Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

BECOMING AN 
INFORMED CONSUMER 
of Psychology
Eff ective Coping Strategies
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R E C A P / E V A L U A T E / R E T H I N K 
K E Y T E R M S
R E C A P 
How is health psychology a union between medicine and 
psychology?
• The fi eld of health psychology considers how psychol-
ogy can be applied to the prevention, diagnosis, and 
treatment of medical problems. (p. 472) 
What is stress, how does it affect us, and how can we best cope 
with it?
• Stress is a response to threatening or challenging 
environmental conditions. People encounter stressors—
the circumstances that produce stress—of both a positive 
and a negative nature. (p. 473)
• The way an environmental circumstance is interpreted 
affects whether it will be considered stressful. Still, there 
are general classes of events that provoke stress: 
cataclysmic events, personal stressors, and background 
stressors (daily hassles). (p. 474)
• Stress produces immediate physiological reactions. In 
the short term those reactions may be adaptive, but in 
the long term they may have negative consequences, 
including the development of psychophysiological 
disorders. (p. 476)
• The consequences of stress can be explained in part by 
Selye’s general adaptation syndrome (GAS), which sug-
gests that there are three stages in stress responses: alarm 
and mobilization, resistance, and exhaustion. (p. 477)
• Coping with stress can take a number of forms, 
including the unconscious use of defense mechanisms 
and the use of emotion-focused or problem-focused 
coping strategies. (p. 480)
• Stress can be reduced by developing a sense of control 
over one’s circumstances. In some cases, however, 
people develop a state of learned helplessness. (p. 481)