PSYC 2301 Study Guide - Final Guide: Primary Healthcare, Antibiotics, Jargon

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2301
• Professor: Tarry Ahuja

Document Summary

Individual differences/personality (hypochondriacs, neuroticism (you sneeze and assume you have the flu), negative affectivity (if you"re depressed, anxious, it depresses your immune system and makes you more susceptible to illness)) Cultural differences (differences in emotional responses europeans discuss ailments, asian cultures do not talk about it, north america is somewhere in between). Situational factors (medical students" disease) as they study each illness, many members of the class imagine that they have it. Studying the symptoms leads students to focus on their own internal states. Symptom recognition is a very individual thing and is determined both by individual differences in attention to one"s body and by transitory situational factors that influence the direction of one"s attention. Common observation reveals that some individuals maintain their normal activities in the face of what would seem to be overwhelming symptoms, whereas others take to their beds the moment they detect any minor bodily disturbance. A patients" own implicit common sense beliefs about their illnesses.