Uni Reading List
Index / 001 EN
Health Psychology cover

Psychology

Psychology

Health Psychology

Annette L. Stanton; Shelley E. Taylor

A long-established undergraduate textbook on how psychological, behavioural and social factors influence health, illness and health care. It covers health-promoting and health-compromising behaviours, stress and coping, the use of health services, the patient-provider relationship, and the psychological management of chronic and terminal illness, grounded in current research.

Prerequisites: An introductory psychology course; some biology is helpful for the chapters on physiological systems but is not required.

Difficulty Level
Intermediate
Academic Level
Undergraduate
health psychologystress and copinghealth behaviorchronic illnessTextbook

01 / Reading Guide

Reading Guide

Citation

Stanton, A. L., & Taylor, S. E. (2025). Health Psychology (2025 release). McGraw Hill.

Chapter Summary

The book has 15 chapters in six parts. McGraw Hill describes it as a comprehensive, accessible and engaging look at health psychology, with a focus on the most current research on stress, psychosocial issues and chronic disorders. The publisher says it covers both the scientific progress of the field and its real-life applications, presents research with practical stories, and has helped students learn how to identify and eliminate stress, maintain their health and use technology to get the best care possible. McGraw Hill publishes the title under an evergreen model in which updates arrive as numbered releases; the page lists the 2025 release.

Part 1, Chapters 1–2: What is Health Psychology?; The Systems of the Body

The opening part defines the field and then, by its title, turns to the systems of the body, the biological background for the chapters on stress, illness and treatment that follow.

Part 2, Chapters 3–5: Health Behaviors; Health-Promoting Behaviors; Health-Compromising Behaviors

Three chapters on primary prevention. The first treats health behaviours in general, and the next two separate behaviours that promote health from those that compromise it.

Part 3, Chapters 6–7: Stress; Coping, Resilience, and Social Support

Chapter 6 is about stress, and Chapter 7 about the responses to it: coping, resilience and social support. The publisher's biography of Stanton describes her research on stress, coping and adjustment to health-related adversity, which matches the weight this part gives to the topic.

Part 4, Chapters 8–10: Using Health Services; Patients, Providers, and Treatments; The Management of Pain and Discomfort

The part on seeking and using care covers how people use health services, the relationship between patients and providers and the treatments they use, and the management of pain and discomfort.

Part 5, Chapters 11–14: Management of Chronic Health Disorders; Psychological Issues in Advancing and Terminal Illness; Heart Disease, Hypertension, Stroke, and Type 2 Diabetes; Psychoneuroimmunology and Immune-Related Disorders

The part on chronic and terminal disorders begins with general management of chronic disease and then turns to the psychological issues of advancing and terminal illness. Two chapters follow on particular conditions: heart disease, hypertension, stroke and type 2 diabetes, and psychoneuroimmunology with immune-related disorders.

Part 6, Chapter 15: Health Psychology: Challenges for the Future

The closing chapter looks ahead to the challenges the field faces.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–5: Field, Body and Behaviour

  • Health psychology: the field defined in Chapter 1.
  • Systems of the body: the biological background to health and illness.
  • Health-promoting and health-compromising behaviours: the focus of primary prevention.

Chapters 6–10: Stress, Coping and Care

  • Stress: its role in health.
  • Coping, resilience and social support: how people respond to stress.
  • Patient–provider relationship: a central topic of the part on seeking and using care.
  • Pain management: the treatment of pain and discomfort.

Chapters 11–15: Chronic Illness and the Future

  • Chronic and terminal illness: psychological issues in managing them.
  • Heart disease, hypertension, stroke and type 2 diabetes: conditions with their own chapter.
  • Psychoneuroimmunology: the study of links among behaviour, the nervous system and immunity.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

  • A clear, logical sequence. The six parts run from definition and biology through behaviour, stress, care and chronic illness to the future, so the order follows a progression from prevention to treatment of established illness.
  • Authors who work in the field. The publisher's biographies describe Stanton's research on factors that help and hinder adjustment to health-related adversity, including stress and coping in people facing cancer, and Taylor's work on health psychology and social cognition as co-director of the Health Psychology program at UCLA.
  • Direct links to practice. The publisher stresses real-life applications and practical stories, and the contents reflect it in chapters on the use of health services, the patient–provider relationship and pain management.
  • Chapters on specific conditions. Heart disease, hypertension, stroke and type 2 diabetes share a chapter, and psychoneuroimmunology and immune-related disorders have another, both in Part 5.

Limitations

  • Individual-level focus by title. The chapter titles concentrate on behaviours, stress, coping and care, and do not name social inequality, community or critical approaches. Readers who want that wider frame may need a second text.
  • Little section-level detail available. The publisher's page gives the chapter list and a short overview but not section headings, so the depth of each chapter is not visible before use.
  • A moving target. Because the title follows an evergreen release model, the content changes between releases, and a student should confirm which release a course uses.

Where It Fits in the Course

Stanton and Taylor is the main undergraduate textbook on health psychology in this course. Marks, Murray and Estacio's Health Psychology: Theory, Research and Practice is an alternative that places individual behaviour in its social, economic and cultural context, with sustained attention to inequality and critical and community approaches; it supplies the wider frame that Stanton and Taylor's chapter titles do not name, and suits readers who want to evaluate theory.

The remaining books are not textbooks of the same kind. Pedrotti, Lopez, McDermott and Snyder's Positive Psychology is a research-based text on well-being and strengths and complements Chapter 7 on coping and resilience. Epel's The Stress Prescription is a practical programme from a health psychologist and pairs with Chapter 6. Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis and Dolan's Happiness by Design are popular books on happiness, better read for interest and perspective than as course texts.

How to Use This Book

The book is aimed at undergraduates in a health psychology course, and at anyone who wants to understand how psychological, behavioural and social factors affect health. The publisher says the research is presented through practical stories, and it does not state prerequisites.

Read Part 1 first for the definition of the field and the body systems it draws on. Parts 2 and 3 form the core, because they cover the behaviours and the stress processes that most later chapters build on. Parts 4 and 5 can then be read in the order the syllabus requires; Chapters 13 and 14 deal with particular conditions and can be selected by interest. Chapter 15 serves as a closing discussion.

Check the release in use, apply the chapters to a health behaviour or illness of your own choosing, and supplement with a text on social context if the course addresses inequality.