Ch. 18

Type D Personality

A dimension along which individuals differ on two underlying traits: (1) negative affectivity, or the tendency to frequently experience negative emotions across time and situations (e.g, tension, worry, irritability, and anxiety) and (2) social inhibition, or the tendency to inhibit the expression of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in social interactions, People high on both to these traits are said to have this, which places them at risk for poor outcomes once they develop cardiac disease.

Competitive Achievement Motivation

Also referred to as the need for achievement, it is a subtrait in the Type A behavior pattern. Type A people like to work hard and achieve goals. They like recognition and overcoming obstacles and feel they are at their best when competing with others.

Problem Focused Coping

Thoughts and behaviors that manage or solve the underlying cause of stress. Folkman and Moskowitz note that focusing on solving problems, even little ones, can give a person a positive sense of control even in the most stressful and uncontrollable circumstances,

Positive Reappraisal

A cognitive process whereby a person focuses on the good in what is happening or has happened to them. Folkman and Moskowitz note that forms of this positive coping strategy include seeing opportunities for personal growth or seeing how one's own efforts can benefit other people,

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

A syndrome that occurs in some individuals after experiencing or witnessing life-threatening events, such as military combat, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, serious accidents, or violent personal assaults (e.g, rape). Those who suffer from this often relive the trigger experience for years through nightmares or intense flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping, report physical complaints, have flattened emotions, and feel detached or estranged form others. These symptoms can be sever and last long enough to significantly impair the individual's daily life, health, relationships, and career.

Hostility

A tendency to respond to everyday frustrations with anger and aggression, to become irritable easily, to feel frequent resentment, and to act in a rude, critical, antagonistic, and uncooperative manner in everyday interactions (Dembrowski & costa). This is a subtrait in the Type A behavior pattern.

Major Life Events

According to Holmes and Rahe, these require that people make major adjustments in their lives. Death or loss of a spouse through divorce or separation are the most stressful events, followed closely by being jailed, losing a close family member in death, or being severely injured.

Additive Effects

The effects of different kinds of stress that add up and accumulate in a person over time

Traumatic Stress

A massive instance of acute stress, the effects of which can reverberate within an individual for years or even a lifetime, It differs from acute stress s mainly in terms of its potential to lead to posttraumatic stress disorder.

Time Urgency

A subtriat in the Type A personality. Type A persons hate wasting time, They are always in a hurry and feel under pressure to get the most done in the least amount of time. Often they do two things at once, such as eat while reading a book. Waiting is stressful for them.

Leukocyte

A white blood cell. When there is an infection or injury to the body, or a systematic inflammation of the body occurs, there is an elevation in white blood cell counts. Surtees et al., in a 2003 study, established a direct link between hostility and elevated white blood cell counts.

Primary Appraisal

According to Lazarus, in order for stress to be evoked for a person, two cognitive events must occur. The first cognitive event is for the person to perceive that the event is a threat to his or her personal goals.

Secondary Appraisal

According to Lazarus, in order for stress to be evoked for a person, two cognitive events must occur. The second necessary cognitive vent is when the person concludes that he or she does not have the resources to cope with the demands of the threatening event,

Creating Positive Events

Creating a positive time-out from stress. Folkman and Moskowitz note that humor can have the added benefit of generating positive emotional moments even during the darkest periods of stress

Stressors

Events that cause stress. They appear to have several common attributes: (1) they are extreme in some manner, in the sense that they produce a state of feeling overwhelmed or overloaded, that one just cannot take it much longer, (2) stressors often produce opposing tenancies in us, such as wanting and not wanting some activity or object ,as in wanting to study but also wanting to put it off as long as possible, and (3) they are uncontrollable, outside of our power to influence, such as the exam that we cannot avoid.

Arteriosclerosis

Hardening or blocking of the arteries. When the arteries that feed the heart muscle itself become blocked, the subsequent shortage of blood to the heart is called a heart attack.

Predisposition Model

In health psychology, this suggests that associations may exist between personality and illness because a third variable is causing them both.

Transactional Model

In this and health, personality has three potential effects: (1) it can influence coping, as in the interactional model, (2) it can influence how the person appraises or interprets the events, and (3) it can influence exposure to the events themselves

Acute Stress

Results from the sudden onset of demands or events that seem to be beyond the control of the individual. This type of stress is often experienced as tension headaches, emotional upsets, gastrointestinal disturbances, and feelings of agitation and pressure.

Optimistic Bias

Most people generally underestimate their risks, with the average person rating his or her risk as below what is the true average. IT may actually lead people in general to ignore or minimize the risks inherent in life or to take more risks than they should.

Interaction Model

Objective events happened to a person, but personality factors determine the impact of those events by influencing the person's ability to cope. It is called this because personality is assumed to moderate (that is, influence) the relation between stress and illness

Health Behavior Model

Personality does not directly influence the relation between stress and illness. Instead, personality affects health indirectly, through health-promoting or health-degrading behaviors. This model suggests that personality influences the degree to which a person engages in various health-promoting or health-demoting behaviors.

Illness Behavior Model

Personality influences the degree to which a person perceives and pays attention to bodily sensations, and the degree to which a person will interpret and label those sensations as an illness.

Episodic Acute Stress

Repeated episodes of this, such as having to work at more than one job every day, having to spend time with a difficult in-law, or needing to meet a recurring monthly deadline.

Health Psychology

Researchers in the area of health psychology study relations between the mind and the body, and how these two components respond to challenges from the environment (e.g., stressful events, germs) to produce illness or health

Chronic Stress

Stress that does not end, like an abusive relationship that grinds the individual down until his or her resistance is eroded. This can result in serious systematic diseases such as diabetes, decreased immune system functioning, or cardiovascular disease.

Emotional Inhibition

Suppression of emotional expressions, often thought of as a trait (e.g., some people chronically suppress their emotions).

Disclosure

Telling someone about some private aspect of ourselves. Many theorists have suggested that keeping things to ourselves may be a source of stress and ultimately may lead to psychological distress and physical disease.

Dispositional Optimism

The expectation that in the future good events will be plentiful and bad events will be rare

Alarm Stage

The first stage in Selye's general adaptation syndrome (GAS). This stage consists of the flight-or-fight response of the sympathetic nervous system and the associated peripheral nervous system reactions. These include the release of hormones, which prepare our bodies for challenge.

Frustration

The high-arousal unpleasant subjective feeling that comes when a person is blocked from attaining an important goal. For example, a thirsty person who just lost his last bit of money in a malfunctioning soda machine would most likely feel this

Daily Hassles

The major sources of stress in most people's lives. Although minor, these can be chronic and repetitive, such as having too much to do all the time, having to fight the crowds while shopping, or having to worry over money. These can be chronically irritating though they do not initiate the same general adaptation syndrome evoked by some major life events.

Resistance Stage

The second stage in Selye's general adaptation syndrome (GAS). Here the body is using its resources at an above-average rate, even though the immediate fight-or-flight response has subsided. Stress is being resisted but the effort is making demands on the person's resources and energy.

Stress

The subjective feeling that is produced by uncontrollable and threatening events. Events that cause this are called stressors.

Exhaustion Stage

The third stage in Selye's general adaptation syndrome (GAS). Seyle felt that this was the stage where we are most susceptible to illness and disease, as our physiological resources are depleted.

General Adaption Syndrome (GAS)

This has three stages: When a stressor first appears, people experience the alarm stage. If the stressor continues, the stage of resistance begins. If the stressor remains constant, the person eventually enters the third stage, the stage of exhaustion.