R E P O R T E R S :
E L M A R L O U I S S E S . T A N A K A
R E D H E D G A R C H R I S T I A N H O N O R I D E Z
C Z A R I N A G I C A L E
S H A I N A E M P I N A D O
K I M B E R L Y L O U I S E N E G R O

 Health and Psychology
 Health Psychology
 Biopsychosocial model of health
 Focus: AIDS in the Philippines
 Stress and stressors.
 General Adaptation Syndrome
 Coping with Stress

Health is the level of functional or metabolic
efficiency of a living organism. In humans, it is the
general condition of a person's mind and body,
usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or
pain (as in "good health" or "healthy").[1] The
World Health Organization (WHO) defined health
in its broader sense in 1946 as "a state of complete
physical, mental, and social well-being and not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

Health Psychology
 The branch of psychology concerned with
individual’s behaviors and lifestyles affecting a
person’s health and illness.
 Uses psychological processes to help improve the
physical outcomes of individuals.
 In general, health psychology is concerned with the
role of cognitive, affective, behavior, and social
factors affecting health illness.

The shift to Biopsychosocial model of
Health
Central to linking the mind (realm of psychology)
and the body (realm of biology) in understanding
illness.

As of December 2012:
Source: Philippine National AIDS Council
http://www.pnac.org.ph/uploads/documents/pu
blications/NEC_HIV_Dec-AIDSreg2012.pdf
Focus: AIDS in the Philippines

Focus: AIDS in the Philippines
 Social factors:
 Thriving commercial sex industry
 Failure to use condoms especially in paid sex.
 Sexual cultural norms
 “Embarrassment, from a social psychological perspective (e.g.,
Dahl, Gorn& Weinberg, 1998), can occur when a situation poses a
dilemma between a publicly observable behavior (e.g., buying
condoms at a drugstore) and apprehension about negative social
evaluation by others (e.g.,
disapproving judgments by others, like people in line at the counte
r or even imaginedothers not physically present like one’s
parents). ”(Manalastas, 2009)

Focus: AIDS in the Philippines
 Increase in casual sex among the youth.
 Methamphetamine use was strongly associated
with behavioral risk factors for HIV infection. (US
Center for Disease Control)

 Term used to describe the physical,
emotional, cognitive, and behavioral
responses to events that are appraised as
threatening or challenging.

 Stress-causing events
 May come from within a person or from an
external source, and ranges from mild to
severe.

 Distress
 Eustress

 Catastrophes
◦ Acute Stress Disorder and Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder
 Major Life Changes
 Hassles

 Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)

 College Undergraduate Stress Scale

 Pressure
 Uncontrollability
 Frustration
 Conflict

 Happens when…
◦ There are urgent demands for a person’s behavior
coming from an outside source.

 Depends on the degree pf control a person
has over a situation
◦ The lesser the control, the greater the stress.

 Occurs when people are blocked or prevented
from achieving a desired goal or fulfilling a
perceived need.
◦ External Frustration
◦ Internal/Personal Frustration

 Responses to frustration
◦ Persistence
 Continuation of efforts to get around whatever is
causing the frustration.
◦ Aggression
 Actions meant to harm or destroy
 Displaced aggression

 Occurs when people are blocked or prevented
from achieving a desired goal or fulfilling a
perceived need.
◦ External Frustration
◦ Internal/Personal Frustration

 Approach-Approach Conflict
◦ Involves choosing between two desirable goals.
Also a “win-win” situation.
 Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict
◦ Involves choosing between two or more unpleasant
goals.

 Approach-Avoidance Conflict
◦ Involves only one goal or event, which may have
both positive and negative aspects
 Multiple Approach-Avoidance Conflict
◦ Involves multiple goals that have both positive and
negative elements.

General Adaptation Syndrome

What is the General Adaptation Syndrome?
 The General Adaptation Syndrome (or GAS)
describes the body's short and long-term emotional
and physical effects of stress.

GAS: A Brief History
 Introduced by Hans Selye in 1936. Hans Selye is
considered as the founding father of stress research.
 He conducted a research involving rats in which he
injected various extracts from the glands of the body.
 The rats exhibited the same symptoms.
 He believed at first that he discovered a new
hormone.

GAS: A Brief History
 However, after further tests using other substances
and methods such as injecting formaldehyde, cutting
the rats’ spinal cord, exposure to cold and forced
exercise, the results were still the same.
 The predictable sequence he observed on the rats is
now what we call the General Adaptation Syndrome.

Three Stage
Reaction
• Alarm phase
• Stage of resistance
• Exhaustion stage.

The alarm phase of the general adaptation
syndrome
 In the alarm phase you enter a heightened
psychological and physiological arousal, known as
the fight or flight response.
 Stress hormones are released into the bloodstream.
 Adrenaline increases muscle tension, heart rate, and
causes a number of other physical effects of stress.
 You are now immediately equipped with enough
energy to handle it.
 You are more focused and alert!

The resistance phase of the general adaptation
syndrome
 The mind and the body attempt to adapt to the cause
of stress.
 Also known as the adaptation phase.
 Homeostasis begins restoring balance and a period
of recovery for repair and renewal takes place.
 Body remains alert (at a lower level) but continues
the normal functions.
 Stress hormone levels may return to normal but you
may have reduced defenses and adaptive energy left.

The exhaustion phase of the general adaptation
syndrome
 Exhaustion sets in.
 Stress has generally occurred for some time and at
this point, resistance can drop off and the activity
returns to the point before the emergency.
 Characterized by issues such as burnout and
exhaustion.
 Body’s immune system that fights off disease and
infection is weakened.

The exhaustion phase of the general adaptation
syndrome
 Chronic stress can damage nerve cells in tissues and
organs. Particularly vulnerable is the hippocampus
section of the brain. Thinking and memory are likely
to become impaired, with tendency toward anxiety
and depression.

Coping

Coping
“The process of managing external
and/or internal demands that are
appraised as taxing or exceeding the
resources of the person.” By Lazarus and Folkman (1984)

Basically…
Coping is anything we
do to deal with stress!

Coping is divided into two basic types:
• Problem-focused Coping
• Emotion-focused Coping

Problem-Focused Coping
Problem-Focused strategies includes:
Defining the problem.
Generating the alternative solutions.
Weighing those solutions.
Implementing the selected alternative.

Emotion-Focused Coping
- Means concentrating on alleviating
the emotions associated with the stressful
situatione.
- Especially when the situation is
beyond one’s control.

This involves cognitive strategies,
some behavioral strategies to cope with
negative feelings are exercise, use of alcohol,
drugs, releasing anger and seeking
emotional support from friends.(Atkinson et al., 1996)

Defense Mechanism
1. Repression
2. Rationalization
3. Projection
4. Intelectualization
5. Denial
6. Displacement

Positive Thinking

Religion

Stress Management Programs

Culture related to Stress and coping
What people find stressful and how they
respond to stress is partly patterned by culture
(Western,1996)
1. Cultural context shapes the types of
stressors we experience.
2. Culture may affect how we appraise the
stressfulness of a given event.
3. Culture affects our individual choice of
coping strategy.
4. Culture provide different institutional
mechanisms for coping with stress.