Health Psychology

The current usage of the word stress arose out of Hans Selye's 1930s experiments.

The Whitehall Studies investigated social determinants of health, specifically the cardiovascular disease prevalence and mortality rates among British civil servants.

A nocebo effect is said to occur when a patient's expectations for a treatment cause the treatment to have a worse effect than it otherwise would have.

Caregiver burden, also called caregiver burnout, refers to the sum of physical, emotional, social, and financial difficulties experienced by unpaid caregivers due to providing care for a family member or a friend.

Pain catastrophizing is the tendency to describe a pain experience in more exaggerated terms than the average person, to ruminate on it more (e.g., "I kept thinking 'this is terrible'"), and/or to feel more helpless about the experience ("I thought it was never going to get better").

White coat hypertension (WHT), also known as white coat syndrome, is a form of labile hypertension in which people exhibit a blood pressure level above the normal range in a clinical setting, although they do not exhibit it in other settings.

Bedtime procrastination is a psychological phenomenon that involves voluntarily delaying going to bed despite the risk of foreseeable consequences the following day, such as fatigue.

One important field is health psychology, the fastest-growing employment setting for clinical psychologists in the past decade.

Health psychology, which studies how individuals engage with and self-conceptualize their health, has been influenced by the Type A and Type B personality theories, which reveal how personality traits can impact cardiovascular health.

The practice of behavioral medicine encompasses health psychology, but also includes applied psychophysiological therapies such as biofeedback, hypnosis, and bio-behavioral therapy of physical disorders, aspects of occupational therapy, rehabilitation medicine, and physiatry, as well as preventive medicine.

Central themes of critical psychology is the concept of “oppression” and “emancipation”. Critical psychology reflects not only on the connection of mainstream psychology with power, but also work toward emancipation (or liberation).

Research in the broader field of Health Psychology has revealed significant influences of social support on the psychological well-being of individuals as well as associations with disease processes, particularly in cardiovascular disease.

In social psychology, the health belief model (HBM) is a psychological framework used to explain and predict individuals' potentially detrimental behaviors, attitudes and beliefs on their health.

Touch starvation, also known as touch deprivation or skin hunger, is the physiological need by humans and other species for physical contact with their own species or other living beings.

He chaired the first medical psychology department in the United States and has been credited with much of the early work in health psychology.

She is known for her significant contributions to the fields of behavioral medicine and health psychology, higher education, and philanthropy, as well as championing the concepts of impact investing and resilience.