BHS Health Psychology 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which cognitive distortion is most specifically targeted in pain catastrophizing interventions?
- Overgeneralization
- Magnification and rumination about pain (Correct answer)
- Emotional reasoning
- Personalization
Correct answer: Magnification and rumination about pain
Pain catastrophizing involves magnifying the threat of pain, ruminating on it, and feeling helpless — all targeted in cognitive restructuring for chronic pain.
Question 2: The concept of 'illness representations' in Leventhal's Common Sense Model includes which five dimensions?
- Identity, timeline, consequences, cause, control/cure (Correct answer)
- Severity, susceptibility, benefits, barriers, cues to action
- Locus, controllability, stability, globality, externality
- Onset, duration, recurrence, prognosis, treatability
Correct answer: Identity, timeline, consequences, cause, control/cure
Leventhal's self-regulation model proposes that patients form illness representations along five dimensions: identity, timeline, consequences, cause, and control/cure.
Question 3: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) for chronic illness primarily aims to:
- Eliminate dysfunctional thoughts through Socratic questioning
- Increase psychological flexibility and value-driven action despite symptoms (Correct answer)
- Reduce illness anxiety through systematic desensitization
- Strengthen self-efficacy for pain management via mastery experiences
Correct answer: Increase psychological flexibility and value-driven action despite symptoms
ACT emphasizes accepting unwanted private experiences, defusing from unhelpful thoughts, and committing to behaviors aligned with personal values even in the presence of chronic symptoms.
Question 4: A health psychologist conducts a study showing that optimism predicts lower 5-year mortality in cardiac patients after controlling for disease severity. The MOST plausible behavioral mechanism is:
- Optimists produce more immunoglobulin A spontaneously
- Optimists are more likely to adhere to treatment and adopt positive health behaviors (Correct answer)
- Optimism directly suppresses inflammatory cytokine production
- Optimists experience lower genetic predisposition to cardiac events
Correct answer: Optimists are more likely to adhere to treatment and adopt positive health behaviors
Behavioral pathways — including better adherence to cardiac rehabilitation, medication, and lifestyle change — are the most empirically supported mechanisms linking optimism to better health outcomes.
Question 5: Which research design is considered the gold standard for evaluating the efficacy of a health psychology intervention?
- Cross-sectional survey with matched controls
- Prospective cohort study
- Randomized controlled trial (RCT) (Correct answer)
- Single-subject ABAB reversal design
Correct answer: Randomized controlled trial (RCT)
The RCT, with random assignment to intervention and control conditions, best controls for confounders and establishes causal efficacy of psychological interventions.
Question 6: Expressive writing interventions (Pennebaker paradigm) are hypothesized to improve health primarily through:
- Social validation from sharing trauma with others
- Cognitive-emotional processing and narrative integration of stressful events (Correct answer)
- Behavioral activation and reduced avoidance of trauma reminders
- Cathartic discharge of suppressed emotional tension
Correct answer: Cognitive-emotional processing and narrative integration of stressful events
Pennebaker proposed that translating traumatic experiences into language facilitates cognitive reorganization and emotional processing, reducing the physiological burden of inhibition.
Question 7: Health disparities research in the US consistently shows that socioeconomic status (SES) is inversely related to health outcomes. The 'psychosocial pathway' explanation emphasizes:
- Lower SES groups have genetic predispositions to poorer health
- Low SES causes chronic stress, reduced control, and negative affect that biologically damage health (Correct answer)
- Healthcare access alone explains the SES-health gradient
- Low SES individuals make worse health decisions due to poor education
Correct answer: Low SES causes chronic stress, reduced control, and negative affect that biologically damage health
The psychosocial pathway argues that low SES chronically activates stress systems, reduces perceived control, and elevates negative affect — all of which have direct biological effects on health.
BHS Health Psychology 5
Which cognitive distortion is most specifically targeted in pain catastrophizing interventions?