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myersep11e_lectureslides_ch11.pptxStress, Health, and Human Flourishing
Chapter 11
EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY
DAVID G. MYERS | C. NATHAN DEWALL
Chapter Overview
Stress and Illness
Health and Happiness
Stress and Illness (part 1)
Stress: Some basic concepts
Process of appraising and responding to a threatening or challenging event
Stressor
Stress reaction
Positive effects
Short-lived or perceived as challenge
Immune system mobilization; motivation; resilience
Negative effects
Extreme or prolonged stress
Risky decision making and unhealthy behaviors
Stress and Illness (part 2)
Stress appraisal: Events of our lives flow through a psychological filter. How we appraise an event influences how much stress we experience and how effectively we respond to that stress.
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Stress and Illness (part 3)
Stressors
Catastrophes
Large-scale disasters
Acculturative stress
Significant life changes
Life transitions
Cluster of crises
Daily hassles
Compounded by prejudice and life circumstances
Psychological and physical consequences
Stress and Illness (part 4)
Stress response system
Cannon
Stress response is part of a unified mind–body system
Fight-or-flight adaptive response
Selye
General adaptation syndrome (GAS)
Phase 1: Alarm reaction
Phase 2: Resistance
Phase 3: Exhaustion
Human body copes well with temporary stress but may be damaged by prolonged stress
Stress and Illness (part 5)
Due to the ongoing conflict, Syria’s White Helmets (volunteer rescuers) are perpetually in “alarm reaction” mode, rushing to pull victims from the rubble after each fresh attack. As their resistance is depleted, they risk exhaustion.
Gender differences in coping strategies
Earlier death
Tend-and-befriend response
Withdrawal
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Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome
Stress and Illness (part 6)
Stress and vulnerability to disease
Health psychology: Subfield of psychology that provides psychology’s contribution to behavioral medicine
Psychoneuroimmunology: Study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health
Stress and Illness (part 7)
Psychological states have physiological effects
Stress can reduce the ability to fight disease
Trigger immune suppression
Delay surgical wound healing
Increase vulnerability to colds
Hasten disease course
Stress does not cause illness, but it does alter immune functioning that reduces the ability to resist infection
Stress and Health
Stress and Illness (part 8)
Cancer
Stress does not create cancer cells
Heart disease
Coronary heart disease
Type A personality
Type B personality
Inflammation
Blood vessel inflammation
A Harvard School of Public Health team found pessimistic men had a doubled risk of developing heart disease over a 10-year period. (Data from Kubzansky et al., 2001.)
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Does Stress Cause Illness?
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Stress and Illness (part 9)
Anger management
Individualist cultures
Venting rage
Catharsis (emotional release)
Fails to cleanse rage
Can magnify anger (behavior feedback research)
Backfire potential
Anger management strategies
Wait
Find healthy distraction or support
Distance yourself
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Health and Happiness (part 1)
Coping with stress
Coping: Alleviating stress using emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods
Problem-focused coping: Attempting to alleviate stress directly—by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor
Emotion-focused coping: Attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and by attending to emotional needs related to our stress reaction
Health and Happiness (part 2)
Coping with stress
Perceived loss of control
Losing personal control provokes stress hormone output
Rising stress hormone levels related to blood pressure increase and immune response decreases
Learned helplessness
Learned helplessness: When animals and people experience no control over repeated bad events, they often learn helplessness.
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Health and Happiness (part 3)
Coping with stress
External locus of control
Chance or outside forces control fate
Posttraumatic stress symptoms
Internal locus of control
People control their own fate
Free will, willpower, and self-control
Health and Happiness (part 4)
Building self-control
Self-control
Ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for longer-term rewards
Predicts good health, higher income, and better school performance
Strengthening self-control: Practice in overcoming unwanted urges
Depleting self-control: Depletion effect
Health and Happiness (part 5)
Explanatory style: Optimism versus pessimism
Optimists
Expect to have more control, to cope better with stressful events, and to enjoy better health
Optimism tends to run in families
Optimistic students
Tend to get better grades
Respond to setbacks with more productive strategies
Health and Happiness (part 6)
Social support
Feeling liked and encouraged by intimate friends and family
Promotes happiness and health
Social isolation
Leads to higher loneliness and risk of death equivalent to smoking
Health and Happiness (part 7)
Research-based findings about the health benefits of social support
Calms and reduces blood pressure and stress hormones
Fosters stronger immune functioning
Provides an opportunity to confide painful feelings
Health and Happiness (part 8)
Reducing stress
Aerobic exercise: Sustained, oxygen-consuming exertion that increases heart and lung fitness
Benefits of exercise
Adds to quality of life (moderate)
Helps fight heart disease and reduce heart attack risk
Predictor of life satisfaction
Reduces depression and anxiety
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Health and Happiness (part 9)
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Health and Happiness (part 10)
Reducing stress
Biofeedback
Recording, amplifying, and feeding back information about subtle physiological responses (many of which are controlled by the autonomic nervous system)
Works best on tension headaches
Relaxation
Helps alleviate headaches, hypertension, anxiety, and insomnia
Lowers stress
Promotes better wound healing
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Health and Happiness (part 11)
Recurrent Heart Attacks and Lifestyle Modification
The San Francisco Recurrent Coronary Prevention Project offered counseling from a cardiologist to survivors of heart attacks. Those who were also guided in modifying their Type A lifestyle suffered fewer repeat heart attacks. (Data from Friedman & Ulmer, 1984.)
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Health and Happiness (part 12)
Reducing stress
Meditation
Reduces suffering
Improves awareness, insight, and compassion
Mindfulness meditation
Relaxation and silent attendance to inner space; monitored breathing
Linked with lessened anxiety and depression, as well as improved sleep, interpersonal relationships, and immune system functioning
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Health and Happiness (part 13)
What happens in the brain as mindfulness is practiced?
Correlational and experimental studies offer three explanations
Mindfulness strengthens connections among regions in our brain
Mindfulness activates brain regions associated with more reflective awareness
Mindfulness calms brain activation in emotional situations
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Health and Happiness (part 14)
Faith communities and health
Faith factor
Religiously active people tend to live longer than inactive people
Women are more religiously active than men and outlive them
One 28-year study followed 5286 Alameda, California, adults (Oman et al., 2002; Strawbridge, 1999; Strawbridge et al., 1997). Controlling for age and education, the researchers found that not smoking, regular exercise, and religious attendance all predicted a lowered risk of death in any given year. Women attending weekly religious services, for example, were only 54 percent as likely to die in a typical study year as were nonattenders.
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Health and Happiness (part 15)
Possible explanations for the correlation between religious involvement and health/longevity.
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Happiness (part 1)
Positive psychology (Seligman)
Feel-good, do-good phenomenon
Subjective well-being
Core features
Good life that engages one’s skills; meaningful life that extends beyond self
Positive traits that focus on exploring and enhancing a wide range of behaviors
Positive groups, communities, and cultures
“Positive psychology,” Seligman and colleagues (2005) have said, “is an umbrella term for the study of positive emotions, positive character traits, and enabling institutions.”
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Happiness (part 2)
What affects well-being?
Emotional ups and downs of days and within-days rebound
Rebounding from worse events takes longer; even tragedy is not permanently depressing
Duration of emotions is overestimated; resiliency is underestimated
Happiness (part 3)
Wealth and well-being
People in rich countries are happier than people in poorer countries
The power to increase happiness is strongest at lower incomes
Once enough money for comfort and security is attained, accruing more money matters less
Economic growth in affluent countries has provided no apparent boost to people’s morale or social well-being
Happiness (part 4)
Happiness is relative: Adaptation and comparison
Happiness is relative to our own experience
Adaptation-level phenomenon
Happiness is relative to the success of others
Relative deprivation
Happiness (part 5)
| Researchers Have Found That Happy People Tend to | However, Happiness Seems Not Much Related to Other Factors, Such as |
| Have high self-esteem (in individualist countries). | Age. |
| Be optimistic, outgoing, and agreeable. | Gender (women are more often depressed, but also more often joyful). |
| Have close, positive, and lasting relationships. | Physical attractiveness. |
| Have work and leisure that engage their skills. | |
| Have an active religious faith (especially in more religious cultures). | |
| Sleep well and exercise. |
Happiness (part 6)
Which suggestions can you provide for a happier life? What did the text suggest?
