HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY:

STRESS, COPING, AND

WELL-BEING
(CHAPTER 14)
What’s on the Agenda for this Week?
• What is Health Psychology?
• Stress and Coping
• Well-Being and Happiness
 WHAT IS HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY?
Health Psychology
Investigates the
psychological factors
related to wellness and
illness, including the
prevention, diagnosis, and
treatment of medical
It is a union between problems
medicine and
psychology
 Stress and Coping
Stress: People’s response to threatening,
challenging, or uncertain events
Stressors: Sources of stress
– Circumstances and events in life
e.g., deadlines, relationship
problems, economic hardship,
political instability, threats to
security, infectious diseases
 The Nature of Stressors:
My Stress is your Pleasure
• Stress varies according to individuals
e.g., bungee jumping

• For people to consider an event stressful,

they must:
– Perceive it as threatening
or challenging
– Lack the resources to
deal with it effectively
! Positive events may also produce stress !
Because they may also pose challenges and
uncertainty
e.g., birth of a baby, a new marriage, going to
university, starting a new job, a first date

https://www.
youtube.com
/watch?v=8B
N6nUoJBDk
 The High Cost of Stress
• Stress has both biological and psychological
consequences
• Stress raises the levels of cortisol, adrenalin, heart
rate, and blood pressure
Adaptive in the short-run as these reactions
prepare the organism to fight-or-flight behavior
But prolonged exposure causes deterioration of
body tissues such as blood vessels and the
heart, and inhibition of the immune system
Increased susceptibility to diseases
e.g., cardiovascular diseases, cancer, allergies, flu
 Psychophysiological
(Psychosomatic) Disorders
Medical problems influenced
by an interaction of
psychological, emotional, and
physical difficulties
e.g., high blood pressure,
headaches, backaches, skin rashes,
indigestion, fatigue, constipation

• Stress is a major cause for

these diseases
 Stress also affects our health badly through:
• Increasing the chances of engaging in harmful
behavior
e.g., smoking, drinking, using drugs, not exercising,
poor eating habits, not getting enough sleep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzrjEP5MOT4
 Coping with Stress
Problem-Focused Coping
•Attempting to modify the stressful problem or
source of stress

e.g., starting a study group to improve poor exam performance

Emotion-Focused Coping
•Managing emotions in the face of stress, seeking to
change the way one feels about or perceives a
problem
e.g., accepting sympathy from others, looking at the bright side of a
situation
• People use
– Problem-focused strategies more often
in situations they see as relatively
modifiable
– Emotion-focused strategies more
frequently when they perceive
circumstances as unchangeable
 Seeking Social Support
• Turning to caring, interested others for help

e.g., talking to a friend about a problem

“You keep things bootled up,
don’t”
• All of these coping strategies are
helpful/functional/adaptive
– Enable us to experience
lower levels of stress
and be better able to
cope with it

• They can be used simultaneously

e.g., when you get a frustrating e-mail from your boss, you
can go out for a run (emotion-focused), you can talk to your
peers about it (seeking social support), and then you can
decide to talk to your boss (problem-focused)
 Avoidant Coping
• Using escape routes, instead of dealing with the
problem
e.g., drug or alcohol use

- Least effective, potentally harmful!!

 Well-Being and Happiness
Subjective Well-Being: People’s sense of their
happiness and satisfaction with their lives
Characteristics of happy people:
– Have high
self-esteem -
Positive illusions
– Are optimistic
– Have a firm sense
of control
– Like to be around
other people
 ! Money does not buy happiness !
• Despite the ups and downs of life, most people
adapt to life by returning to a steady-state level
of happiness
• Sharing money with others and using it to buy
experiences instead of goods increases well-
being
e.g., going on a trip
instead of buying a
new i-pad
https://w
ww.youtub
e.com/wat
ch?v=JSIkd
WxotKw
 ANY QUESTIONS?
ANYTHING YOU WOULD
LIKE TO ADD?