Stress

• A negative emotional state occurring in response to events that are perceived as taxing or exceeding a person’s resources or ability to cope

Health psychology

• The branch of psychology that studies how biological, behavioral, and social factors influence health, illness, medical treatment, and health-related behaviors

Biopsychosocial model

• The belief that physical health and illness are determined by the complex interaction of biological, psychological , and social factors

Stressors

• Events or situations that are perceived as harmful, threatening, or challenging

Daily hassles

• Everyday minor events that annoy and upset people

Conflict

• A situation in which a person feels pulled between two or more opposing desires, motives, or goals

Acculturative stress

• The stress that results from the pressure of adapting to a new culture

Fight-or-flight response

• A rapidly occurring chain of internal physical reactions that prepare people either to fight or take flight from an immediate threat

Catecholamines

• Hormones secreted by the adrenal medulla that cause rapid physiological arousal; include adrenaline and noradrenaline

General adaptation syndrome

• Selye’s term for the three-stage progression of physical changes that occur when and organism is exposed to intense and prolonged stress. The three stages are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion

Corticosteroids

• Hormones released by the adrenal cortex that play a key role in the body’s response to long-term stressors

Immune system

• Body system that produces specialized white blood cells that protect the body from viruses, bacteria, and tumor cells

Lymphocytes

• Specialized white blood cells that are responsible for immune defenses

Psychoneuroimmunology

• An interdisciplinary field that studies the interconnections among psychological processes, nervous and endocrine system functions, and the immune system

Optimistic explanatory style

• Accounting for negative events or situations with external, unstable, and specific explanations

Pessimistic explanatory style

• Accounting for negative events or situations with internal, stable, and global explanations.

Type A behavior pattern

• A behavioral and emotional style characterized by a sense of time urgency, hostility, and competitiveness

Social support

• The resources provided by other people in times of need

Coping

• Behavioral and cognitive responses used to deal with stressors; involves efforts to change circumstances, or your interpretation of circumstances, to make them more favorable and less threatening

Problem focused coping

• Coping efforts primarily aimed at directly changing or managing a threatening or harmful stressor

Emotion-focused coping

• Coping efforts primarily aimed at relieving or regulating the emotional impact of a stressful situation

Robert Ader (b. 1932)

• American psychologist who, with immunologist Nicholas Cohen, first demonstrated that immune system responses could be classically conditioned; helped establish the new interdisciplinary field of psychoneuroimmunology

Walter B. Cannon (1871-1945)

• American physiologist who made several important contributions to psychology, especially in the study of emotions. Described the fight-or-flight response, which involves the sympathetic nervous system and the endocrine system

Janice Kiecolt-Glaser (b. 1951)

• American psychologist who, with immunologist Ronald Glaser, has conducted extensive research on the effects of stress on the immune system

Richard Lazarus (b. 1922)

• American psychologist who helped promote the cognitive perspective in the study of emotion and stress; developed the cognitive appraisal model of stress and coping with co-researcher Susan Folkman

Martin Seligman (b. 1942)

• American psychologist who conducted research on explanatory style and the role it plays in stress, health, and illness

Hans Selye (1907-1982)

• Canadian endocrinologist who was a pioneer in stress research; defined stress as “the nonspecific response of the body to any demand placed on it” and described a three-stage response to prolonged stress that he termed the general adaptation syndrome