Health Psychology

Health psychology is devoted to understanding how psychological and social factors affect why people stay healthy, why they become ill, and how they respond when they do get ill. Health psychology is concerned with all aspects of health and illness across the life span. The three central issues that we will focus on in this class are the promotion and maintenance of health (e.g., how psychosocial factors influence smoking and obesity), the experience and development of pain and illness (e.g., how psychosocial factors influence pain and chronic illness), and the treatment of illness (e.g., how psychosocial factors influence health care interactions).