Ch. 14.

1 Health and Stress Coping

Health Psychology: Study of positive and negative impacts that humans behaviours and decisions have
on their health, survival and wellbeing

Smoking and Personality: High neuroticism associated with increased risk, high conscientiousness with
lower risk

Media exposure and smoking: More likely to smoke if exposure to it in media and family during
adolescence. Causation difficult to determine.

Reducing Smoking: Non-smoking laws, warning on packages, attitude inoculation, high tax on cigs,
graphic images on packaging, overall rates have decreased over the decades

Ch. 14.2 Obesity

Obesity: Eating as a motivated behaviour, food abundance, sedentary lifestyle (decreased physical
activity), steady increase over decades.

Obesity in North America: 24% of Canadians classified to be obese, very high in USA

What should we eat?: Nutritional research is correlational, media reports must be analyzed carefully,
put more weight on randomized controlled trials (diet study comparing grain consumption for ex)

Ch. 14.3 BMI Body mass index

Body Mass Index: Common statistic for estimating health by comparing height to weight, only good for
applying at the population level.

Problems: Doesn’t account for fat/muscle% which can cause bad classification for individuals.

Ch. 14.4 Social Influences on Obesity

Parental Influence: Eating patterns in childhood can carry on into your own adulthood

Media: Food commercials, increase snacking in children (happy meals and playgrounds in McDonalds)

Social Contagion of Obesity: Often subtle and unintentional spreading of a behaviour as a result of
social interaction. Closer individuals within the network more predictive. As we see others gain weight
around us we also feel its okay to as well.

Socioeconomic influences on Obesity: Cost health alternative, convenience of unhealthy options,

increases obesity in children living in lower SES but difference appearing in adults
Ch. 14.5 Obstacles to Weight loss

Genetic Influences: 50-90% of variation due to genetics.

SET POINT: a hypothesized mech that serves to maintain an individuals weight due to a physiological
programmed range.

Challenge for weight loss: Obese individual’s find food cues more rewarding, dieting reinforces having
cravings, stress and eating

Ch. 14.6 Promoting Healthy Behaviours

Mindful eating: Be more attentive to what we consume and not automatic consumption

Positive Emotions: Promotes weight loss maintenance, using social contagion for positive change

Sugar Tax: Early evidence that sugar tax decreases consumption (just like taxes on cigs),

Ch. 14.7 Stress

Stress: A psychological and physiological reaction that occurs when our demands exceed
resources we have.

Primary appraisal: Involves determining whether a threat exists

Secondary Appraisal: Involves determining if one can cope with the threat

Optimal Stress: Stress that helps with a healthy response and performance. Ex performance and
stress levels can help find optimal level of stress for maximum performance

Ch 14.8 Biology of Stress

Fight or flight response: Sympathetic branch of ANS, stimulates adrenal medulla which releases
epi/norepi.

Hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis (HPA): Hypothalamus stimulates anterior pituitary which
stimulates adrenal cortex to release cortisol to supress immune system (long term stress)

General Adaptation Syndrome: Theory of how our response to stress changes over time
through stages of alarm, resistance and exhaustion. Begin coping in resistance but decreased in
exhaustion and alarm stages.
Ch. 14.9 Stress and Cognition

Trier Social Stress Test: Stressful thoughts occupy working memory and interfere with mental
performance; males tend to show greater cortisol than women.

Stress effects on brain:

1. Increased activity and connectivity in amygdala

2. structural changes in hippocampus and prefrontal cortex

3. reducing dendritic branching and neurogenesis

14.10 Is Trauma Heritable

Transgenerational Stress Inheritance: Transmission of adverse effects of stress through epigenetic

mechanisms (eg. DNA methylation). Such as stress in residential schools or being in war affecting future
generations

Epigenetics: Study of how the environment can effect the expressions of our genes.

Epigenetic Transmission: Descendants from stressful events have greater risk of mental health problems
such as anxiety and schizophrenia and altered HPA axis activity.

Glucocorticoid deregulation in children of PTSD mothers: Reduced glucocorticoid receptors and similar
epigenetic modifications observed in mothers and their children

Ch. 14.11 Importance of relationships

Oxytocin and Vasopressin: Typically associated with social behaviour and bonding. Counteracts
effects of cortisol reducing inflammation.

Higher levels of vasopressin and oxytocin correlates to high positive relationships, faster
healing.

Relationship quality can predict healing time

Importance of Social Support: Social support helps reduce stress, oxytocin inhibits HPA axis.
Research found: that people with lowest amount of cortisol released during task was due to
social support and oxytocin supplement.
Ch. 14.12 Stress and Health

Psychoneuroimmunology: The study of relationship between immune system and nervous

system functioning

Finals and Illness: Reduced immune response during periods of high stress

Stress makes health worse

Cancer and stress: Norepinephrine supports cancer cell growth and cortisol magnifies
effect (people classified as pessimist will die faster)

Coronary Heart Disease and Stress: Plaque formation in blood vessels that supply the
heart. High stress and cortisol will increase inflammation and decreasing vessel size

Optimism and Pessimism

Pessimistic Explanatory Study: Tendency to interpret and explain negative events as

internally based (internal lotus of control), increased mortality.

The nun study: Controlling for common confounds, characterize nuns and see based on
their autobiography and optimism and probability to survive and age.

Ch. 14.13 Coping Strategies

Coping: Process used to manage stress, can be active (directly dealing) or passive strategies
(don’t confront issues and smoke or eat feelings)

Problem focused coping: Used when there is an identifiable problem, and we can map out a
plan to address stress

Emotion-focused coping: No identifiable solution to solve a problem, just deal with emotions.

The role of positive emotion: Eliciting positive emotions speeds recovery of ANS, negative
movies elicit a longer recovery vs comedy

Personality and Coping:

Neuroticism: Negative affectivity: tendency to respond with anxiety, anger, and guilt

Extraversion/agreeableness: Seek help from others

Conscientiousness: Distancing: Suppressing emotions to reduce stress of

responsibilities.

Openness to experience: Tend to be aware of and responsive to their emotions

Promoting Resilience: Expressive writing therapy is proven to help reduce stress

Post-traumatic growth: The capacity to grow and experience long term positive effects
in response to negative events. Result to coping not stressful event
Ch 14.14 Reducing Stress

Meditation: Cause neural changes associated with improved metacognition and executive
functions.

Mindfulness/open-monitoring: Involves attending to all thoughts, sensations, and

feelings without attempting to judge to control them.

Concentrative/focused attention: Individual focuses on a specific thought or sensation

Exercise: Slows altiemers

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF): A protein in the nervous system that

promotes survival, growth, and formation of new synapses.

Diet and microbiome: 90% of serotonin circulating in the brain is produced by bacteria in the intestines.
Animal model can show that microbiome can influence behaviour and brain chemistry.

Ch. 14.15 Feeling in Control

Perceived control

Learned Helplessness: Through our experiences and learning we cant change what
happens to us can lead to helplessness.

Individual learns actions cannot remove the stress in one situation, then
generalizes this learning to other situations

Compensatory Control: We use psychological strategies people use to preserve a sense of non-
random order when personal control is compromised.

Ex. Superstitions, conspiracy theory and the ‘just world’

Conspiracy theories:

Scientific Literacy: Objectivity, tolerating ambiguity

Cognitive biases: Conformation bias (search for info that proves point), base rate
neglect (Internet makes it seem like there’s more people with same beliefs)

Social Influences: Conformity and group think

Providing a sense of control: can allow us to feel a sense of control through trigger warnings