PSYC 2301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Stress Management, Health Promotion, Etiology
15 Jun 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
Health Psychology
• Health Psychology is..
o Understanding psychological influences on:
▪ how people stay healthy,
• What people do in their day to day lives to remain in good health
▪ why they become ill, and
• Especially for things that are under our control (e.g. eating unhealthy,
smoking)
▪ how they respond when they do get ill
o Understanding psychological consequences of illness
▪ What happens when you get sick
o Understanding impact of health professionals
▪ The impact of how doctors and nurses interact with us
o Helping people maintain good health
• Questions in Health Psychology
o Write down a question related to health that really intrigues you
▪ The correlation between physical health and psychological health?
o Write down something that you would really like to change about your health
▪
• Areas of health psychology
o Health promotion and maintenance (e.g., exercise, eat well)
▪ Engaging in helathy behaviors
o Prevention and treatment of illness (e.g., reduce blood pressure, stress management)
▪ Helping medical proffesionals, working with doctors to treat illnesses.
o Etiology (causes) and correlates of health, illness and dysfunction (e.g., personality,
cognitive factors)
▪ How does our personality affect health and wellness?
o Impact of health professionals on people’s behavior (e.g., treatment adherence, placebo
effect)
• Why health psychology
o Changing patterns of illness
▪ Psychological cost of chronic illnesses
▪ People are living longer, different health problems
o Lifestyle contribution to health problems
▪ Rising medical costs
▪ E.g. smoking= cancer.
▪ Understanding why people engage in these behaviors and trying to change
them is health psychology
