Abnormal psychology notes: Psychophysiological

There are a number of different things that effect general health. There are more things in the environment that can be positive or negative - pollution, mercury, smoke are all negative and there are psychological variables which impact health. Some Stressors are unique for people. Some stressors everyone finds stressful. Eg. burns, beaten up and car accidents - same. Some people have a lower threshold for finding the same. There are family resemblance approaches to stress. If everyone can agree but not really put into words. Eg. Family pictures - looks like a family, characteristics seen - could not explain, but knew same. The grandfather of research in understanding stress is Hans Seyle - 1930’s. He did experiments (with animals which I won’t share because it was cruel) to get a general idea or way animals or people respond to stress - general adaption syndrome. He saw different patients with different stressors and saw the same patterns. There is an alarm reaction 1. Autonomic system activation response (fight or flight syndrome) heart rate goes up. Blood to peripheral is adaptive in short. 2. Adaption which happens because the body can’t keep arousal for very long without - would run out and exhaust quickly. Adaption is attenuated. One or two things happen - can either adapt reasonably well or physical consequence of prolonged stress. Symptoms - development of ulcers - by per secretion of acid in stomach which eats away lining of stomach. 3. Exhaustion Phase - some damage to vital part of body which causes death to individual (not simply psychological). Schater stated that emotion getting arousal and then try to figure out why aroused. Then attribute label to arousal - verbal label. This was considered nonsense to the prof because animals show arousal as well and don’t do the verbal thing. Fear responses - anogesia due to fear pathways that lead to conscious brain. The trick for people is how do you deal with stress? - defence mechanism changed to coping mechanism. There are different ways in which people cope. Here are three basic approaches. 1. Focus on the problem and try to resolve it effectively (eg. test } stress. Task would be to review notes and read book over. 2. Emotion Focus Coping: Deep breathing exercises. Talk to friends about how they handle problems. 3. Avoidance Base Coping - Measure stress (social readjustment scale) react to stressor. There is a lot of stress in everyday lives and a number of scales are constructed to measure this. Sometimes people run into a stressor that can’t be avoided or do a lot about eg. medical - terminal. The will is in order but there is nothing objective to do to change what one is facing. Look at emotional part of what one is facing. Utilize support - structural social support - network of people available to them. Quality of interaction with social support network. If positive, social support network can guide to alter behavior to improve one’s situation. To be continued with social network can work positive or negative………………Next week cont with The New Missal (theology) or tid bit of one of my books which I write for fun and am not spending enough time on.