Midterm Flashcards
(112 cards)
What is the premise of the biomedical model?
Malfunctioning of the body As a site of illness Biological explanations A need to fix the body Separation of mind spirit, emotion and the body
What are the four assumptions of the biomedical model?
Biological reductionism
Mind body dualism
Body is a machine
Doctrine of specific ethology
Describe biological reductionism
Aims to explain all social and cultural phenomena in biological terms
Creates profound misunderstanding when unwisely applied
Describe body mind dualism
A view that the mind and the body are essentially separate entities
Born out of need to escape religious restrictions in studying human anatomy
No space for psychological and spiritual aspects of human experience
Describe doctrine of specific etiology
A single agent causes a single type of disease and a specific therapy can be used to treat that disease
Ignore the concept of illness as well as the possibility that psychological, social, and even political factors can impact health
Describe the biopsychosocial model
Provides a more holistic approach to health
Considers social factors
Interactions between peoples genetic composition, mental health, personality, and sociocultural environment contribute to their experience of health and illness
What are the issues with the biopsychosocial model?
Issues with degree of influence each factor has
Issues with degree of interaction between factors
Unknown variation across individuals and life course
Describe social cures
Health care system focuses on symptoms, sickness, illness, and treatment mostly with pharmacological implications
Define stress
Arises when an individual percieve that they cannot adequately cope with the demands being made in them or with threats to their well being
Can have good stress of bad stess
Define stressor
A stimulus or event that is appraised or perceived as being aversive and causes a stress response that compromises a series of behavioural, emotional, and biological changes aimed at maintaining an organisms well being
What are the different types of stressors?
Environmental: heat, noise, crowding
Physiological: drugs, caffeine, tobacco, exertion
Psychosocial: pressures, life events, life in general
What are some characteristics of stressful events?
Negative: harder to accept than positive
Uncontrollable: take control of what you can
Ambiguous: accompanies poorly defined expectations
What is psychological stress?
Degree to which people have to change and readjust their lives in response to an external event
What is physiological stress?
Stress on the body caused by physical or psychological stressors
Define allostasis
Body’s ability to adapt to constantly changing environments to maintain homeostasis
A tight allosteric system is one that moves from high to low levels of arousal flexibly and fluidly depending on demands
What is allostatic load?
A chronically elevated state of arousal which damages the body and makes it less able to flexibly adapt to environment
Result of chronic stressor
Give an overview of the stress process
- Potentially stressful objective events (ex. Exam)
- Subjective cognitive appraisal (personalized perception of threat)
3a. Emotional response
3b. Physiological response
3c. Behavioural response
What are some emotional responses to stress?
Annoyance, anger, rage
Apprehension, anxiety, fear
Dejection, sadness, grief
Positive emotions
What are some physiological responses to stress?
Cannons fight or flight response
Selyes general adaptation syndrome
What are some behavioural responses to stress?
Appraisals: controllable, threat, challenge, central to well being
Coping: problem-focused, emotion-focused (engagement), emotion-focused (avoidant)
What are some problem focused coping strategies?
Taking direct action Planning Suppression of competing activities Cognitive restructuring Seeking social support
What are some emotion focused coping strategies?
Rumination Behavioural disengagement Mental disengagement Denial Turning to religion Seeking social support
What are some behavioural and psychological effects of stress?
Impaired task performance
Burnout
Psychosocial problems and disorders
Positive effects
What are some physical effects of stress?
Heart disease in type A behaviour
Stress and immune functioning: reduced immune activity