Chapter 13: Stress, Coping, and Health Flashcards
According to Lazarus and Folkman, there are primary and secondary appraisals of stress. What is the difference?
Primary– evaluation of whether an event is either irrelevant to you, relevant but not threatening, or stressful
IF YOU THINK AN EVENT IS STRESSFUL, YOU’LL MAKE A 2ND
Secondary– evaluation of your coping resources and options for dealing with the stress
What is stress?
Any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one’s well-being and that thereby tax one’s coping abilities.
How objective are our appraisals of stress?
Not every, some people are more prone than others to feeling threatened by life’s difficulties
What is the difference between acute and chronic stressors?
Acute– threatening events that have a relatively short duration and a clear end point
Chronic– threatening events that are relatively long and no readily apparent time limit
What are the 4 major types of stress?
Frustration, conflict, change, and pressure
What is frustration?
Occurs in any situation in which the pursuit of some goal is thwarted
when you want something and you can’t have it
What is conflict?
Occurs when 2 or more incompatible motivations or behavioural impulses compete for expression.
What are the 3 types of conflict that are considered especially stressful, and who is credited for creating them?
1) Approach-Approach- A choice must be made between 2 attractive goals. (Least Stressful)
2) Avoidance- Avoidance- A choice must be made between 2 unnattractive goals. (Highly Stressful)
3) Approach-Avoidance- Choice must be made whether to pursue a single goal that has both attractive and unattractive aspects. (Quite Stressful)
Kurt Lewin
What is pressure?
Expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way
What are the three common emotional responses to stress?
1– annoyance, anger, and rage
2– apprehension, anxiety, and fear
3– dejection, sadness, and grief
Explain the three steps of the broaden and build theory of positive emotions
Positive emotions alter people’s mindsets
Positive emotions can undo the lingering effects of negative emotions, and short circuit the physiological changes
+ Emotions can promote rewarding social interactions and build coping
Explain the inverted u hypothesis
Typically, task performance should improve with increased emotional arousal-up to a point, after which further increases in arousal become disruptive and performance deteriorates.
True or false, as a task becomes more complex, the optimal level of arousal tends to decrease
True
What does the inverted u hypothesis explain?
How emotional arousal could have either beneficial or disruptive effects on coping
True or false, the nervous system involved in the fight or flight response is the autonomic N.S
True
Who identified and named the concept of stress?
Hans Selye
Are stress reactions specific?
No, stress reactions are nonspecific
Explain the general adaptation syndrome coined by Hans Selye
A model of the body’s stress response, consisting of three stages:
Alarm
Resistance
Exhaustion
Talks about how long stress stays around and how it affects you
What happens during each stage of Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome? alarm, resistance, and exhaustion
Alarm– organism first senses the existence of a threat, similar to ForF
Resistance– physiological changes stabilize, coping efforts get started
Exhaustion– body’s resources for fighting stress may be depleted
What are the two major pathways that stress signals travel to the endocrine system?
1- routed through ANS, hypothalamus activates sympathetic NS, release of CATECHOLAMINES
2- hypothalamus signals pituitary gland, releases CORTICOSTEROIDS
True or false, Women’s stress responses tend to be more mild than mens, if so, why?
True.. because of Estrogen
What is coping?
active efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress
True or false, coping can be adaptive as well as maladaptive
True
What three stable coping dimensions does the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS) measure?
task-oriented coping
emotion-oriented coping
avoidance-oriented coping
What is learned helplessness?
Passive behaviour produced by exposure to unavoidable aversive events.
When people think that events are beyond their contol
What is behavioural disengagement?
Giving up
What does Ellis mean when he says that people engage in catastrophic thinking when dealing with stress?
Blaming oneself, becoming highly critical of oneself when stressed
True or false, according to Beck, negative self-talk can lead to depressive disorders
True
What is aggression?
any behaviour that is intended to hurt someone physically or verbally
What is the frustration-aggression hypothesis, and how does it stand up today?
Aggression is always caused by frustration, research hasn’t shown that there isn’t an inevitable one-to-one correspondence between them
What is catharsis?
Freud’s term that refers to the release the pent up emotion using aggression
How does the hypothesis of catharsis stand up today?
It doesn’t, studies find the opposite
How do defence mechanisms work?
Through self-deception
distorting reality so it doesn’t appear as threatening
What do defence mechanisms defend against?
the emotional discomfort thats elicited by stress
anxiety, guilt, and anger most commonly..
Why are defence mechanisms bad for you?
avoidance strategy, doesn’t provide a solution
True or false, sometimes small defence mechanisms are helpful for your mental health?
True
What is constructive coping?
relatively healthful efforts that people make to deal with stressful events.
What are the three key themes of literature around constructive coping?
1) It makes you confront problems
2) You tend not to deceive yourself
3) You learn to recognize, possibly regulate emotional reactions to stress
True or false, the optimal level of arousal on a task depends on the complexity of the task
True
True or false, in times of stress, emotions are not uniformly negative
True
During a stressful time, can positive emotions promote resilience?
Yes
When do diseases of adaptation typically emerge?
During the exhaustion phase of selyes’ general adaptation theory
There are two major pathways along which the brain sends signals to the endocrine system in response to stress.. they release two different kinds of hormones, what are they?
Catecholamines an corticosteroids
What form does the behavioural reaction to stress take?
Coping
Can stress interfere with task performance?
yes
Explain Baumeisters theory of task performance during stressful times
Stress causes self-consciousness, which causes disruptions in attention
What is burnout?
Physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a lowered sense of self-efficacy that can be brought on gradually by chronic work-related stress
Are there any positive effects of stress?
Reliance- adaptation to significant stress and trauma
Stress can promote personal growth
What are psychosomatic diseases? Identify the five classic illnesses.
How does this theory hold up today?
Genuine physical ailments that were thought to be caused in part by stress and other psychological factors.
high blood pressure, ulcers, headaches, asthma, hives, and eczema
This theory has fallen into disuse
What is the Type A personality? Identify three elements
1) Strong competitive orientation
2) impatience and urgency
3) anger and hostility
What is the Type B personality?
relatively patient, easy going, amicable behaviour
Explain McCann’s precocity-longevity hypothesis
factors associated with early success in individuals career achievement may be the factors that set conditions for the early death of those who have this early success.
How does stress affect immune function and vulnerability to the common cold?
Long term stress can sometimes foster persistent overproduction of proinflammatory cytokines, which can promote chronic inflammation
which can promote heart issues, cancer, and osteoporosis
What are the three factors that moderate the impact of stress
Social support, optimism, and conscientiousness,
What is the difference between explicit and implicit social support?
Explicit- overt emotional solace and instrumental aid from others
Implicit- comfort that comes from knowing that one has access to others who will be supportive
How does optimism relate to health?
optimism= more effective immune functioning, deals with stress more adaptively, more likely to engage in problem-focused coping, more willing to seek social support.
How is conscientiousness related to health?
promotes longevity
people tend to gravitate toward healthy environments and may show less reactivity to stress, fosters better health habits.
How does smoking increase morality?
chemicals spread quickly through body causing widespread cellular damage
higher chance of developing a range of diseases
What are the health benefits of excersise?
enhance cardiovascular fitness which would reduce heart problems
reduces risk of developing obesity related problems
diminishes chronic inflammation
reduces physical demands of stress
How do health impairing behaviour develop?
Gradually, involve behaviours that tend to be enjoyable at the time
What is the biggest problem related to people’s decisions to seek medical treatment?
Wait times
how individuals react to health concerns
biggest problem is delaying needed consultation
What are some barriers to effective communication between patients and their health problems?
Short appointments, too much medical jargon, people may be slightly evasive of real concerns because they fear a serious diagnosis, and many patients are afraid to challenge doctors’ authority
What can one do to improve communication with health-care providers?
be on time, know what you want to ask, try to be candid in replying to questions, ask for clarification
How problematic is nonadherance to medical advice?
major problem
greater when instructions are hard to understand
when recommendations are hard to follow
and when patients don’t like their doctor
True or false, exhaustion is the illness phase
True
