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Stress, Health
Psychology of Stress, Health Disparities, and Resilience
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Health psychology | An interdisciplinary field that investigates the links among behavior, cognition, and physical health. |
| Biopsychosocial model | A model of health that integrates the effects of biological, behavioral, and social factors on health and illness. |
| Stress | A physiological response to an environmental event that is perceived as taxing or even exceeding one's ability to adapt. |
| Primary appraisal | A person's perception of the demands or challenges of a given situation. |
| Secondary appraisal | A person's perception of his or her ability to deal with the demands of a given situation. |
| Sympathetic-adreno-medullary (SAM) axis | A physiological system that governs the body's immediate response to an acute stressful event, enabling the ability to fight or flee. |
| Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis | A physiological system that governs the body's prolonged response to a stressful event, enabling the conservation of energy. |
| Cortisol | A hormone produced by the adrenal cortex that is often elevated in response to stressful events. |
| Challenge reactivity | A cardiovascular response whereby the heart pumps out more blood and the vasculature dilates, allowing efficient circulation through the body. |
| Threat reactivity | A cardiovascular response whereby the heart pumps out more blood but the vasculature constricts, preventing efficient circulation through the body. |
| Chronic stress | Chronic experiences of stress lead to a prolonged activation of HPA axis. |
| Physiological components of stress | Includes the body's physical reactions to stressors. |
| Environmental components of stress | Refers to external factors that can induce stress. |
| Subjective components of stress | Involves personal perceptions and feelings regarding stress. |
| Stressors | Different jobs have different stressors that can affect individuals differently. |
| Uncertainty | A feeling that can contribute to experiencing stress. |
| Lack of control | A feeling that can contribute to experiencing stress. |
| Negative evaluation | A concern that can contribute to experiencing stress. |
| Performance | Can be improved by challenge reactivity but hurt by threat reactivity. |
| Physiological response systems | Include the SAM and HPA axes, which govern responses to stress. |
| Energy conservation | Enabled by the HPA axis during prolonged stress responses. |
| Blood sugar increase | A response to cortisol that provides more energy to the system. |
| Allostatic load | The sustained activation of many physiological systems in response to frequent or chronic stressors. |
| Beta blockers | Adrenaline antagonists prescribed to manage chronic stress effects. |
| Cytokines | Molecules released as part of the body's natural immune response that respond to injury or infection by causing fever and inflammation. |
| Prolonged stress exposure | Compromises the immune system and makes people more prone to disease by making it difficult for the body to naturally reduce inflammation. |
| Wound healing | Takes longer under stress |
| Stress and executive processes | Feelings of stress can impair executive processes, making it more difficult to enact effective coping strategies. |
| Impulsivity under stress | When stressed, individuals are more likely to feel impulsive and find rewards more attractive, tipping the scale toward risk. |
| Health disparities | Differences in health outcomes due to various demographic characteristics. |
| Socioeconomic status (SES) | Higher SES is consistently related to better health outcomes. |
| Access to health care | A factor linked to health disparities, affecting health outcomes. |
| Poverty | Limited access to health care and links between scarcity and risky environments and behaviors. |
| Chronic inflammation | Individuals from lower SES backgrounds are more susceptible to chronic inflammation that can worsen health problems. |
| Perceived lower status | Individuals feeling lower status report negative emotions that might prolong their body's response to stress. |
| Resting heart rate | Individuals with lower perceived status tend to have a higher resting heart rate. |
| Midsection fat | Individuals with lower perceived status tend to carry more fat around their midsection. |
| Social stigmatization | A source of health disparity based on race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. |
| Life expectancy disparity | The life expectancy for Black people is 4 years shorter than for White people in the United States. |
| Infant mortality rate | Higher for Black people compared to other demographics in the United States. |
| Perceived Discrimination | Individuals who perceive the greatest amount of discrimination against them suffer poorer psychological and physical health consequences. |
| Perceived Control | A sense of control over daily experiences and stressors can change one's response from threat to challenge. |
| Problem-focused coping | Approaching stressful situations with a belief that one can proactively solve the problem. |
| Cardiovascular Reactivity | People have less cardiovascular reactivity and report feeling less stress afterward when they feel a sense of control. |
| Emotion-focused coping | When we cannot directly affect the source of our distress, it can be better to turn to a range of emotion-focused coping strategies. |
| Mindset about Stress | Your mindset about stress can be an important factor in determining your response to stressful situations. |
| Enhancing Stress Perspective | Adopting the perspective that stress can be enhancing helps cope with stress and leads to feeling less stressed. |
| Social Support | The degree to which people believe they can turn to other people for information, help, advice, or comfort. |
| Benefits of Social Support | People who report having a larger and more supportive social network have lower blood pressure, fewer stress hormones, stronger immune systems, a decreased likelihood to become depressed, and increased lifespans. |
| Supportive Spouses | Supportive spouses might more effectively help their partners eat well, exercise, and look after their health. |
| Flow | A subjective experience of having one's attention so focused on an activity or task that any sense of self-awareness disappears. |
| Conditions for Flow | Flow can result from tasks that strike the right balance between the skills one has and the difficulty of the task. |
| Mindfulness | Mindfulness has been imported from traditional Buddhist philosophy as a practice that might help promote happiness and well-being. |
| Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction | Focusing on the present and being nonjudgmental of any thoughts and feelings you might be having. |
| Resilience | Capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; adaptability. |
| Positive Personality Traits | There are clear health benefits to having a positive affect or personality. |
| HPA Axis Activation | People with positive personalities show less activation of their HPA axis when under stress. |
| Longitudinal Study of Nuns | Those who used more positive language in their diaries when they were in their twenties lived an average of 7 years longer. |
| Autobiographies of Nuns | Researchers coded autobiographies written by 180 nuns when they first entered the convent and correlated the amount of positive content expressed with the age at which each nun died. |
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skyfalls
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