• organisms with learned helplessness will not attempt to change the situation, even when they now have control over it
• gaining behavioral control - taking actions to reduce the impact of a stressful situation
• gaining cognitive control - changing your thoughts about negative emotions that occur in stressful situations
• gaining decisional control - gaining control over stressful situations by choosing between alternatives