Lazarus’s Cognitive-Mediational Theory of Emotions

Health Psychology: how our physical activities, psychological traits, and social relationships affect our overall heath and illness rates ●​ Clinical or counseling psychologists that work with doctors, or teaching ●​ Seeks to understand how thoughts and behavior can affect ability to fight off illnesses or likelihood of getting sick, also factors like wealth, ethnicity. Clinical Health Psychology: using knowledge from researchers to promote healthy lifestyles, help people maintain health, and prevent/treat illnesses Behavioral Psychology: medicine, psychology, and other fields related to health issues Lazarus’s Cognitive-Mediational Theory of Emotions: the way people think about and appraise a stressor is a major factor in how stressful that particular stressor becomes ●​ Primary Appraisal: assessing stress, estimating the severity of a stressor and classifying it either as a threat or a challenge ○​ Threat: negative emotions, inhibit ability to cope with threat ■​ Student with bad notes and not studied views exam as a threat ○​ Challenge: possible to plan to meet it, positive and less stressful ■​ Student who has good notes and prepared appraises exam to do well ■​ Biological, Emotional, or secondary appraisal reaction ●​ Secondary Appraisal: estimating the resources available to the person for coping with the threat (social support, money, time, energy, ability) weighing coping strats ○​ How to deal with one’s stress ○​ Adequate: less stress than if lacking ■​ Has time to study and ability has less stress than no time to work ○​ Inadequate: stress, either remains stress or finding new ways for resources ●​ Cognitive Reappraisal Approach: instructing participants to reappraise their arousal during stress helps shift the negative effects into positives ○​ Jamieson Study: public-speaking task of 3 conditions: no instructions, “placebo” to ignore stress source, and reappraisal of reasons for physical stress but encouraged to use it as a tool to deal with the stress (this group was less threat, so returned to normal quicker) ■​ Ex. Racing heartrate not as fear but of supplying blood to deal with demands of the situation ○​ Yerkes and Dodson Law: stimulus intensity, not arousal level. Cognitive appraisal of a task can impact one’s experience of task being easy/difficult. Performance increases with arousal up to optimal level ■​ Low arousal (bored/poor) med (alert/best) high (stress/decline) ■​ Easy tasks demand a high-moderate arousal level (motivation) ■​ Difficult task demands a low-moderate arousal level (stress) Meyer Freidman and Rya Rosenman: Type A Behavior and Your Heart influence of personality characteristics on CHD Type A: ambitious, time conscious, hardworking, high hostility and anger, workaholics, a constant sense of pressure and multi-tasking, take work on vacation Type B: relaxed and laid back, less competitive, slow to anger ●​ Rosenman Study of Western Collaborative group: asking if they can relax without guilt. Type A men 3x more likely to develop heart disease than Type B men ●​ Framingham Heart study: Type A 4x CHD risk than Type B working women ●​ Williams Study: CHD surgery, Type A hostility more liking of artery hardening ○​ Hostility in college and children increased risk of heart disease Type C: pleasant but repressed, internalize their anger and anxiety, avoids conflict, difficult expressing negative emotions, lonely -> associated with cancer, harmful stress hormones, weakened immune system and slow recovery ●​ Internally calm but suppresses anger or frustration ●​ Perfectionistic, compliant, conflict-avoidant Type D: “distressed”, experiences negative emotions but tend not the share them in social situations “withdrawl” out of fear of rejection or disapproval, prone to chronic stress ●​ Frequently experiences negative emotions like anxiety or sadness ●​ Pessimistic, anxious, socially inhibited Hardy personality Type H: person who thrives on stress but lacks on hostility in type and is in control in their life ●​ Three C’s of Hardiness (Commitment, control, challenge) sense of commitment to their values, in control of their lives, interprets events as appraisal and challenge Personality Type Criticism: too simple, people not easily fall into a type, Type A as “zombie science” (negative findings but still published) ●​ Promise for understanding psychological determinants and impacts on health to prevent chronic stress and health disorders ○​ Type A as neuroticism ​ ○​ Type D has anxiety and depression