General Psychology

1
General Psychology
2
Scripture

• James 219
• You believe that there is one God. You do well.
  Even the demons believe -- and tremble!

3
Closer Look at a Particular Emotion Anger

• The catharsis myth refers to the idea that we can
  reduce anger by releasing it, and we do this by
  acting aggressively (yelling, punching a pillow).
• In most cases, expressing anger worsens it, and
  any release reinforces the aggression, making
  it a conditioned habit.
• Sometimes, releasing anger causes harm, and
  results in guilt.
• Instead, try calming down and moving on.

• A flash of anger gives us energy and initiative
  to fight or otherwise take action when necessary.
• Persistent anger can cause more harm than
  whatever were angry about.
• Some ways to keep anger from persisting
  distraction, constructive action,
  problem-solving, exercise, verbal expression, and
  allowing others to be wrong.

4
Closer Look at a Particular Emotion Happiness

• Happiness is
• a mood.
• an attitude.
• a social phenomenon.
• a cognitive filter.
• a way to stay hopeful, motivated, and connected
  to others.
• The feel-good, do-good phenomenon when in a good
  mood, we do more for others. The reverse is also
  true doing good feels good.

5
Wealth and Well-BeingA Change in Goals

• In the late 1960s, students entering college had
  a primary goal of developing a meaningful life
  philosophy.
• Since 1977, being very well-off financially has
  become more of a primary goal for first year
  students.

6
Can Money Buy Happiness?

• Money seems to buy happiness when it lifts people
  out of extreme poverty. Otherwise, money doesnt
  seem to help our mood much.
• The average level of income (adjusted for
  inflation) and purchasing power has increased in
  the United States.
• The percentage of people feeling very happy,
  though, has not followed the same trend of
  improvement.

7
Adapting Attitudes Instead of Circumstances

• Because of the adaptation-level phenomenon, our
  level of contentment does not permanently stay
  higher when we gain income and wealth we keep
  adjusting our expectations.
• It is also true that misfortune, disability, and
  loss do not result in a permanent decrease in
  happiness.
• In both cases, humans tend to adapt.

8
Relative Deprivation

• If the average income has risen by 10 percent in
  your area, it might be hard to feel great about a
  5 percent rise in your income because of
• People who were satisfied with their own lives
  might become less satisfied if other people get
  more power, recognition, and income.
• We can affect our happiness by choosing the
  people to whom we compare ourselves.
• However, the tendency is to compare ourselves to
  people who are more successful.

relative deprivation feeling worse off by
comparing yourself to people who are doing better.
9
Correlates of Happiness
There are behaviors that seem to go with
happiness. Whether they are the cause or the
effect of happiness is not clear, but it cant
hurt to try them.
Researchers have found that happy people tend to However, happiness seems not much related to other factors, such as
Have high self-esteem (in individualistic countries) Be optimistic, outgoing, and agreeable Have close friendships or a satisfying marriage Have work and leisure that engage their skills Have an active religious faith Sleep well and exercise Age (example the woman at the laptop in the picture) Gender (women are more often depressed, but also more often joyful) Parenthood (having children or not) Physical attractiveness
There also may be a genetic basis for a
predisposition to happiness. Whether because of
genes, culture, or personal history, we each seem
to develop a mood set point, a level of
happiness to which we keep returning.
10
Possible Ways to Increase Your Chances at
Happiness

• Look beyond wealth for satisfaction.
• Bring your habits in line with your goals take
  control of your time.
• Smile and act happy.
• Find work and leisure that engages your skills.
• Exercise, or just move!
• Focus on the needs and wishes of others.
• Work, rest, and SLEEP.
• Notice what goes well, and express gratitude.
• Nurture spirituality, meaning, and community.
• Make your close relationships a priority.

11
Health Psychology

• the phases of stress response and adaptation
• how stress and health are affected by
• appraisal of stressors
• severity of stressors
• personality types
• perceived control
• emotion or problem focus
• optimism
• social support
• exercise
• relaxation
• religious faith and participation

• Emotions, as well as personality, attitudes,
  behaviors, and responses to stress, can have an
  impact on our overall health.
• Health psychology studies these impacts, as part
  of the broader field of behavioral medicine.
• Topics of study in health psychology include

12
Stress A Focus of Health Psychology

• Many people report being affected by stress.
• Some terms psychologists use to talk about
  stress

Stress refers to the process of appraising and
responding to events which we consider
threatening or challenging.

• a stressor is an event or condition which we view
  as threatening, challenging, or overwhelming.
• Examples include poverty, an explosion, a
  psychology test, feeling cold, being in a plane,
  and loud noises.
• appraisal refers to deciding whether to view
  something as a stressor.
• stress reaction refers to any emotional and
  physical responses to the stressor such as rapid
  heartbeat, elevated cortisol levels, and crying.

13
Clarifying the Components of Stress

• Stress isnt something that happens to you its
  a process in which you participate.
• The process includes the stressor (event or
  condition), cognitive appraisal, body response,
  and coping strategies.
• The advantage of breaking stress into these
  components is that we can see options for
  altering each of these different factors.

What could this person do to reduce his level of
suffering from stress?
14
AppraisalChoosing How to View a Situation

• Questions to ask yourself when facing a possible
  stressor
• Is this a challenge, and will I tackle it?
• Is it overwhelming, and will I give up?

• There are few conditions that are inherently and
  universally stressful we can often choose our
  appraisal and our responses.
• extreme, chronic physical threats or challenges
  (such as noise or starvation)

15
Beneficial and Harmful Stress Effects

• A brief experience of stress can be beneficial
• improving immune system response
• motivating action
• focusing priorities
• feeling engaged, energized, and satisfied
• providing challenges that encourage growth,
  knowledge, and self-esteem
• Extreme or prolonged stress, causes problems
• mental and physical coping systems become
  overwhelmed and defeated rather than strengthened
• immune functioning and other health factors
  decline because of damage

The key factor is whether there is a chance for
recovery and healing.
16
Stressors

• Stressors refer to the events and conditions that
  trigger our stress response, because they are
  perceived/ appraised as overwhelmingly
  challenging, threatening, and/or harmful.

• There may be a spectrum of levels of intensity
  and persistence of stressors.
• We can also see stressors as falling into one of
  four categories
• catastrophes.
• significant life changes.
• chronic daily hassles.
• low social status/power.

the text focuses on the first three.
17
Catastrophic Events/Conditions

• Short-term effects include increased heart
  attacks on the day of the event
• Long term effects include depression, nightmares,
  anxiety, and flashbacks.
• Bonding both the trauma and the recovery are
  shared with others.

• Appraisal is not essential in a catastrophic
  event. Most people agree that the event is
  harmful and overwhelming
• Examples include earthquakes, floods, hurricanes,
  war/combat, and wildfires.
• It can be one single event or chronic harmful
  conditions.

18
Major Life Events/Changes

• Even supposedly happy life changes, such as
  marriage, starting college or a new job, or the
  birth or adoption of a child, can bring increased
  challenge and stress.
• Change is often challenging.
• New roles, new priorities, and new tasks can put
  a strain on our coping resources.
• The challenge, and the negative impact on health,
  increases when
• the changes are painful, such as a death in
  family, loss of job, or heart attack.
• the changes are in a cluster, and there are too
  many at once.

19
Chronic Daily Difficulties

• Daily difficulties can be caused by facing too
  many tasks, too little time, and too little
  control.

• Daily difficulties can be caused by the lack of
  social power and freedom
• being bullied
• living in poverty
• living under oppressive political conditions

20
The Bodys Stress Response System

• When encountering a sudden trauma or other
  stressor, our body acts to increase our
  resistance to threat and harm.

Phase 1 The fight or flight sympathetic
nervous system responds, reducing pain and
increasing the heart rate. The core of the
adrenal glands produces norepinephrine and
epinephrine (adrenaline). This system, identified
by Walter Cannon (1871-1945), gives us energy to
act.
Phase 2 The brain sends signals to the outer
part of the adrenal glands to produce cortisol
and other stress hormones. These focus us on
planning adaptive coping strategies and resisting
defeat by the stressor. Hans Selye (1907-1982)
indentified this extended resistance phase of
the stress response, followed by
Phase 3 Exhaustion.
21
General Adaptation Syndrome GAS(Identified by
Hans Selye)Our stress response system defends,
then fatigues.
22
Effects of Prolonged Stress

• The General Adaptation Syndrome GAS works well
  for single exposures to stress.
• Repeated and prolonged stress, with too much
  Phase 3 time, leads to various signs of physical
  deterioration and premature aging
• the production of new neurons declines
• neural circuits in the brain break down
• DNA telomeres (chromosome tips) shorten, ? cells
  lose ability to divide, ? cells die, ? tissue
  stops regenerating, ? early aging and death

23
Studying the Stress-Illness Relationship

• How does stress increase our risk of disease?
• This is the subject of a new field of study
  psycho-neuroimmunology, the study of how
  interacting psychological, neural, and endocrine
  processes affect health.
• Psychologists no longer use the term
  psychosomatic because it has come to mean an
  imagined illness.
• We now refer to psychophysiological illness, a
  real illness caused in part by psychological
  factors such as the experience of stress.

24

• How the immune system works, before stress plays
  a role

25
Psychoneuroimmunology ExampleThe Impact of
Stress on Catching a Cold

• In a group exposed to germs, those experiencing
  stress were more likely to catch a cold.

This tradeoff between stress response and immune
response may help our bodies focus energy on
managing stress.
26
Stress and Heart Disease

• Many factors contribute to heart disease.
• Biological genetic predisposition to high blood
  pressure and high cholesterol
• Behavioral smoking, inactivity, and high-fat
  diet
• Psychological chronic stress, and personality
  styles that worsen the experience of stress

• In coronary heart/artery disease, the blood
  vessels that provide oxygen and nutrients to the
  heart muscle itself become clogged, narrowed, and
  closed.

Clogging of the coronary artery
27
Type A Personality?Stress?Heart Disease

• Some personality traits tend to cluster into
  personality types.
• People with a type A personality are impatient,
  verbally aggressive, and always pushing
  themselves and others to achieve.
• People with a type B personality are more relaxed
  and go with the flow.
• In one study, heart attacks ONLY struck people
  with Type A traits.

• Accomplishing goals is healthy, but a compulsion
  to always be working, with little time spent
  smelling the flowers, is not.

28
Pessimism and Heart Disease

• It can be helpful to realistically anticipate
  negative events that may happen, and to plan how
  to prevent or cope with them.

Pessimism refers to the assumption that negative
outcomes will happen, and often facing them by
complaining and/or giving up.

• Men who are generally pessimistic are more likely
  to develop heart disease within ten years than
  optimists.

29
Depression and Heart Disease

• Why does depression appear so often with heart
  disease? Does one cause the other?
• One possible answer is that the two problems are
  both caused by chronic stress.
• There may be an intervening variable excessive
  inflammation.

30
Health Consequences of Chronic Stress The
Repeated Release of Stress Hormones

• The stress hormone cortisol helps our bodies
  respond to brief stress.
• Chronically high cortisol levels damage the body.

31
Promoting Health

• Ways that help some people to reduce levels of
  stress, and to improve health
• aerobic exercise
• relaxation and meditation
• participation in communities of faith
• alternative medicine

• Some ways to reduce the health effects of stress
  include
• address the stressors.
• soothe emotions.
• increase ones sense of control over stressors.
• exchange optimism for pessimism.
• get social support.

32
Coping with Stress
Emotion-focused coping means reducing the
emotional impact of stress by getting support,
comfort, and perspective from others.
Problem-focused coping means reducing the
stressors, such as by working out a conflict, or
tackling a difficult project.

• Risk ignoring the problem.
• We might focus on this style of coping when we
  perceive the stressor as something we cannot
  change.

• Risk magnifying emotional distress, especially
  if trying to change something thats difficult to
  change (e.g. another persons traits).

33
Promoting Health Social Support

• Having close relationships is associated with
  improved health, immune functioning, and
  longevity.
• Social support, including from pets, provides a
  calming effect that reduces blood pressure and
  stress hormones.
• Confiding in others helps manage painful
  feelings.
• Laughter helps too.

34
Aerobic Exercise and Health

• Aerobic exercise triggers certain genes to
  produce proteins which guard against more than 20
  chronic diseases and conditions.
• Aerobic exercise reduces the risk of heart
  disease, cognitive decline and dementia, and
  early death.

Aerobic exercise refers to sustained activity
that raises heart rate and oxygen consumption.
35
Aerobic Exercise and Mental Health

• Aerobic exercise reduces depression and anxiety,
  and improves management of stress. How do we
  know?
• Aerobic exercise is correlated with high
  confidence, vitality, and energy, and good mood.
• Is there causation? Perhaps depression simply
  reduces exercise.
• One study establishing causation mildly
  depressed young women randomly assigned to an
  exercise group showed reduced depression caused
  by exercise alone.

36
Lifestyle Modification

• In one study, a control group was given diet,
  medication, and exercise advice.
• An experimental group practiced lifestyle
  modification, a plan to slow down the pace of
  ones life, accept imperfection, and renew faith.

• Result modifying lifestyle led to reduced heart
  attack rates.

37
Relaxation and Meditation

• Use of relaxation techniques can reduce
  headaches, high blood pressure, anxiety, and
  insomnia, and improve immune functioning.
• People who meditate can learn to create a
  relaxation response relaxed muscles, lower blood
  pressure, and slowed heart rate and breathing.
• Meditation also increases brain activity
  associated with positive emotions.
• Steps to get the relaxation response focus
  attention on breathing, a focus word, and
  relaxing muscles from toes upward.

38
Religious Involvement and Health

• While attendance at religious services may not
  directly save lives, it may make other healthy
  practices more likely.

• Religious attendance seems to have results,
  especially for men, comparable to the benefit of
  physically healthy lifestyle choices.

39
Religious Involvement and Health Intervening
Factors

• The health impact of religious involvement may be
  indirect.
• Health may improve because of the lifestyle and
  emotional factors associated with religious
  involvement, and not just the faith.

40
Behavioral Medicine Lesson

• As with other areas of psychology, a study of
  emotions, stress and health teaches us
• the body constantly interacts with the mind.
• psychological phenomena have connections to
  physiological phenomena.
• More than 2000 years ago, in a Sanskrit text
  called the Santi Parva, it was written, There
  are two kinds of diseases, physical and mental.
  Each springs from the other. None of them can be
  seen existing independently.