PSYO 252 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Social Comparison Theory, Hawthorne Effect, Western Electric
6 Jun 2018
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January 29th – Psychology 252
Stress
• Health Psychology: The application of psychology to the promotion of physical health and to the
prevention and treatment of illness
• Biopsychosocial Model
o Health and illness are consequences of the interplay between biological, psychological
and social factors
▪ Vs. Biomedical Model – used to have before the above took over (stuck strictly
to the biomedical factors)
• Social Status and Health
o SES-Health Gradient: There is a 20-year gap in life expectancy between the lowest and
highest SES groups in North America
• Stress Defined:
o Stress: unpleasant state of arousal that arises when we perceive that the demands of a
situation exceed our ability to cope effectively
o Stressors: Anything that causes stress
o AKA: your ody’s iaility to cope with stressors is called stress
o Table 14.1 – Top Stressors
• Categories of Stressors
o Major Life Events
▪ Ie. Job loss, getting married, divorced, new job, moving, etc.
o Daily Hassles (Or Micro-stressors)
▪ Ie. Relationship conflict, traffic, work demands, tests, etc.
▪ The accumulation of daily hassles do more damage than do major life events
• Is change (positive or negative) necessarily harmful?
o Positive stressors are not as harmful as negative stressors
▪ All things being equal, ie. The average marriage is less stressful than the average
divorce
o Impact of change depends on person and how change is interpreted (ie, resilience,
hardy – see challenges; face them head on and are easily adaptable, etc.)
• Crises and Catastrophes (war, terrorism, natural disasters, accidents, etc.)
o Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A person experiences enduring negative physical
and psychological symptoms after an extremely stressful event
▪ Anxiety, sleep disorders, flashbacks, social withdrawal, depression
▪ Symptoms can persist for years
• What Stress Does to the Heart
o Type A Behavior Pattern: Characterized by competitive striving for achievement, a sense
of time urgency, hostility, and aggression
▪ A huge risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD)
o Hostility appears to be the toxic ingredient in predicting CHD
o How hostile is your behaviour? Table 14.2
• Links Between Stress and Illness
o Researh has sho that stress eetually reaks do a ody’s iue syste
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▪ The longer a stressor persists, the more likely the person is to get sick
• General Adaption Syndrome
o A three-stage process (alarm, resistance, and exhaustion) by which the body responds
to stress
o Designed for acute physical emergencies, not prolonged mental or emotional stress
o Women tend to be more nurturing than men when under stress
▪ Fight or flight e s. ted-and-efried oe
o Figure 14.2
• What Stress Does to the Immune System
o Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)
▪ A subfield of health psychology that examines the links among psychological
factors, the brain and nervous system, and the immune system
o Brief stressors can enhance the immune response
o Chronic life stressors can suppress the immune response over time
o Immune System: our biological surveillance system that detects and destroys foreign
substances that invade our body (ie. Bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc.)
o Immune cells, which protect us, are specialized white blood cells called lymphocytes
o Chronic stress leads to decreased number of immune cells, and those that are left are
less potent and effective in doing their job (ie. Protecting us)
▪ Chronic level of stress = decreased lymphocytes & the ones are left are not as
effective (mostly ineffective)
• Therefore, you become more susceptible to anything
▪ Note: Can permanently be effective
• Stress Duration and Illness
o Figure 14.4
• Stress and Health Outcomes
o A recent study showed that chronic stress was linked to faster aging. The cells of
caregivers of chronically ill children were 9-17 years older than the cells of caregivers of
healthy children
▪ Aka will die sooner
▪ Divorce rate among families that have chronically ill children are extremely high
– which adds another stressor
• Resilient people share three characteristics
o Commitment – a sense of purpose with regard to work, family, and other domains
o Challenge – openness to new experiences and a desire to embrace change
o Control – belief that they have the power to influence important future outcomes
▪ Internal focus of control (blame themselves for their failures & reward
themselves for their achievements)
• People who have an external focus of control never blame themselves
• Optimism and Hope
o Optimism is a generalized tendency to expect positive outcomes
▪ Absolutely essential to wellbeing
o Health can spring from optimism, as confirmed by the placebo effect
• The Placebo Effect
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Job loss, getting married, divorced, new job, moving, etc: daily hassles (or micro-stressors) Relationship conflict, traffic, work demands, tests, etc: the accumulation of daily hassles do more damage than do major life events. Is change (positive or negative) necessarily harmful: positive stressors are not as harmful as negative stressors, all things being equal, ie. the average marriage is less stressful than the average divorce. Immune system: our biological surveillance system that detects and destroys foreign substances that invade our body (ie. bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc. ) Industrial and organisational (i/o) psychology: the study of human behaviour in business and other organizational settings, western electric company hawthorne plant in chicago, 1927, hawthorne effect: simply observing workers increased productivity. Job interviews: research suggests interviewing has mixed results, physical attractiveness and interviewer/interviewee similarity remain sources of bias (cid:894)perso(cid:374)ality & (cid:271)eauty (cid:272)o(cid:374)test (cid:895) Figure 13. 1: scientific alternatives to interviews, standardized intelligence tests.
