S&P Unit VIII Article Review

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Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VIII Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

2. Evaluate the underlying principles in the field of social psychology. 2.1 Describe the role and function of social psychological concepts in stress and/or health

psychology.

3. Explain how social psychologists study human behavior. 3.1 Describe the methodology of one empirical study that applies social psychology to stress

and/or health psychology.

4. Discuss the application of social psychology to a variety of disciplines. 4.1 Assess the real-world impact of social psychology through stress, health, and positive

psychology concepts.

5. Analyze the conclusions of empirical research in social psychology. 5.1 Discuss the results of one empirical study that applies social psychology to stress and/or health

psychology.

6. Explain how social environments influence the understanding of individuals. 6.1 Apply social psychological concepts to understand how the social environment affects stress

and/or health outcomes.

7. Examine how our own biases influence perceptions of various behaviors. 7.1 Describe how positive psychology can aid in coping with stress and/or health issues.

Course/Unit Learning Outcomes

Learning Activity

2.1 Unit Lesson Mini-Chapter C Unit VIII Article Review

3.1 Unit Lesson Mini-Chapter C Unit VIII Article Review

4.1

Unit Lesson Mini-Chapter C Mini-Chapter D Unit VIII Article Review

5.1 Unit Lesson Mini-Chapter C Unit VIII Article Review

6.1 Unit Lesson Mini-Chapter C Unit VIII Article Review

7.1

Unit Lesson Mini-Chapter C Mini-Chapter D Unit VIII Article Review

UNIT VIII STUDY GUIDE

Application of Social Psychology to Stress, Health, and Happiness

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Reading Assignment Mini-Chapter C: Social Psychology of Stress and Health Mini-Chapter D: Social Psychology and Happiness: Positive Psychology

Unit Lesson Social Psychology of Stress and Health Though often associated solely with biology, health psychologists view one’s health as a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors, an idea called the biopsychosocial model. In addressing contributing factors beyond biology, this perspective opens the door for investigating stress, which is when the needs of the current situation exceed the available coping resources thereby threatening one’s well-being (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). In fact, stress is one of the most pervasive influences on our everyday lives and our overall well-being, contributing to both physical and psychological outcomes. Whether at school, work, or home, you have most likely experienced a looming deadline or tried to balance the demands of your social roles. How did that make you feel? Can you think of any specific physical or psychological symptoms that you experience during and after experiencing stress?

One of the earliest pioneers in stress research was Hans Selye, who detailed a three-stage theory of how people physiologically respond to threatening events–the general adaptation syndrome. Selye proposed that when faced with a stressor, the body first responds with the alarm stage, in which the sympathetic nervous system produces a fight-or-flight response. The body then attempts to calm down, if possible, during the resistance stage but is actively working to avoid or address the stressor. Finally, if a stressor persists, the body may enter the exhaustion stage, in which its resources are depleted. When this stage is reached, people become more susceptible to illness (Selye, 1973). Unfortunately, it is hard to break the connection between stress and health outcomes. Indeed, stress and health have been linked across a variety of problems, from headaches to low birthweights to heart disease, and this link appears to increase as people age. To learn more about the connection between stress and health, click here to watch the How Stress Affects Your Body video (click on Video 1). Click here to access a transcript of this video. While stress seems to be represented across various facets of life and can lead to some rather negative conditions, stress is not necessarily bad. In fact, health psychologists differentiate between positive stressors, called eustress, that occur in such situations that require change or pressure to succeed, and negative stressors, called distress, that occur in such situations like a family death or chronic health issue (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). Stress is typically measured by counting the stressful life events experienced, both positive and negative, in a survey such as the Social Readjustment Rating Scale found in Table C.3 in your textbook (Holmes & Rahe, 1967).

As previously mentioned, stress has both physical and psychological effects, and the available research does indicate that life stress correlates with both anxiety and illness. It is important to note that this is correlational research and that there might be a third variable that accounts for these findings. What are some third variables that could influence these results? There are also limitations of stress inventories. For example, stress inventories tend to focus on stressors experienced by the middle class. They can neglect the experiences by members of lower socioeconomic status and minority groups.

Alarm Stage

Resistance Stage

Exhaustion Stage

The stages of the general adaptation syndrome

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With the experience of stress comes the opportunity to show growth through management of stress. To manage stress in your life, you may decide to practice mindfulness, which promotes the use of meditative focus on the present and, though with some mixed results, has been found to lessen the effects of both stress and physical pain (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). When you feel stress, do you call up a friend or a family member? Another common approach to managing stress is to seek out social support and assistance from others around you. Support comes in a variety of forms, most notably those listed in Table C.4 in your textbook. The most applicable support will depend on the stressor present, but in any case, the support functions to provide additional resources, thereby lessening the effect of the stressor (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). Culture also plays a role in when and how people seek social support. In East Asian countries, individuals are less likely to seek social support than Westerners. What might explain these differences? One explanation is that East Asians do not want to disrupt group harmony or invite criticism from others (Taylor, Welch, Kim, & Sherman, 2007). Going beyond specific techniques, some people have personalities and environments better suited to effectively manage the stressors in their lives. Personality traits that aid in staying physiologically calm in the first place or achieving psychological calm through resilience to adversity have been found to promote overall health, while those traits associated with what is referred to as a Type A personality appear to contribute to impatience and internalizing stress (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). Most of the time, the stress management approach you use will depend on your preferences, abilities, and the specific stressor with which you are dealing. When it comes to more specific health issues, social psychology helps explain why people have difficulty with following a doctor’s recommendations, or more broadly, treatment adherence. Failing to adhere to health recommendations can be risky, as it increases the likelihood of aggravating symptoms of many illnesses and disorders and can even present public health concerns in the case of not completing antibiotic medication cycles. Despite these risks, people rationalize their behavior in terms of too much time, money, and effort or too little trust and tangible effect (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). To resolve the lack of adherence, social psychologists have suggested that health professionals employ more persuasion tactics in order to promote more behavioral change. One particular tactic you learned about in previous units is cognitive dissonance. While in a state of dissonance, people may be more motivated to change their less healthy behaviors to reflect the healthier attitude they endorse and lessen the dissonant feelings. Other tactics that may influence behavioral change include targeting intuition versus logic in reasoning, emphasizing the main tenets of theory of planned behavior, and implementing different source cues or social norms from Chapter 6. Ultimately, establishing what success means and assessment of one’s persuasive efforts needs to occur in order to measure the effectiveness of any intervention. Social Psychology and Happiness: Positive Psychology Many areas of social psychology you have learned about in this course have highlighted deficits and the negative aspects of humanity, but there is much to explore about the positive aspects of humanity, as well. Positive psychology studies human strengths, virtues, positive emotions, and achievements (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). Think about a time that you succeeded in some endeavor. What do you think contributed

Do you practice mindfulness? Research shows it may be effective in reducing stress. (Prusakova, 2014)

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to that success? What positive aspects of yourself, your experiences, or your environment aided your success? Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) have theorized three pillars of positive psychology: positive subjective experiences, positive individual traits, and positive institutions. Subjective experience is all about how an event is interpreted by the person involved. Within the current context, the events would be perceived as satisfactory, happy, and optimistic. Positive individual traits represent capacities, such as love, forgiveness, and perseverance. Positive institutions present within one’s environment allow a person opportunity for growth in citizenship, including responsibility, tolerance, and work ethic. Each is relevant on its own, but together, they create a cycle of positivity that strengthens the ultimate outcomes. The three pillars of positive psychology also contribute to one’s subjective well-being, which is one’s cognitive and emotional evaluation of his or her life (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). With more positive interpretation of events, traits, and institutions, one’s subjective well-being will be more positive, as well. Clearly, this characterizes an individual difference across any given population.

Positive psychology’s good intentions to shift the focus of study to a more positive direction were not without some missteps. Though many of the concepts associated with positive psychology have been featured (with different names) by earlier psychologists, including Triplett’s famous bicycle study from Chapter 8, a renewed interest was embraced in the late 1990s. The resulting work was quickly, but not carefully, reviewed, and some errors slipped through the cracks, leading to the viewpoint that positive psychology may not have any basis in science or was a temporary fad. The first formal effort to measure positive psychology concepts was the PERMA approach—positive emotions, engagement, relationship to others, meaning and purpose, and achievement—together, representing subjective well-being (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Operationalizing each concept connected with well-being allowed researchers to establish a scientific field that is more than self-help concepts. To learn more about how psychology measures happiness from a scientific perspective, watch segments 4. What Is Positive Psychology, 5. Seligman’s Mission for Psychology, and 9. The Full Life from the following video. TED (Producer). (2008). TedTalks: Martin Seligman—What positive psychology can help you become [Video

file]. Retrieved from https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?auth=CAS&url=http://fod.infobase.com/PortalPla ylists.aspx?wID=273866&xtid=48120

The transcript for this video can be found by clicking the “Transcript” tab to the right of the video in the Films on Demand database. A current variation of positive psychology also exists in the field of sport psychology, where researchers frequently focus on positive topics like building a team, dealing with failure, and achieving peak performance (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). Future directions involve applying positive psychology concepts to other areas and disciplines, particularly those that are health-related. Positive psychology can be integrated with health psychology in that it encourages practitioners to amplify their patients’ strengths rather than simply repairing their weaknesses,

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builds positive coping skills that increase subjective well-being and lessen stress, encourages less negative interpretation of stressors, and provides assessment that focuses on what people have done well (Heinzen & Goodfriend, 2019). Overall, accounting for how social psychology interacts with stress, health, and positive psychology helps people to understand how to evaluate the current situation of themselves and others and develop plans to improve them.

References

Heinzen, T., & Goodfriend, W. (2019). Social psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Holmes, T. H., & Rahe, R. H. (1967). The social readjustment rating scale. Journal of Psychosomatic

Research, 11(2), 213–218. Prusakova, I. (2014). Yoga meditating sunrise, woman mindfulness meditation on beach (ID 74149792)

[Photograph]. Retrieved from www.dreamstime.com Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American

Psychologist, 55(1), 5–14. Selye, H. (1973). The evolution of the stress concept: The originator of the concept traces its development

from the discovery in 1936 of the alarm reaction to modern therapeutic applications of syntoxic and catatoxic hormones. American Scientist, 61(6), 692–699.

Taylor, S. E., Welch, W. T., Kim, H. S., & Sherman, D. K. (2007). Cultural differences in the impact of social

support on psychological and biological stress responses. Psychological Science, 18(9), 831–837.

Suggested Reading In order to access the following resources, click the links below: Can money buy happiness? The article below aims to answer this question. The answer may surprise you. Matz, S. C., Gladstone, J. J., & Stillwell, D. (2016). Money buys happiness when spending fits our personality.

Psychological Science, 27(5), 715–725. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/NJSUVsUBzwTdGBVgausA/full

In the unit lesson, you were introduced to mindfulness as a technique to reduce stress. The article below examines whether or not this is actually an effective technique. Sharma, M., & Rush, S. E. (2014). Mindfulness-based stress reduction as a stress management intervention

for health individuals: A systematic review. Journal of Evidence-Based Contemporary & Alternative Medicine, 19(4), 271–286. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain/NKgA6UhzHx8nVf8AfwsW/full

Learning Activities (Nongraded) Nongraded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in their course of study. You do not have to submit them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further guidance and information. Test yourself on concepts covered in Mini-Chapters C and D. Mastering this material will help you complete the assignment in this unit. Click the links below to view the flashcards for each chapter. Click here for the Mini-Chapter C Flashcards.

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Click here for the Mini-Chapter D Flashcards. Click here to take a short quiz to check your knowledge on concepts learned in this unit.