PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Influenza Vaccine, Pluralistic Ignorance, Explanatory Style

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Rana Pishva

Document Summary

The study of how individual, biological, and environmental factors affect physical health. Common measure of life stressors: social readjustment rating scale (srrs) or holmes and rahe stress scale. Chronic stress > unhealthy behaviours & stress hormones > weakened immune system. Three stages when exposed to severe stressors: alarm. Fight or flight response occurs: organism"s responses center around the autonomic nervous system, resistance to stressor temporarily drops below normal, may experience shock: impairment of normal physiological functioning, resistance (adaptation) Body adjusts to stressors: autonomic nervous system returns to normal functioning, resistance to stressor increases to above-normal levels, exhaustion. If exposure to stressor continues for a long enough time, ability to adapt is lost: resistance falls dramatically; organism susceptible to illness/death. Long term psychological stress can also put organism through these stages. Stress is the result of our appraisal and categorization of events based on how they will affect us, and the assessment of our capacity to respond to those events.