Chapter 11: How can stress affect health?

Question 1

striking difference between men and women on positive and negative daily events?

Answer 1

A striking difference between men and women is that women are psychologically influenced by both the positive and
the negative daily events, while men suffer only from the negative things.

Question 2

transaction model of stress

Answer 2

Lazarus and Folkman presented the transactional model of stress in the mid-1980s. Prior to the development of this
model, research had been done into the influence of psychological processes on stress. A group of participants was
divided into four conditions before they were shown horrible film material from operations on genitals, among other
things. The four conditions determined what accompanying information the participants received with the film
images:
1. an informative description of the images from a cultural perspective;
2. information that says that people on the film undergo the operations voluntarily and that they themselves
are very excited about it;
3. information that indicates how much pain people suffer on the images and how traumatic it can be;
4. no accompanying information at all.
The results make it clear that it matters what information someone gets with the images. The people in the first two
conditions had significantly less stress than group three. According to Lazarus, stress is the result of someone’s
character and approach, the internal or external event and the internal or external resources that someone has to
deal with.

Question 3

Smith made four types of approach to the two types of approach (in the secondary appraisal ):

Answer 3

1. Internal or external statement: where do you place the responsibility for what happens. When you see
   someone else as responsible, this is accompanied by anger and when you see yourself as responsible you can
   feel guilty.
2. Problem-oriented coping: can the situation be changed with practical, problem-oriented options? If this is
   not the case, feelings of fear can arise.
3. Emotion-focused coping : to what extent does someone think they can handle the situation emotionally? If
   someone thinks that they cannot handle the situation emotionally, this leads to fear and sadness.
4. Expectations for the future: to what extent someone thinks the situation will change in the future. If
   someone thinks this will not happen, it can cause sadness

Question 4

primary appraisal

Answer 4

The approach model was later added with the degree of relevance (motivational relevance) and the degree of congruence
(motivational congruence). These two new developments belong to the primary appraisal. If in a situation the
relevance is high but the congruence with someone’s goal is low, then stress is likely to result. Lazarus also added the
ego involvement, which indicated what kind of response the individual will give to each type of threat

Question 5

Hobfolls conservation of resources model

Answer 5

says that people try to preserve their valuable resources, such as
objects, properties, energy, money, self-confidence, etc. Stress will arise when conservation is threatened or when
the resources are actually lost. This model is similar to the model of socio-economic deprivation, in which
unemployment and poverty are associated with illness. In the conservation model , however, it is not made very clear
which constructs have what influence and how long a loss must last. For example, to have an impact on someone’s
health. Hobfoll stated that especially acute changes cause stress. An example of an acute event is a natural disaster,
such as a hurricane in which someone’s house is lost.

Question 6

The Yerkes-Dodson Act

Answer 6

The Yerkes-Dodson Act states that there is an optimum level of stress that benefits performance, but that too much
or too little stress has a negative impact. For complex tasks, a lower degree of stress is better and for simple tasks, a
bit more stress is often better. Stress also influences the behavior, for example smoking and eating behavior of people
who have to take an exam.

Question 7

the environment fit theories and the goodness-of-fit theory

Answer 7

These theories state that stress occurs when there is no good combination of environmental and personal
factors

Question 8

Job demand control model ( JDC ) of work stress.

Answer 8

This model describes the following
characteristics that would lead to stress:
 work requirements (is high if the work is always heavy and there are constant deadlines);
 controllability;
 predictability;
 ambiguity.

Question 9

phagocytes

Answer 9

The phagocytes are attracted to infected sites, and they then destroy abnormal cells or antigens.
Phagocytes provide the non-specific immunity.

Question 10

lymphocytes

Answer 10

y. Lymphocytes are for specific immunity and involve T cells made in the
thymus (cell-mediated) and B cells (humoral immunity)

Question 11

Glucocorticoids

Answer 11

inhibit the production of B and T cells, thereby

reducing immunity

Question 12

Cohen study of stress ^& cold

Answer 12

Stress and the common cold
In a Cohen study, participants were divided into a condition in which they had to breathe in the rhinovirus (which
causes a cold) and a condition in which they thought this was happening, but the participants actually had to breathe
in saline drops. People who had reported chronic, negative events had more symptoms of infection in both
conditions than people who had not experienced any negative things. This research points to the relationship
between long-term stress and a cold.

Question 13

coronary heart disease (CHD)

Answer 13

The direct cause of CHD is the narrowing of blood vessels, making blood flow to the heart
increasingly limited. If blood is pumped faster from the heart during stress, this can damage the walls of the blood
vessels. Hypertension also contributes to the risk of CHD.

Question 14

retrovirus

Answer 14

means it contains RNA and works slowly