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Chapter 10
Chapter 10: Health and Well-Being
Can psychological factors affect health?
- Behaviours and attitudes affect health (keep us healthy, help us regain health after being sick, and help
us achieve well-being)
- Health psychology: the field of psychological science concerned with the events that affect physical
well-being (started 3 decades ago)
- Well-being: a positive state that includes striving for optimal health
The biopsychosocial model of health incorporates multiple perspectives for understanding and improving
health
- Biopsychosocial model: a model of health that integrates the effects of biological, behavioural, and
social factors on health and illness (fig 10.2); helps identify strategies that prevent disease by helping
them lead healthier lives
- This model is circular and continuous: our thoughts and actions (psychological factors) affect the
environments we choose to interact with, which affect biological underpinnings of our thoughts and
actions
- This model is central to understanding the difference between traditional medical model and approach
taken by health psychologists
Behaviour contributes to the leading causes of cancer
- people are most likely to die from causes that stem from their own behaviours, which they can learn to
modify
- Teens’ behaviours most likely to influence them to make decisions that have bad outcomes → decrease
in health and lead to death (drugs, risky sex, violence)
Placebos can be powerful medicine
- Placebo effect: a drug treatment, unrelated to the particular problem of the person who receives it; good
example of biopsychosocial model
- It may make the recipient feel better because they believe the drug/treatment is effective (will not work
if they believe pills are fake)
- Most people’s illnesses improve even without treatment (statistically)
- Placebo effect may work because it decreases anxiety, which can reduce pain and help recover from
illness
- MRI’s show that when patient’s have +ve expectations about placebo, the neural processes in
responding to it are the same ones activated in response to a biologically active treatment
How do people cope with stress?
- Stress: a pattern of behavioral and physiological responses to events that match or exceed an organism’s
abilities to respond
- Stressor: an environmental event or stimulus that threatens an organism
- Coping response: any response an organism makes to avoid, escape from, or minimize an aversive
stimulus (elicited by stressor)
- Change leads to stress which may affect our physiological state
- 2 types of stress: (1) eustress: stress of +ve events and (2) distress: stress of –ve events (these put strains
on our body)
- Many stressful daily hassles (wear down personal resources) are comparable to effects of major life
changes
Stress has physiological components
- Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis: biological system responsible for stress
- Stress begins in brain with perception of stressful event. Hypothalamus sends chemical message to
pituitary gland, which secretes hormones that travel through the bloodstream until they reach adrenal
glands which secrete cortisol (responsible for stressful feelings) = high energy
- Stress affects organs longer than stressors do
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- Excessive stress disrupts WM and chronic stress is associated with memory impairments caused when
cortisol damages neurons in brain areas (hippocampus)
- Stress interferes with ability to recall previously learned info
There are sex differences in responses to stressors
- Fight-or-flight response: the physiological preparedness of animals to deal with danger (includes
increased heart rate, redistribution of blood supply, deep respiration, dilation of pupils, no gastric
secretions, and increase in glucose release from liver)
- Women used less in research because of hormones involved with menstrual cycle = distortion in
findings
- Tend-and-befriend response: female’s tendency to protect and care for their offspring and form social
alliances rather than flee or fight in response to threat (makes sense from evolutionary perspective);
can’s be applied universally
- Oxitocin: a hormone that is important for mothers’ bonding to newborns; follows HPA model
- Oxitocin levels tend to be high in socially stressful situations (esp. women)
- High levels of estrogen in women (between menarche and menopause) = reduced responses to stress
compared to men and women later in life (which is why women live 5-8 years longer)
The general adaptation syndrome is a bodily response to stress
- Lymphocytes: specialized white blood cells (B and T cells, and natural killers) that make up the
immune system
- Immune system: body’s mechanism for dealing with invading microorganisms such as allergens,
bacteria, and viruses
- General adaptation syndrome: a consistent pattern of physiological responses to stress that consists of
3 stages (Selye)
1) Alarm stage: prepares body to fight or flee; physiological responses try to boost physical abilities and
reduce activities that make organism vulnerable to infection after injury; immune system kicks in
2) Resistance stage: defenses prepare for longer attack against stressor; immunity to infection and disease
increases as body maximizes its defenses
3) Exhaustion stage: variety of physiological responses and immune system fails
- When injecting rats with hormones: enlarged adrenal glands, lower levels of lymphocytes, and stomach
ulcers (Selye)
Stress affects health
- Prolonged action of stress hormones –ve affect health
- Many people cope with stress by engaging in damaging behaviours and stress leads to specific
physiological responses that affect health
The immune system
- Stress alters function of immune system: interferes with process of attacking and destroying invaders
- Short-term stress boosts immune system, chronic stress weakens it
- Decreased lymphocyte production causes detrimental effects of immediate and long-term stress on
physical health
- Immune system is impaired when physiological basis of stress response is activated too often
Heart Disease
- Health behaviours and personality traits related to way people respond to stress determine heart disease
- -ve emotions increase risk of coronary heart disease (leading cause of death for adults)
- Type A behaviour pattern: characterized by competitiveness, achievement orientation, aggressiveness,
hostility, restlessness, inability to relax, and impatience with others
- Type B behaviour pattern: characterized by relaxed, non-competitive, easy-going, and accommodating
behaviour
- People with type A are more likely to get coronary heart disease (hostility = worst contributing factor;
depression also contributes)
- 2 ways that –ve personality traits can cause heart problems:
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1) –ve traits can increase problems that people deal with through behavioural strategies that are bad for
health
2) they can produce direct physiological effects on the heart (people experience fight or flight response
more often = wear and tear of heart)
- High levels of hostility can lead to pulmonary disease
- Allostatic load theory of illness: when people are continually stressed they are unable to return to
bodily states that characterize normal stress levels
- Allostatic systems regulate body’s response to excessive stress
- Universal: optimistic people have less of a risk of getting serious disease than hostile, angry people
Coping is a process
- 2 part appraisal process:
- Primary appraisal: part of the coping process that involves making decisions about whether a stimulus
is stressful, benign, or irrelevant
- Secondary appraisal: part of the coping process during which people evaluate their options and choose
coping behaviours (happens when people decide a stimulus is stressful in primary appraisal)
- These affect people’s perceptions of and reactions to potential stressors in the future and help them
prepare for stressful events
Types of coping
- 2 general categories of coping:
- Emotion-focused coping: type of coping in which people try to prevent having an emotional response
to a stressor by adopting (passive) strategies to numb the pain (ex. Avoidance, minimizing problem,
distancing from outcomes of problem, eating/drinking); usually effective only in short run
- This may enable people functioning in high levels of stress
- Problem-focused coping: type of coping in which people take direct steps to confront or minimize a
stressor (i.e. solve problem: ex. Alternative solution, weighing costs and benefits); will only work if
something can be done about the situation
- Positive reappraisal: people focus on possible good things in their current situation
- Downward comparison: comparing oneself to those who are worse off
- Creation of position events: infusing events with positive meaning
Individual differences in coping
- Some people are stress-resistant which is characterized by hardiness which has 3 components: (1)
commitment (to daily activities), (2) challenges (threats as opportunities for growth), and (3) control
(over their lives)
- People high in hardiness have fewer –ve responses to stressful events
Family-focused interventions
- Family interventions can be beneficial when family members promote patient’s autonomy (allow them
to maintain control over their life)
What behaviours affect mental and physical health?
- Daily habits contribute to almost all major causes of death in developed nations and stress motivates
these behaviours
Obesity results from a genetic predisposition and overeating
- People more likely to overeat when stressed
- NAAFA helps fat people fight against size discrimination
- Body mass index (BMI): ration of body weight to height used to measure obesity
- 1 in 3 Americans are obese
- Obesity is influenced by genes and environment and is good example of biopsychosocial model
Genetic influence
- Approximately half the variability in body weight can be considered the result of genetics (300 genes
affect it)
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- Genetics has more of an influence than environment on body weight (genetics determines if person can
become obese and environment determines if they will)
Stigma of obesity
- Obesity is associated with many medical problems including heart disease, high blood pressure, and
gastric ailments and can give rise to psychological problems (due to stigmas)
- Perceiving oneself as obese is linked to depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem (the latter may cause
weight gain = correlational)
- Western countries stigmatize obesity more than other countries (view it as lower socioeconomic status)
Restricting dieting does not work
- Dieting = ineffective and people will usually re-gain weight because of body’s natural defense against
weight loss
- Body weight regulated by set point determined mainly by genetics
- Body responds to weight loss by slowing down metabolism and using less energy therefore after body
has been deprived of food it needs less food to maintain a certain body weight
- Shifts between caloric deprivation and overfeeding = more weight gain
- Body weight is socially contagious: close friends are usually around the same weight because there is an
implicit agreement on what is acceptable
Restrained eating
- Chronic dieters (i.e. restrained eaters) are prone to excessive eating in certain situations (ex. Quitting
diet because they think they have eaten high caloric food and broken diet – caused by stress)
Disordered eating
- Repeated dietary failures may have harmful and permanent physiological (alterations in metabolism
making future weight-loss harder) and psychological (damage self-esteem) damages – may promote
eating disorder
- Anorexia nervosa: eating disorder characterized by an excessive fear of becoming fat and thus a refusal
to eat
- Most common in teens and upper-middle class Caucasian girls
- Hard to treat because anorexics believe they are overweight even when they are really thin
- Bulimia nervosa: eating disorder characterized by dieting, binge eating and purging
- Usually develops during late teens and upper-middle class Caucasian girls, but more common among
minorities and men than anorexia
- Associated with dental and cardiac disorders, but not fatal
- Eating disorders tend to run in families and are partly due to genetics
Smoking is a leading cause of death
- 5.4 million deaths caused by tobacco each year
- Smoking causes heart disease, respiratory ailments, and various cancers
Starting smoking
- Powerful social influences = leading cause of adolescent smoking
- Teens will smoke if parents and friends do, and they will smoke in crowds to fit in and enhance selfimage
- Quitting smoking causes distress and heightened anxiety
- Genetics may be factor that makes people more susceptible to nicotine
Maintaining a healthy weight or quitting smoking
- For weight loss programs to be successful, individuals need to make permanent lifestyle changes
(changing eating habits, more exercise, etc.)
- Cigarette smokers need to put in efforts like nicotine patches, avoid places with other smokers, etc.
Exercise has physical, emotional, and cognitive benefits
- Benefits of exercise include reduced depression, and enhanced memory and cognition
- Aerobic exercise promotes growth of new neurons and neural connections (neurogenesis) = larger brain,
esp. hippocampus (memory)
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- Exercise = good for mental health because it can reduce stress and improve mood
There are ethnic differences in health behaviours
- Racial and ethnic groups exhibit large discrepancies in health because of genetics, access to affordable
health care, and cultural factors
- Acculturation: extent to which individuals assimilate customs, beliefs, values, and behaviours of
mainstream culture (= important to understanding why different groups have disparate health
behaviours)
- The more accultured someone is, the more similar their health behaviours will be to the mainstream
culture
Can a positive attitude keep us healthy?
Being positive has health benefits
- Positive psychology emphasizes the strengths and virtues that help people thrive
- What makes people happy: (1) +ve emotions and please, (2) engagement in life, and (3) a meaningful
life (when one of these increases, the others do too)
Are happier people healthier?
- Positive emotions can predict better health
- People with positive affect show enhanced immunity system functioning and greater longevity (fewer
illnesses)
Social support and social integration are associated with good health
- Happy people tend to have strong social networks and are more socially integrated (live longer as well)
- Social interaction is beneficial for physical and mental health
- Social integration: quality of person’s social relationships
- Social support = essential component of +ve mental and physical health (less overall stress)
- Buffering hypothesis: idea that other people can provide direct support in helping individuals cope with
stressful events
Emotional disclosure has positive health effects
- Writing or talking about emotional events can yield substantial health benefits and help understand
cause of events in order to move on from them
Marriage can be good for you health
- +ve relationships are good for health
- +ve effects of marriage are stronger for husbands and marital conflict has more –ve health outcomes for
wives
Trust and health are related across cultures
Oxytocin is involved in trust relationships
- Oxytocin (attachment hormone) is released when people trust each other; when mother breastfeeds her
baby; when people feel empathy toward others and is involved in feelings of love
- People who secrete more oxytocin have more trusting personalities and form attachments more readily
- Men secrete more testosterone when they distrust someone (women do not)
- Trust = essential for psychological and physical health and may be associated with better health and
longer life
Spirituality contributes to well-being
- Spirituality is associated with better health due to sense of meaning in life that can be derived from
religious beliefs and the support people receive from faith communities
Action plan for health and well-being
Taking care of mind and body
- Eat natural foods; watch portion size; drink alcohol in moderation (if any); keep active; don’t smoke;
practice safe sex; learn to relax; learn to cope; build strong support network; write about troubling events
in life; consider spiritual life
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