Health and Positive Psychology Overview

Health Psychology

• Health Psychology examines factors influencing well-being and illness, and methods to promote health and prevent illness.
• Health interventions are actions taken for or on behalf of individuals or populations to assess, improve, maintain, promote, or modify health, functioning, or health conditions.

Positive Psychology

• Positive Psychology is a field focused on positive subjective experience, individual traits, and institutions.
• Its aim is to improve quality of life and prevent negative outcomes.
• The traditional focus on pathologies neglects positive attributes like hope, wisdom, creativity, and perseverance.
• Positive Psychology shifts from a disease model to understanding human flourishing.
• It emphasizes resilience to adversity, positive emotions, positive personality traits, and positive institutions.
• Positive Psychology employs empirical methods.
• Positive emotions can lead to psychological growth and wellbeing.
• Research shows a link between positive emotions and healthy longevity.
• Positive emotions can be a cause and result of success in life.

Stress

• Stress is a pattern of cognitive appraisals, physiological responses, and behaviors in reaction to a perceived imbalance between situational demands and available resources.
• Stress occurs when experiencing events endangering physical or psychological well-being.
• The Stress Reaction Process includes stressors (demanding or threatening events), stress responses (people's reactions), and the interaction between the person and the situation.
• Stressors are stimuli that place demands on us, requiring adaptation.
• Types of stressors include Microstressors (daily hassles), Major Negative Events (personal, negative experiences), and Catastrophic Events (unexpected events affecting many people).

Characteristics of Stressful Events

• Intensity: refers to the severity of the challenge; major life changes, negative events, and internal conflicts are frequently perceived as highly intense.
• Controllability: the degree to which an event can be influenced or controlled; less controllability increases perceived stress.
• Predictability: the degree to which the occurrence and timing of an event are known; reduced predictability often increases stress.
• Duration and Chronicity: the duration of a negative event correlates with its perceived stressfulness; chronic stressors are often more stressful than short-term events.

The Stress Response

• Stress responses have cognitive, physiological, and behavioral components.
• Cognitive Appraisal:
  • Primary Appraisal: evaluating the nature and demand of a situation (benign, neutral, or threatening).
  • Secondary Appraisal: assessing available resources and coping ability.
• Physiological Response (Fight-or-Flight): Body prepares for immediate action against a perceived threat. Key responses include increased metabolism, hormone release, increased heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing.
• Physiological Reaction to Stress: The General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): a response pattern to strong and prolonged stressors comprising three phases: Alarm Phase, Resistance Phase, and Exhaustion Phase. During the Alarm Phase, the body mobilizes resources to combat a threat, during the Resistance Phase the organism attempts to cope and during Exhaustion Phase depleted resources result in vulnerability to illness.

Psychological Reactions to Stress

• Anxiety, common response that can develop to PTSD
• Anger & Aggression: often response to frustration.
• Apathy & Depression: withdrawal due to learned helplessness.
• Cognitive Impairment: during high arousal or distracting thoughts.

Physiological Reactions to Stress

• How Stress Affects Health: Chronic stress may impair the immune system, increase the risk of physical disorders (e.g., ulcers, high blood pressure, heart disease), and potentially contribute to psychophysiological disorders.
• Psychoneuroimmunology: Studies the immune system's response to stress and psychological factors, including the impact of perceived control over stress.
• Health-Related Behaviors: Lifestyle factors (smoking, alcohol abuse, overeating) are heavily influenced by stress and health behaviors can be impacted negatively by stress.

Psychological Factors & Stress Responses

• Optimism helps people respond better to stress.
• Hardiness: a personality trait that includes commitment, control, and challenge. People with hardiness are less vulnerable to stress.
• Type A pattern: behavior pattern of competitiveness, hostility, and impatience associated with a higher risk of coronary heart disease.

Behavioural Responses: Coping Skills

• Coping: the process of managing stressful situations.
• Problem-focused Coping: addressing the source of the stressor.
• Emotion-focused Coping: managing the emotional response to the stressor. This can include techniques like physical exercise, venting anger, or seeking emotional support.
• Seeking social support: Can enhance coping and reduce stress.
• Maladaptive coping includes avoidance, and rumination which can lead to longer-term problems.

Coping with Stress

• Problem-focused coping and seeking social support is good for managing controllable situations.
• Emotion-focused coping can be helpful in uncontrollable situations strategies may involve managing associated feelings.
• Disclosing trauma can enhance immune function and lower stress. Quality of disclosures is more important than quantity.

Explore the concepts of Health Psychology and Positive Psychology in this quiz. Understand how these fields focus on well-being, resilience, and the promotion of positive traits for improved quality of life. Test your knowledge on health interventions and the importance of positive emotions in psychological growth.