Psychology 2036A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Negative Affectivity, Headache, Thermoreceptor

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2036A/B
• Professor: Doug Hazlewood

Document Summary

Secondary intervention: stopping an illness after it develops. Lecture topics: perceiving symptoms, deciding that we are ill (the role of illness representations, responding to treatments (the role of psychological reactance) Part 1: perceiving symptoms: physiological changes in the body, detected by sensory receptors: Pain receptors (e. g. , tissue damage: produce body sensations . Yes if pervasive and strong (e. g. , extreme hunger, fatigue, pain) No for weaker sensations; often ambiguous: e. g. , correlation between perceived heart rate and actual heart rate is small (r = + . 10); same for blood pressure; body temperature. How we perceive and interpret these sensations depends on psychological factors: psychological factors, focus of attention: Outdoor joggers run faster than indoor joggers (and report less fatigue); Outdoor joggers pay less attention to symptoms of fatigue: joggers who focus on distractor report less fatigue than joggers who focus on fatigue symptoms (hr and breathing)