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1. Understand a definition of health as more than an absence of illness.
2. Understand historical changes in how the relationship between the mind and the
body.
3. Understand psychology’s role in health and health care.
4. Understand the Biopsychosocial Model and how it differs from the Biomedical Model.
5. Understand the lifespan and gender perspectives in health psychology.
6. Understand health fields that are closely linked to health psychology.
7. Understand health and psychology across cultures.
8. Understand research methods in health psychology.
Textbook Notes
Historical Changes Between the Mind and the Body
● Earliest culture
○ considered as one unit (holism)
● Early beliefs
○ physical and mental illness were caused by mystical forces(evil spirits) that
entered the body and spirits were exercised
○ Trephination procedures were used by making a hole on skull to allow spirits
to leave while the physician or shaman performs a ritual
○ Seen as God's punishment for doing evil things
○ Cure --> priests (physicians) driving out evil through torture
○ Church came to control the practice of medicine
○ Renaissance: priests treat the mind, physicians treat the body
● Ancient Greece and Roma: holistic view
● Humoral Theory of Illness(Hippocrates)
○ body contains 4 uids called humors, disease arises when the 4 circulating
uids of the body are out of balance (blood, black bile, yellow bile and
phlegm)
● Modern view/Western culture
○ Western culture --> come in a full circle in answering this question (dualism)
■ Mind and body are separate entities(Plato)
■ Mind and body are interrelated.(St. Thomas)
■ Illnesses can be localized, with pathology in specic parts of the body
and different diseases have different effects.(Galen)
■ Mind and body are separate entities. From God entered to more
human-centerer.
■ Body as machine, mind and body communicate through the pineal
gland. No soul. (Rene Descartes)
○ from the biomedical(dualism) model to biopsychosocial(holism) model
,What is Health?
● Definition
○ "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity (physical/mental weakness)"
● An Illness/Wellness Continuum --> represents people's differing health
statuses
● Comparing Illness Today/The Past
○ 17-19th centuries --> Infectious Disease (disorders caused by organisms,
such as bacteria and viruses, in the body) + Dietary diseases (malnutrition)
■ caused by the arrival of European settlers
○ 20-21st centuries --> Chronic Diseases (degenerative diseases, e.g. heart
disease, cancer & stroke) + Injury
■ Caused by exposure of chemicals in industries
● Types of Chronic Disease
○ Cancer
○ Heart Disease
○ Stroke
○ Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease 慢性阻塞性肺疾病 (COPD) --> an
obstructive lung disease characterized by long-term breathing problems and
poor airflow
○ Accidents
● Psychology's Role in Health
○ Health care system flaws
■ Rising health care costs --> new approaches for improving health is
needed
■ Burden on taxpayers --> structure of health care system (Canada's
publicly funded health system is based on the principle of equal
access to care at no cost to the individual)
○ Individual variation
■ Lifestyle and illness
, ■ Changes in lifestyle --> reduce chronic illnesses
■ Social pressure to engage in non-healthy activities --> physical
addiction/psychological dependency
■ Risk factors (associated with health, but does not necessarily cause
illness)
■ Biological (inherited certain genes)
■ Behavioral (smoking)
■ Personality and illness
■ Personality (positive/negative) affects health --> ways of
dealing with depression, anxiety, hostility --> different
outcomes
■ Illness affects one's emotional adjustment & outlook --> health
problems lead to mental health issues
○ Health care models
■ Psychosomatic medicine (Psychoanalysis, Psychiatrists)
■ Behavioral medicine (Conditioning, Interdisciplinary, Biofeedback)
■ Health psychology (Behaviors, Perception, Cognition, Lifestyles)
● Current Perspectives
○ Biopsychological Perspectives
■ Biological factors (genetic materials and processes by which we inherit
characteristics from our parents + function and structure of the
person's physiology)
■ The efficient/effective functioning of these systems depend on
how body components operate and interact with each other
■ Psychological factors
■ Cognition (mental activity that encompasses perceiving,
learning, remembering, thinking, interpreting, believing and
problem solving)
■ Emotion (subjective feeling that affects our thoughts, behavior,
and physiology) --> also important for seeking treatment
■ Motivation (the process within individuals that gets them to
start some activity, choose its direction, and persist in it) -->
make changes for important people in their lives
■ Social factors
■ Interaction --> individual and group affects one another
■ Friends, bonding within families
■ Society affects the health of individuals --> promoting certain
values of out culture through mass media
■ Our community affects lifestyles
■ Our body as a System
■ Includes immune and nervous systems, consisting tissue and
cells
■ Some entities are constantly changing, components interrelate
, ● Lifespan and Gender Perspectives
○ Lifespan perspective --> human development determined by multiple
aspects and frameworks + characteristics of a person are considered related
to their prior, current and future development
○ Gender perspective --> males and females differ in their biological
functioning, health-related behaviors
● Related Fields
○ Epidemiology (the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence,
distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to
health.)
■ Mortality (death, generally large scale)
■ Morbidity (having a illness, injury or disability)
■ Prevalence (# of cases)
■ Incidence (# of new cases)
■ Epidemic (the incidence of a infectious disease increased rapidly)
■ Pandemic (an epidemic increased --> worldwide/international
proportions)
○ Public health
○ Sociology
● Socio-cultural Perspectives
○ Occurs within specific countries --> varies with ethnicity, gender
○ Everyone values good health --> not everyone gets access to
environments/health care that promote such aspect
○ Factors that affects health
■ Environmental pollution, heredity, economic barriers to health care,
cultural differences in people's diet, health-related beliefs and values
Types of Research Methods
● Experiments
○ Random assignment
○ Controlled settings
○ Double blind (both sides participants are unaware)
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