Summary Of The Biopsychosocial Model

The Biopsychosocial model developed by George L. Engle (1977) is the interaction between biological (genetics, immune response, physiological response, pathogens, toxins), psychological (thoughts, emotions and behaviours), and social (social support, medical care, culture, socioeconomic status, religion), factors that play a significant role in causing physical illness. It assumes that a person’s health is not just affected by biological factors but psychosocial factors also have a large influence over it, i.e. mind, body and environment all interact to cause illness (Weiten, Dunn, & Hammer, 2012). e.g. A person with depression can be affected biologically in their endocrine, immune and neurotransmitter system function, as well as genetic
Lazarus and Folkman described two types of appraisal in the cognitive appraisal theory - primary appraisal where the person evaluates the meaning of the situation, and secondary appraisal where the person decides what to do about it, and whether or not they are able to deal with the situation. The environment causes the stressor and the person finds a way to deal with it using primary appraisal to assess the situation as positive, stressful or irrelevant and then if it is assessed as stressful, secondary appraisal is used to evaluate the options available and what response is appropriate (Burton, Western, & Kowalski, 2009). After action is taken the situation is reappraised and response is adjusted if necessary until the situation is evaluated as no longer a threat. Both appraisal stages use emotional forecasting which predicts “what feelings the situation will produce (primary appraisal) and predicting the likely emotional impact of each potential response (secondary appraisal)” (as cited in Burton et al., 2009, p. 569). For example, two workers react differently after a colleague is promoted; one feels happy for this colleague, but the other feels resentful because he thinks he deserved the promotion