8. Stress and coping Flashcards
What are the 3 approaches to health and illness?
Biomedical model
Biopsychsocial model
Health psychology
What is the biological model for health and illness?
Takes into account illness and biological factors
Biomedical model is predominant view in medicine. Does not consider psychological factors.
What is the biopsychosocial model for health and illness?
Includes biological, psychological, social factors
Biopsychic considers all 3 factors in the maintenance and development of health and wellness. All 3 factors can work favouring or against health and wellness
What is the health psychology model for health and illness?
This idea of health psychology is particularly important because many prevalent diseases like cancer and heart disease are related to unhealthy lifestyles and stress.
Who is Hans Selye and what did he do?
Hans Selye most known for studying stress and health (from McGill!)
What is stress?
Physiological and psychological response to condition that threatens or challenges person
Requires adaptation or adjustment
What is a stressor?
Any event capable of producing physical or emotional stress
What did Walter Cannon do?
Walter Cannon first described the fight or flight response –> sympathetic nervous system and endocrine glands prepare body to flight threat or flee from it (response to stress). It is adaptive and responds quickly to threats, but can become harmful for the organism if experiencing prolonged stress.
What is the general adaptation syndrome (GAS) and who explored it?
Hans Selye
Predictable sequence of reactions organisms show in response to stressors.
How did Hans Selye experiment GAS?
Hans Selye did experiments on rats, injecting them with hormone-rich cow ovary extracts. Had major adverse effects on the rats: adrenal glands swelled, immune system weakened, developed bleeding ulcers in stomach and intestine. He then tried doing all kinds of different things, each with the same result. The response of the body to all types of stress was so predictable he called it the GAS.
What are the 3 stages of GAS?
- Alarm
- Resistance
- Exhaustion
Explain the alarm stage of GAS.
Sympathetic NS releases hormones, fight or flight
It is when some sort of arousal occurs and the body prepares its defenses.
Explain the resistance phase of GAS.
Physiological efforts to resist or adapt to stressor
If the stressors can’t be dealt with quickly, body enters the resistance stage where intense physiological efforts are made to either adapt to or resist the stress. The adrenal glands pour out powerful hormones to resist the stressor.
Explain the exhaustion phase of GAS.
If organism fails in efforts to resist stressor.
If resistance fails, the body enters the exhaustion stage, where if the stressors continue, the body uses its deep energy stores and the body becomes vulnerable to depletion, illness, disease, and even death.
What characteristics affect the length of the resistance phase?
How long the resistance stage lasts depends on the intensity of the stressor and the body’s power to adapt.
Any event requiring readjustment, positive or negative, will produce _____
Stress
What is eustress? Give examples
Positive or good stress
E.g. exhilaration, thrill, excitement
What is distress? Give examples
Damaging or unpleasant stress
Frustration, inadequacy, loss, disappointment, insecurity, helplessness, desperation.
Explain the “resistance to stress” curve for the general adaptation syndrome
At first, when there is emotional arousal, the body’s resistance to stress decreases but increases fast during the alarm stage, stays high during the resistance stage and decreases under normal during the exhaustion stage.
What is Lazarus’s cognitive theory?
Includes primary appraisal and secondary appraisal of a stressor.
First you undergo primary appraisal of the stressor, then secondary appraisal.
Appraisal of harm can be anything important to us at the primary level – a friendship, part of body, work, finances, etc. The important thing is that the same event can be appraised differently by different people. Ex: doing presentation in class (can see as challenge or see as source of embarrassment). If it involves harm, loss, or threat, we feel negative emotions like fear, anxiety, anger, and sadness.
When something assessed and stressful, we evaluate our resources that we have to deal with it (physical, social, material coping resources). Level of stress we feel depends on whether our resources are adequate to deal with the stress.
What is a problem with Selye’s GAS theory that is touched by Lazarus’s theory?
One thing about Seyle’s GAS theory is that it does not include a psychological component. One powerful component is how a person perceives and evaluates a stressor. Lazarus’ Cognitive theory included this.
Explain primary appraisal.
Person evaluates potentially stressful event and how it affects well-being. It can be evaluated as either positive, neutral or negative.
Negative appraisal can involve:
- Harm or loss (damage has already happened)
- Threat (the potential for harm or loss)
- Challenge (the opportunity to grow or gain)
Is perception irrelevant or involving harm, loss, threat, challenge.
Explain secondary appraisal.
If the situation is judged to be within the person’s control:
- Person evaluates coping resources (physical, social, psychological, material) to determine if they are adequate to deal with stressor
- Person considers options in dealing with stressor.
Name 3 types of stress response and give examples.
Physiological: Autonomic arousal, fluctuations in hormones
Emotional: Anxiety, fear, grief, resentment, excitement
Behavioural: Coping behaviours (including problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies)
What is proactive coping and what is it used for?
You can prepare yourself to deal with stressors ahead of time. Proactive coping efforts can be put forward in advance to avoid or minimize the effects of potentially stressful situations.
Which categories of people experience stress disproportionately?
Poor
Minorities
Elderly
Name 3 conflicting motives that can be sources of stress in everyday life.
- Approach-approach conflict
- Avoidance-avoidance conflict
- Approach-avoidance conflict
Explain the approach-approach conflict. Give examples.
Conflict from choosing between desirable alternatives
e.g. What movie to see, building a career or raising a child
Explain the avoidance-avoidance conflict. Give examples.
Choosing between equally undesirable alternatives
Avoid studying an exam, but also want to avoid failing the exam
Explain the approach-avoidance conflict. Give examples.
Choice has both desirable and undesirable features.
Want to go on vacation, but have to empty bank account
Name 2 sources of everyday stress
Unpredictability and lack of control
Nursing home residents had improved health, well-being, lower death rate if given some control and life choices (Langer and Rodin study)
This general belief in control of factors in one’s own life can go a long way. Another study had loud buzzer playing, subjects told they could control it. Those with greater belief in own ability had a lower stress response (cortisol levels) than those who did not.
Historical racism
More stress simply being a minority in a setting, across settings (classroom, work, social). Higher incidence of blood pressure and chronic medical conditions in African American population attributed to stress experienced from historical racism.
What are the 3 stages of stress in catastrophes?
- First stage = disoriented, often unaware of own injuries
- Second stage = victims show concern for others, follow directions of rescue workers
- Third stage = shock replaced by generalized anxiety
Catastrophes not only stressful for those who experience them but also those who witness them, although reactions are more significant for those who are affected directly by them.
Often recurring nightmares and thoughts of the catastrophe are common. They feel the compulsive need to retell the experience, perhaps to help desensitize them to the experience. Most eventually manage to do ok, but sometimes it can develop into PTDS
