Happiness Two Psychological Phenomena: Adaptation and Comparison  Happiness and Prior Experience –Adaptation-level phenomenon Adaptation-level phenomenonAdaptation-level phenomenon  Happiness and others’ attainments –Relative deprivation Relative deprivationRelative deprivation

Adaptation level phenomenon  The tendency to judge various stimuli relative to those we have previously experienced  TV example

Relative deprivation  The perception that we are worse off relative to those with whom we compare ourselves

Happiness Predictors of Happiness

Brain storm ways to get past anger  Changing thoughts  Not taking things personally  Understanding the context  Others?

Introduction  Health psychology Health psychology Health psychology  Behavioral medicine Behavioral medicine Behavioral medicine

Stress and Illness  Stress Stress –Stress appraisal

Stress  Not just a stimulus or a response  The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging

Walter Cannon  First discussed the stress response – fight or flight  Sympathetic nervous system releases ephinephrine and norepinephrine  Increase heartrate and respiration  Diverts blood from digestion to the skelatal muscles, dulls pain  Releases sugar and fat from the body’s stores

Stress and Illness The Stress Response System  Selye’s general adaptation syndrome (GAS) general adaptation syndrome (GAS)general adaptation syndrome (GAS) –Alarm –Resistance –exhaustion

Tip  Seyle’s three stages ARE a GAS

Stress and Illness General Adaptation Syndrome

Other responses  Freeze – paralyzed - withdraw, pull back, conserve  Tend and befriend – more women – may be because of oxytocin – a stress moderating hormone associated with pair bonding in animals

Telomeres  Shorter bits of DNA at the ends of their chromosomes. Cell can’t divide if these get too short – the cells die  Happens after prolonged stress

Stress and Illness Stressful Life Events  Catastrophes  Significant life changes  Daily hassles

Stress and the Heart  Coronary heart disease Coronary heart disease Coronary heart disease  Type A versus Type B –Type A Type AType A –Type B Type BType B

Other conditions that lead to heart problems  Anger  Pessimism  Depression

Psychosomatic  Older term – people often thought “just in your head”  Today psychoneuroimmunology PNI  Psychophysiological illnesses (hypertension and some headaches)

Stress and Susceptibility to Disease  Psychophysiological illnesses Psychophysiological illnesses Psychophysiological illnesses  Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) –Lymphocytes Lymphocytes  B lymphocytes  T lymphocytes –Stress and AIDS –Stress and Cancer