Health psychology focuses on the influence of psychological and behavioral factors on health, often in combination with the environment. Stress is central to this.
What is the interactional model?
The interactional model suggests that personality factors determine the impact of events, because they determine how someone deals with the situation. Personality would thus influence coping. How someone deals with an event determines the degree of stress caused by that event. However, a limitation of this model is that stable coping strategies have never been found.
What is the transactional model?
The transactional model does things differently. According to this model, personality has three potential effects:
- Personality can influence coping.
- Personality can affect how the person interprets an event.
- Personality can influence the event itself.
It is not the event that causes stress here, but rather how it is dealt with. This model is called transactional because of the person's influence on the event and the person's appreciation. There is mutual influence.
What is the health and behavior model?
A third model is the health and behavior model. This assumes that personality does not directly influence the degree of stress or illness, but that it indirectly influences stress or illness through certain behaviors, such as unsafe sex or overeating. The less healthy someone is, the greater the chance of experiencing more stress.
What is the disease and behavior model?
Another model is the disease and behavior model. In this model, disease is explained as the presence of an objectively measurable abnormal physiological process, such as fever, high blood pressure, or a tumor. Abnormal or sick behavior is about the way people behave when they think they are sick. Personality determines the degree of sick behavior, whether or not in combination with a real illness.
According to the predispositional model, associations exist between personality and illness because of a third variable that affects both, namely predisposition. The predisposition can exist for stable individual personality differences and for specific illnesses.
Stress is a subjective feeling that is the result of uncontrollable and threatening events (stressors). These are often extreme situations with unpleasant consequences that cannot be influenced. Stress can be divided into low sources of stress in daily life (daily hassles) and important life events (major life events). Major life events are associated with intensity, conflict and uncontrollability. Positive things can also be very stressful, for example a marriage, a move or a promotion. People with a lot of stress in their lives have many psychological and physiological symptoms. Possible responses to stress may include palpitations, increased blood pressure, sweaty hands and feet, and
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