Chapter 12 - Emotion, Stress, and Health

Emotion: complex pattern of bodily and mental changes that includes physiological arousal,
feelings, cognitive processes, visible expressions, and specific behavioural reaction made in response to
a station perceived as personally significant
-Associated cognitive processes include:
-Interpretations, memories, and expectations
-Specific responses to specific events
-Typically short lived and relatively intense
Moods: less intense and may last several days

Basic Emotions and Culture

-Darwin believed that emotions evolve alongside other important aspects of human and nonhuman
structures and functions
-Adaptive functions are highly specific, coordinated modes of operation in human brain
-Emotions are inherited, specialised mental states
-Designed to deal with certain class of recurring situations
-Communication through emotions may avert direct conflict
Are Some Emotional Responses iInnate?
Silvan Tomkins
-Emphasised the pervasive role of immediate, unlearned active(emotional) reactions
-Infants are prewired to respond to certain stimuli with an emotional response
-11 month old infants produces same factual expression when facing fear and anger from different
cultures
-Childrens ability to display distinct facial expressions for negative emotions emerges after first year
-Infants have innate ability to interpret facial expressions of others
Are Facial Expressions Universal?
Paul Ekman
-All people share an overlap in facial language
-Demonstrated that a set of emotional expressions is universal to human species
-Presumably because it is an innate component of evolutionary heritage
-Individuals are generally able to identify expressions associated with seven emotions
-Cross cultural differences support hypothesis that cultures have different dialects for facial expression
-There are consistent cross-cultural differences in specific movements of facial muscles people perform to
create different facial expressions
-People find it easier to recognise facial expressions produced by members of their own culture
How Does Culture Constrain Emotional Expression
-Different cultures have different standards for how emotion should be managed
-Cultures establish social rules for when people may show certain emotions for social
appropriateness of certain types of emotional displays
-People acquire cultural norms for emotion expression that requires them not to show overt responses
Appropriate Pain Behaviour Questionnaire (APBQ)
-What should be the proper behavioural displays for pain
e.g. Woman should be acceptable to tolerate pain in most circumstances
It is acceptable for men to cry when in pain
-In general, Japanese participants provided lower scores on APBQ
-Indicated less approval for open emotional expressions of pain

Theory of Emotion
Physiology of Emotion
-When experiencing strong emotions, there are physiological responses
-Heart races, respiration goes up, mouth dries, muscles tenses
Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)
-Prepares body for emotional responses in both sympathetic and parasympathetic devisor
-Balance depends on quality and intensity of arousing stimulation
-Mild, unpleasant stimulation > sympathetic division is more active
-Mild, pleasant stimulation > parasympathetic division is more active
-More intense stimulation > either/both divisions are increasingly involved
-Strong emotions (fear/anger) activates bodys emergency reaction system
-Swiftly and silently prepares body for potential danger
Sympathetic nervous system: directly releases hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine) from
adrenal glands
-Leads to internal organs to release blood sugar, blood pressure, and increase sweating and salivation
Parasympathetic nervous system: inhibits release of activating hormones
-Hormones continue to circulate bloodstream for a while
-Patterns of autonomic activity are an important part of common evolved biological heritage

Central Nervous System

-Integration of both hormonal and neural aspects is controlled by hypothalamus and limbic system
-Control systems for emotions and pattern of attack, defines and flight
-Amygdala acts as gateway for emotion and filter for memory
-Attaches significance to information received from sense
-Strong role in attaching meaning to negative experiences
-Cortex is involved in emotional experiences through internal neural network and connections with other
parts of body
-Provides associations, memories and meanings that integrate psychological experience and
biological responses
-Opposite emotions lead to greatest activity in different parts of brain
-Left hemisphere has greater activity for positive pictures
-Right hemisphere has greater activity for negative pictures
-Researchers suggested there are two distinct systems that handle approach-related and withdrawalrelated emotional responses
James-Lange Theory of Body Reaction
-Emotion stems from bodily feedback
-Perceiving a stimulus causes autonomic arousal and other bodily actions that lead to the experience of
specific emotion
-Peripheralist Theory
-Assigns most prominent role in emotion chain to visceral reactions
-Actions of ANS that are peripheral to CNS
e.g. We feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike and afraid because we tremble
Cannon-Bard Theory of Central Neural Processes
-Centralist focus on action of central nervous system
-Noted that visceral activity is irrelevant for emotional experience
-Experimental animals continue to respond emotionally after viscera is surgically separated from CNS
-Argued that ANS responses are too slow to be source of split second elicited emotions
-Argued that emotion requires brain interceding between input stimulation and output responses
-Emotion-arousing stimulus has two simultaneous effects
-Bodily arousal via sympathetic nervous system
-Subjective experience of emotion via cortex
-Theory states that emotion stimulus produces two concurrent reactions, arousal and experience of
emotion, that do not cause each other
-Predicts independence between bodily and psychological responses
Cognitive Appraisal Theories of emotion
Stanley Schacher - Two Factor Theory of Emotion
-Experience of emotion is the joint effect of two factors of physiological arousal and cognitive appraisal
-All arousal is assumed to be general and undifferentiated
-Arousal is first step in emotion sequence
-One appraises physiological arousal in effort to discover feelings/emotional label
Lazarus Cognitive Appraisal Theory of Emotion
-Emotional experiences cannot be understood solely in terms of what happens in the person or in the
brain
-Emotion grows out of ongoing transactions with environment that are evaluated
-Emphasised that appraisal occurs without conscious thought
Dutton and Aron (1974)
-Female researcher interviewed male participants who crossed one of two bridges
-Safe and sturdy bridge
-Wobbly and precarious bridge
-Researcher pretended to be interested in scenery on creativity
-Asked men to write brief stories about an ambiguous picture that included a woman
-Invited men to call her if they wanted more information
-Men crossing dangerous bridge wrote more sexual imagery and called researcher 4x more than safe
bridge
-Also arranged another group of men to be interviewed 10 mins after crossing dangerous bridge
-Gives time for physical arousal symptom to reduce
-did not show signs of sexual response
-Suggests main source of arousal is danger from bridge
-Misattribution could be made when assessing source of arousal
-People appraise environmental cues to interpret their physiological arousal
-Interpretation of at least some emotional experiences may not require appraisal
-ANS activity accompanying different emotions are not identical
-Experiencing strong arousal without obvious cause doesnt lead to neutral, undifferentiated state
-People generally interpret unexplained physical arousal as negative
Robert Zojonc

-Demonstrated conditions which people have preferences without knowing why

-Used mere exposure effect
-Participants were presented variety of stimuli that was flashed briefly so they couldnt recognise it
consciously
-Participants then gave rating on stimuli (some old - flashed, and some new)
-Gave higher ratings to old items as they experienced positive emotions without conscious awareness
-Cognitive appraisal is one of the important processes of emotional experience

Impact of Moods and Emotions

-Moods have strong effect on how information is processed
-People in negative moods tend to process information in more detailed and effortful fashion
-Participants in sad moods perform better in making correct judgments of guilt
-Less gullible
-Negative moods sharpen focus of attention whereas positive mood tend to broaden focus
-Positive moods find it harder to ignore irrelevant information
-Positive moods produces broader and more flexible processing style, producing more creative thinking
and problem solving
-Negative emotional arousal often causes one to fall prey to the Weapon focus effect
Weapon focus effect: attention is focused onto a weapon only
High priority: aspects that are more prominent / more important
-Emotional arousal causes people to focus more mental resources on high priority stimuli
-Memory is better
Emotional Regulation: processes through which people change intensity and duration of emotions they
experience
1. Distraction from events that make one anxious
2. Reappraisal of source of arousal

Subject Well-Being
Subject well-being: individuals overall evaluation of life satisfaction and happiness
Positive psychology: movement that applies research to provide people with knowledge and skills that
allow them to experience fulfilling lives
-Genetic factors (MZ twins vs DZ twins) account for 51% for men and 49% in women
-Genetic factors account for 85% correlation across time for men and 78% for women
-Suggests that personality plays important role
-Differences in subjective well-being are consequences of personality traits people inherit at birth
-high in emotional stability and social engagement are more likely to report high subjective well-being
-Important component is balance of positive and negative emotions
-Higher levels of life satisfaction when they have more positive emotional experiences
-Positive emotions have twice as much impact
-Major negative life event often have a damaging impact on subjective well being
-People struggling to meet basic needs often repot tower levels of life satisfaction and happiness
-Once people pass the threshold of basic needs being secure, correlation between wealth and subjective
well-being is quite modest

!!

Stress of Living
-Stress-free life would offer no challenge, no difficulties to surmount, no new field to conquer, no reasong
to sharpen withs or to improve abilities
-Organisms must solve these problems so survive and thrive
Stress: pattern of responses organisms make to stimulus events that disturb its equilibrium and tax or
exceed its ability to cope
Stressor: an internal or external event or stimulus that induces stresses
-Individuals response takes place on several levels
-Physiological, behavioural, emotional, and cognitive
-People typically associate stress with distress and assume its bad
-There can also be eustress (good stress)

Physiological stress reactions

Acute stress: transient state of arousal with typically clear onset and offset patterns
Chronic stress: state of continuous arousal which demands are perceived as greater than inner and
outer resources available for dealing with them
Emergency Reactions to Acute Stress
Water Cannon
-Humans/animals respond to danger with fight or flight response

Fight-or-flight response: sequence of activity triggered in nerves and gales to prepare body to either
defend or run
-Hypothalamus is the centre of stress response due to twin functions in emergencies
1. Controlling of Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)
-Regulates activities of bodys organs
-Breathing and heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and blood vessels constrict
-Messages go to smooth muscles to stop certain bodily functions that are irrelevant to prepare for
emergency
e.g. Digestion
-Signals inner part of adrenal glands (adrenal medulla) to release hormones epinephrine and
norepinephrine
-Signals number of other organs to perform specific functions
e.g. Spleen releases more red blood corpuscles to aid clotting
e.g. Bone marrow is stimulated to make more white corpuscles to combat possible infection
2. Activates Pituitary Glands
-Secretes two hormones:
1. Thyrotropic hormone (TTH) stimulates thyroid gland which makes more energy available to the body
2. Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) stimulates outer part of adrenal glands (adrenal cortex)
-Releases hormones that control metabolic processes
-Releases sugar from liver into blodd
-Signals various organs to release 30 other hormones
Shelley Taylor
-Suggested these physiological responses may have different consequences for females
-Suggested females experience tend-and-befrend responses
Tend-and-befriend response: stressors prompt females to protect their offspring and join social
groups to reduce vulnerability
*Neither Fight-or-flight nor Tend-and-befriend response is entirely useful for contemporary lives
General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) and Chronic Stress
Hans Selye: investigated effects of continued severe stress
-Suggested that many kinds of stressors can trigger same reaction/general bodily responses
-All stressor call for adaptation
-maintain/retain integrity and well being by respiring equilibrium/homeostasis
General Adaptation syndrome (GAS)
Stage 1: Alarm reactions
-Brief periods of bodily arousal that prepares body for vigorous activity
Stage 2: Resistance
-Body enters this stage when stressor is prolonged
-Organisms can endure and resist further debilitating effects of prolonged stressor
Stage 3: Exhaustion
-Body enters this stage when stressor is sufficiently long lasting / intense
-Bodys resources become depleted
-There are dangers associated to this stage
e.g. ACTH in long term reduces ability of natural killer cells to destroy cancerous cells/life threatening
infections
-Increased production of stress hormones compromises integrity of immune system
-Explains psychosomatic disorders
Psychosomatic disorders: illnesses that can not be wholly explained by physical causes

Psychological Stress Reactions

-Many are learned
Major Life Events
Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)
-Simple measure for rating the degree of adjustments required by various life changes, both pleasant and
unpleasant
-Life-change units are assigned to each event
Life-change units: measure of stress levels of different types of change experienced during a given
period
-LCU estimates went up 45% from 1960s to 1990s
-Women also reported experiencing more stress than men did
-There is a positive correlation between SRRS scores and participants total number of medic visits
Traumatic Events
-Events that are negative, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and ambiguous is particularly stressful
-Especially true in cases of Traumatic events
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD): stress reaction individuals suffer from persistent reexperiences
of traumatic event in form of flashbacks/nightmares

-Sufferers experience emotional numbing in relation to everyday events and feelings of alienation from
other people
Chronic Stressors
-Chronic stress of coping with anxiety of a diagnosis and treatment may impair health more rapidly than
disease alone
-Groups of people suffer chronic stress by virtue of socioeconomic status/racial identity
-Early economic hardship predicted higher levels of adult health risks
-Childhood maltreatment also had negative consequences
-The more chronic stressors participants had endured as a child, the greater disease risk as adults
Daily Hassles
-Types of stressors that recur day-to-day, confronting most people most of the time
-the more frequent and intense the hassles, the poorer was physical and mental health
-Adolescents reporting highest levels of daily hassles reported most negative states of mental health
-Also reported lower levels of life satisfaction
-Daily hassles have considerable impact on peoples sense of well-being

Coping with Stress

Coping: process of dealing with internal/external demands perceived as straining or exceeding
individuals resources
-May consist of behavioural, emotional or motivational responses and thoughts
Appraisal of Stress
Step 1: Define what ways are situations stressful
Cognitive appraisal: cognitive interpretation and evaluation of a stressor
-Play central role in defining situation
-Two stages in Congitive Appraisal
Primary Appraisal
-Initial evaluation of seriousness of demand
-Appraise potential impact of stressor
Secondary Appraisal
-Evaluate personal and social resources available to deal with stressor
-Consider action options that are needed
Stress moderator variables: variables that change impact of a stressor given type of stress reaction
-Filters/modifies usual effects of stressor
Type of Coping Responses
Anticipatory coping: efforts made in advance of a potentially stressful event to overcome, reduce, or
tolerate imbalance between perceived demands and available resources
-Anticipating stressful event leads to many thoughts and feelings that may be stress inducing themselves
-Two ways of coping
1. Problem-Directed Coping
-Confront the problem directly through overt action/realistic problem-solving activities
-Fight or flight
-Useful for managing controllable stressors
Controllable stressors: stressors that can be changed/eliminated through actions
2. Emotion-Focused Coping
-Lessen he discomfort associated with stress
-Does not change the stressor but makes one feel better
-Useful for managing impact of uncontrollable stressors
*Are coping strategies as steps are taking to modify threat towards well-being
-Availability of multiple coping strategies is adaptive as there will be a higher chance to achieve match
and manage stress
-Some individuals meet stressors with particular degree of resilience
-Achieve positive outcomes despite serious threats
Modifying Cognitive Strategies
-Powerful way is to change evaluations of stressors and self-defeating cognitions on ways one deal with
stress
-Reappraising nature of stressor
-Reconstruct cognitions on stress reaction
Donald Meichenbaum
-Proposed 3-phase process that allows for stress inoculation
1. People work to develop greater awareness of actual behaviour
-What instigates behaviour and what are the results of that behaviour
-Keep Daily logs
-Can increase feelings of control
2. Identify new behaviours that negate maladaptive, self-defeating behaviours
3. Individuals appraise consequences of new behaviours
-Avoid former internal dialogue of putdowns

-Illustrates responses and self-statements that are incompatible with previous defeatist cognitions
-Main component of successful coping is establishing perceived control over stressor
Perceived control: belief that one can make a difference in course/consequence of some event/
experience
Social Support
Social support: resources provided by others to help person cope with stress
-Sends message that one is loved, cared for, esteemed, and connected to opted people in network
of communication and mutual obligation
-People provide tangible support (money, transportation, housing) and informational support (advice,
personal feedback, information)
-People can handle job stressors, unemployment, marital disruptions, serious illness and everyday
problems better
-Individuals experiencing high levels of positive social interactions have few symptoms of PTSD
-Women are more affected by level of emotional support
-It is important that individuals get the type of supper they want/need
-Receiving support they do not want may have worse psychological outcomes
-People who believe they can control their own lives are less likely to look towards others as coping
resources

Positive Effects of Stress

-Eustress is often an important motivation for people to watch some events
-People can experience positive outcomes and personal growth from deeply negative events
Benefit finding: peoples ability to identify positively aspects of negative life events
-Adolescents who were able to find more benefits could cope with stressful evens better and keep up with
treatments
-Has potential to act as stress buffer
-Able to keep negative emotions from overwhelming coping responses
-People amy also experience posttraumatic growth in response to illness, accidents, disasters etc
Posttraumatic growth: positive psychological change
1. New possibilities
2. Relating to others
3. Personal strength
4. Appreciation of life
5. Spiritual change
-Not everyone experiences post traumatic growth

!!

Health Psychology: branch of psychology devoted to understanding ways people stay healthy, reasons
they become ill, and ways they respond when they become ill
Health: general condition of body and mind in terms of sourness and vigour

Biopsychosocial Model of Health

Traditional Health Practices
-Cultures understand the importance of communal health and relaxation rituals in enhancement of quality
of life
e.g. Navajo
-Disease, illness, and well-being is attributed to sisal harmony and mind body interactions
-illnesses is seen as outcome of any disharmony cause dby evil introduced
Hozho: concept of harmony, peace of mind, goodness, ideal family relationships, beauty in arts and
craft, and health of body and spirit
-Seeks to banish illness and restore health through combined efforts of all family members to reactive
hozho
-Guarantees powerful social support network
Towards a Biopsychosocial Model
-Medicine treats physical body as separate from the psyche
-Mind is important only for emotions and beliefs
-Good and bad life events can affect immune system
-People are resilient with respect to negative consequences of stress
-Adequate social support can change length of hospital stays
Biospychosocial model: model of health and illness suggesting links among nervous system, immune
system, behavioural styles, cognitive processing, and environmental domains of health
-Bio > reality of biological illness
-Psycho > psychological component of health
-Social > social component of health
-Views health as a dynamic, multidimensional experience

Wellness: optimal health, incorporating physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, social

and environmental aspects of life
-Goal is to use psychological knowledge to promote wellness and positive health behaviours

Health Promotion
Health promotion: developing general strategies and specific tactics to eliminate/reduce risk
that people get sick
-Through use of research, public education, development of vaccines, and changes in public health
standards
Smoking
-Comparing MZ and DZ twins suggests that tobacco use is of heritability of 0.5 or higher
-Impact of environment (peer pressure)
-Personality differences also helps predict which people will start smoking
Sensation seeking: more likely to engage in risky activities
-Associated with initiation of smoking
-High levels of sensation seeking were strong predictor of which adolescents will being smoking
-Stages in which people pass through representing readiness to quit
1. Precontemplation
2. Contemplation
3. Preparation
4. Action
5. Maintenance
-Intervenions can be designed to nudge smokers up scale of reediness
-Successful smoking-cessation treatment requires smokers physiological and psychological needs be met
-Physiological side > nicotine replacement therapy
-Psychological side > there are huge numbers of ex smokers and it is possible to quit
-Must learn strategies to cope with strong temptations after quitting
-Cognitive coping techniques help alleviate effects
AIDS and HIV
-Generally transmitted through
1. Exchange of semen/blood during sexual contact
2. Sharing of intravenous needles
-Can only protect oneself by making permanent changes in patterns of sexual behaviour and use of drug
paraphernalia
Thomas Coates
-Tried to prevent further spreading of AIDS
-Successful interventions require three components:
1. Information
2. Motivation
3. Behavioural skills
*Information must be delivered in fashion that does not undermine peoples motivation

Treatment
-Focuses on helping people adjust to their illnesses and recover from them
Patient Adherence
-Patients are often given treatment regimen
-Meds, dietary changes, etc
-Failure to adhere is one of the most serious problems in health care
-Rate of patient non adherence is approximately 50%
-People who perceive greater threat from disease show greater likelihood to adhere to treatment
-Patient facing serious disease which leaves them in poor physical health show lower levels of adherence
-Lack of adherence may be due to growing pessimism about treatment being successful
-Matching attitudes between patient and physician will increase patient adherence
Harnessing the Mind to Heal the Body
-Psychological strategies can improve well-being
-Tension responses can be controlled by psychological techniques
e.g. relaxation and biofeedback
-Complete relaxation is a potent antistress response
Relaxation response: condition in which muscle tension, cortical activity, heart rate, and blood pressure
all decrease and breathing slows
-Reduced electrical activity in the brain
-Reduce input to the CNS from outside environment is lowered
-Four conditions is necessary:
1. Quiet environment
2. Closed eyes
3. Comfortable position

4. Repetitive mental device

Biofeedback: self-regulatory technique used for variety of special applications
e.g. Control of blood pressure, relaxation of forehead muscles, and diminishment of extreme blushing
Neal Miller (1978)
-Procedure that makes individual aware of ordinary weak or internal responses by providing clear
external signals
-Patient is allowed to see their bodily reactions
-Monitored and amplified by equipment
-Task is to control level of these external cues
Psychoneuroimmunology
-Psychological states can have an impact on immune function
Robert Ader and Nicholas Cohen (1981)
-Demonstrated that immune function can be modified by psychological states
Psychoneuroimmunology: area investigating interactions of psychological states, nervous system, and
immune system
-Stressors have a consistent impact on ability of immune system to function effectively
-People can experience chronic stress as a consequence of this town personalities
-Individuals with difficulty controlling their anger took more time to heal same type of standardised
wonds
Psychological Impact on Health Outcomes
James Pennebaker
-Shown that suppressing thoughts and feelings associated with personal traumas, failures, and guilty/
shameful experiences take a devastating toll on mental and physical health
-Undermines bodys defines against illness
-Experience of letting go often is followed by improved physical and psychological health weeks and
months later

Personality and Health

Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman
-Relationship between constellation of personality traits and probability of illness, specifically coronary
heart disease
Type A behaviour pattern: complex patterns of behaviours and emotions including being excessively
competitive, aggressive, impatient, time urgent, and hostile
-Often dissatisfied with some central aspect of lives
-Have intense drive for achievement
Type B behaviour pattern: everything Type A is not, individuals are less competitive and less hostile
-People who showed Type A behaviour were stricken with coronary heart disease considerably more often
than individuals in general population
-Hostility may affect health for both physiological reasons and psychological reasons
-Leading to chronic overarousal of bodys stress responses
-Leading hostile people to practice poor health habits and avoid social support
-Optimist believe they can prevail over stressors and tend to engage them head on
-Showed better immune response in face of lower demands
-Showed worse immune response in face of higher demands

Job Burnout and the Health-Care System

Job burnout: syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, and reduced personal
accomplishment
-Often experienced by workers in professions that demand high-intensity interpersonal contact with
patients, clients, or the public
-Correlated with greater absenteeism and turnover, impaired job performance, poor relations with
coworkers, family problems, and poor personal health
-Reaching higher levels due to organisational downsizing, job restructuring, and greater concerns for
profits
-Quality of patient-practictioner interaction is greatly influenced by number of patients practitioner
provides care
-Greater the number, the greater cognitive sensory and emotional overload
-Emotional strain of such prolonged contact can be eased by number of means