PSYC 3170 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Somatization Disorder, Hypochondriasis, Factitious Disorder

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3170
• Professor: Jennifer Mills

Document Summary

There are differences in what people can tolerate. Differ in how much attention is paid to internal states. Internally focused people overestimate bodily changes and experience slower recovery. Awareness and hypertension status confounds assessment of the association between personality characteristics and hypertension. Could be due to hypertension labelling effect or to self-selection bias. General stress is associated with greater reports of symptoms. Modd: positive mood associated with fewer symptom reports than negative mood. We tend to ignore unexpected symptoms and amplify expected symptoms. Prior experience, beliefs, and knowledge all influence expectations about symptoms. Studying symptoms leads to greater focus on one"s own symptoms (eg. fatigue), and then gets interpreted as indicative of disease. Widespread symptom perception among a large group of individuals, without any evidence for physical or environmental cause. Involves the actual loss of bodily function such as blindness, paralysis and numbness due to excessive anxiety.