Psychology 310
2012 -2013

GENERAL INFORMATION
Instructor: Dr. Ed Pencer
Nicholson Annex, Room 104
Office Phone 867-3928
Secretary's Phone 867-3926
e-mail:  epencer@stfx.ca

See READINGS link for reading list

MARKING SCHEME:

• Best 3 Quizzes out of 4        20%
• Seminar #1*                        10%
• Paper #1 *                           10%
• Seminar #2 *                        10%
• Paper #2  *                           10%
• Christmas Exam                    20%
• Final Exam                            20%

* These are required course components and MUST be completed before a final grade will be determined

Late assignments.

In accordance with departmental policy, students are penalized 5% per calendar day late, and these points are deducted beginning on the due date until the assignment is handed in or 10 days have passed, when a mark of zero will be assigned. Only valid excuses such as illness or personal emergency, which must be substantiated, can effect a renegotiation of the due date with the professor.

Required Course components

Students shall receive a zero for any of these components which are not completed, and will recommend to the Dean that an "incomplete" be assigned as final grade.

Policy on missed tests and examinations:

Make-up tests will not normally be given for missed quizzes or for the Christmas Examination. For students with a valid reason for missing a test, as substantiated by a note from the Office of the Dean, the final cumulative grade will be pro-rated to take into account the missed course element.

PLAGIARISM:

The University has adopted new regulations on Academic Integrity. It is in your interest not to violate these regulations. They may be seen HERE http://www.stfx.ca/services/registrar/academicintegritysummary.htm . Please note: This REPLACES what is stated in the University Calendar. More information on how to avoid plagiarism may be found HERE: http://libmain.stfx.ca/integrity/student/Plagiarismforstudents.htm

COURSE OUTLINE

Health Psychology

MODULE 1 Introductory Comments

• What is Health
• What is Health Psychology
• The Biomedical Model
• The Biopsychosocial Model
• The Mind - philosophical origins. The death of Mind and its rebirth.
• Psychology's new mentalist paradigm
• Doctrine of Multilevel Analysis

MODULE 2 Methodological considerations

• Systems, Schools, and Paradigms
• Quantitative and Qualitative research
• Toward a more Human Science of Psychology
• Correlational, retrospective and prospective research
• Modifiable vs. non-modifiable risks

MODULE 3 Internal Regulation: Biological Influences on Behavior - Evolutionary Psychology

• General Process Theory vs The Selective Association Principle
• The nature of behavioral predispositions (preparedness)
• The nature of learning constraints (contrapreparedness)
• Influences of Evolutionary Psychology/Behavior Genetics on Health Psychology related issues:
• Phobias: Prepared fears and the selective quality of fear acquisition: evidence for universality; evidence for a non-associative model of fear acquisition; prospective studies. Implications for interventions
• Taste aversions and the cancer patient; taste aversions:  role of chemotherapy and radiation therapy (evidence from prospective studies); management of learned taste aversions and  interventions to prevent taste aversions - the Scapegoat Effect
• tumor anorexia
• Are we programmed to behave? Evolutionary Psychology and human behavior.
• Sociobiology, behavior genetics, and evolutionary psychology: an introduction
• Proximate vs ultimate accounts of behavior
• Behavior genetics and complex human behavior (a more complete understanding? Implications for intervention)
• Grief and berievement
• Family violence
• Jealousy
• Parental behavior
• Aggressive behavior
• Rape

MODULE 4 External Regulation: Behaviorism, Behavior Assessments, and Behavior Modification

• General introduction to Behaviorism
• The rejection of self, purpose,  and intention in favor of the environment
• Behavioral assessments vs.the DSM IV
• Differences in usefulness
• Factors necessary for behavioral assessments
• Ethical issues for Human Services

• Classical conditioning based techniques of Behavior Modification
• How behaviors are acquired
• The five rules of conditioning
• How behaviors may be treated
• Treatment of fetishes, self destructive behavior, alcoholism, smoking
• When does Pavlovian based intervention succeed and when does it fail
• Imagery in human classical conditioning
• Learned Helplessness
• Lab demonstrations of learned helplessness, historical and current
• Major behavioral components which accompany helplessness   (motivational,  emotional and cognitive impairments)
• Informational explanations  - Hoplessness
• Physiological consequences of helplessness
• Health consequences of helplesness

• Classical conditioning as a  component of other health interventions
• Interoceptive conditioning
• Chemotherapy and the conditioned compensatory response
• Acquired tolerance to analgesics and preventative interventions
• Acquired multiple chemical sensitivity
• Countermeasures
• Psychoneuroimmunology
• An introduction to the immune system
• Measuring immune system function
• Stress and immune function (To be covered when we deal with stress)
• Classical conditioning and the immune system
• Immune system enhancement (boosting immunocompetence)
• Immune system suppression

• Other (non-classical) conditioning based techniques of intervention
• Systematic desensitization
• Flooding
• Implosion
• Counterconditioning
• Skinner and the radical behaviorists
• the skinnerian "philosophy"
• Skinnerian Technology
• The controlling event
• The nature of reinforcement
• Shaping
• Chaining
• Extinction
• Omission training
• Schedules of Reinforcement
• Applications of Skinnerian technology
• Generalization of treatment outcomes

MODULE 5 Competence, effectance and Logotherapy: An introduction to self-regulation

• What are competence and effectance
• components of effectance
• "the instinct to master"
• Frankl's "Will to Meaning"
• the basis of logotherapy
• where can "meaning to life" be found
• Applications of Logotherapy

MODULE 6 Concepts of Freedom:  A functional illusion or a human reality

• Philosophical and Psychological conceptions of freedom
• The challenge of the phenomenological event of  -the belief in freedom and the indeterminacy of human behavior
• Accounts of perceived freedom: Is this any more then the study of the attribution process?
• Freedom as functional illusion
• Under what conditions do people percieve themselves to be free

MODULE 7 Self regulation, self -influence and self- efficacy

• Bandura's triadic reciprocality: The cognitive, behavioral, and environmental contributions to behavior
• The unique human abilities
• symbolic capacity
• forethought
• vicarious ability
• self regulatory ability
• self reflective capability
• Modelling and observational learning
• Various conceptions of modeling
• Five psychological effects of modelling
• Attentional processes, retentional processes and the role of cognitive rehearsal
• Response production processes and concept matching vs. the response acquisition processes of traditional reinforcement theory
• The Exercise of Self-influence
• self-observation, self-evaluation and self-reaction
• The development of self regulatory skills
• Perceived self -efficacy
• Sources of self efficacy information
• Reactance, perceived self inefficacy and behavioral dysfunction
• Increasing self-efficacy - an aid to increased self-regulation and behavior modification
• Level of self efficacy and protective health behavior (e.g., "safe sex")
• Interventions to enhance self efficacy

MODULE 8 Stress and its management

•      Definitions and Models
• Selye's Response Model
•  Mason's Emotional Response Model
•   Lazarus' Appraisal model
•      Assessing stress
•      Effects of stress: stress - health interactions
•   stress and the immune system
•   stress and specific illnesses
•    cardiovascular disease
•    ulcers
•    psychological illness
•      Stress and the pathogenic triad
•      Coping and stress management
•    coping strategies
•    response management - relaxation training, biofeedback, stress innoculation

MODULE 9 Pain and its management

•      History of study of pain
•      The gate control theory
•      The meaning of pain
•      Stages of pain
•      Pain syndromes
•      Pain assessment
•      Pain management
•  Pharmacology
•  Sensory control including acupuncture
•  Surgical interventions
•  Cognitive-Behavioral interventions

MODULE 10 Miscellaneous topics (subject to change)

• Treatment Adherence
• Factors affecting adherence
• Adherence enhancement procedures
• Relapse Prevention
• Prediction of relapse
• Affective and behavioral reactions
• Proactive control
• Eating Disorders
• Overview
• A weight management program
• Substance Abuse
• A review
• A stop smoking program