Chapter 14: Stress And Health Flashcards
When does stress happen
When we are forced to adjust in some way
3 parts to stress
It is both physical and psychological
It disturbs our homeostasis (Normal state)
It taxes our ability to cope
Stressor
Can be a big traumatic event or a small daily hassle
Type A personality
Competitive
Time urgent
Hostile and aggressive
Resilience
Ability to bounce back from negative situations
Resilience may lead to
Better functioning following negative experiences
Coping with stress
Problem focussed or rational coping
Emotion focused or repressive coping
Problem focussed or rational coping
Sublimation
Emotion focused or repressive coping
Avoiding situations or thoughts that are reminders of a stressor and maintaining a fake state of positivity
Stress reliving interventions
Relaxation activities
Progressive muscle relaxation
Breathing exercise
How can we lower our stress
Being socially integrated and having social support
Feeling a sense of control can
Lower your stress
Self efficacy
The belief that you can reach your goals and complete tasks
Personality
Our unique pattern of enduring, distinctive thoughts, emotions, and bahaviors that characterize the way we adapt to the world
3 core assumptions of pshychodynamic approach to personality
Emphasis on unconscious
Early experiences shapes us
Nothin happens by chance
Emphasis on unconscious
The mind is assumed to operate largely outside of our awareness
Early experiences shape us
Things that happen while we are children, even infants or toddlers can affect us as adults
Nothing happens by chance
Thoughts are neither random nor accidental
Personality is based on the
Interplay of unconscious mental processes
To Freud, part one of personality is
Visible
We are aware of conscious thoughts and perceptions
Preconscious thoughts
Can reach awareness, but are not thinking of them now
Unconscious thoughts
Exist outside our awareness
Psychosexual stages
Characterized by challenges and gratifications
Psychosexual stages
Erogenous stages
Fixation
Erogenous zone
What is the source of pleasure for developing children
Fixation
Getting stuck in a particular stage
Oral stage
Task: get nourishment
Fixation: over eating, nail biting
Anal stage
Task: master toilet training
Fixation: issues related to control, either excessive cleanliness or messiness
Phallic stage / Oedipal Stage
Task: satisfy unconscious sexual urges
Fixation: difficulty with authority figures
Problems and failures in adult relationships
Oedipus complex
Boys become erotically attracted to their mother
Latency period
Age 5 to puberty
Sexual feelings suppressed
Genital stage
Physical and emotionally mature state
Capability of reciprocal interactions with others in various life domains
Id
Unconscious part of personality
Operates on pleasure principle
IMPULSIVE
Pleasure principle
Wants whatever feels good
Not concerned with society’s rules or rights of others
Sexual and aggressive impulses
Superego
Our conscience
Operates on the idealistic principle
Personality dominated by superego is restrained and over controlled
Ego
Mediator between id and superego
Operates on reality principle
Ego is balanced, being logical and rational
Defence mechanisms
Unconscious response of the ego used to ward off anxiety about the demands of id
Ego defences
Projection Displacement Regression Reaction formation Rationalization Simblimation Repression
Projection
Attributing ones own feelings to another
Displacement
Moving the target of one’s urges to a substitue
Regression
Reverting to behaviours we used at earlier age
Reaction formation
Acting the opposite of how we feel
Rationalization
Making up an excuse to feel better
Sublimation
Seeking a socially acceptable outlet for one’s urges
Repression
Keep troubling thoughts from becoming conscious
Object relations theory
Personally Is understood as reflecting our mental images of significant people
Examples: Thinking of parents
Objective methods are
Standardized
Person must pick a response from options provided
Scoring is objective
Self report
Asking yourself questions
Advantage of self report
Simple Easy Cost effective Fast Low burden Validity is good
Disadvantages of self report
Person may answer to others peoples likings
They may self enhance
Reference group
Informant test
Observer (friends family) completes personality test about person
Pros of informant test
They will answer as truthfully as possible
Cons of informant report
Informant is still close to target so they’ll bias the test due to their liking
Projective methods are
Based on premise that personality is shaped by conscious forces
Test taker projects unconscious personality onto ambiguous stimuli
No define response scale
Test scores must be interpreted
Hermann Rorschach
Created the Rorschach test
Thematic apperception task (TAT)
A person is shown an ambiguous picture and ask to tel story about it
Implicit methods are based on
Social / learning and cognitive approaches
Test associations between concepts
Example: if I like pineapple I should be quicker to pairing then the second
Behavioural methods are
Direct observations of things people do
Examples of behavioural methods
Videotaping social interactions to determine levels of extraversion
Random recording devices
Pros of behavioural method
Natural environment, real behavior
Less subject to respond bias
Cons to behavioural method
May be invasive
Take a lot of time and effort
Must be rated or scored
Often a snapshot of a moment
The lexical hypothesis
States that language captures the key ways of differentiating or describing people
Factor analysis
Used to identify which words that go together (Social, extroverted, and gregarious)
Assumptions of the trait perspective
Traits are more stable over time
Traits are stable over situations
Traits can be shown how we are different / alike
Acronym for the personality profile
O.C.E.A.N
Openness to new experiences
Personality trait that reflects a persons tendency to seek out and appreciate new things, like thoughts, feelings, and experiences
Consciousness
Control of impulses, self control, ability to resist temptation
Extraversion
Characterized by degree of socialbility and outgoing ness
Agreeableness
Personality trait that reflects a persons tendency to be compassionate, cooperative, warm, and caring
Neuroticism
Proneness to experience negative emotional states and emotional reactivity
Extraversion and the normal distribution
Traits are continuous
Follow a relatively normal distribution
Most people are moderate but
Why are some personality traits important
1) they have consequences (they can predict)
2) personality traits are useful in business, healthcare, etc
Study separate piece of paper
Don’t skip me!! Do this!!
4 active coping strategies
Confronting coping
Seeking social support
Planful problem solving
Positive reappraisal
Confrontive coping
You take actions and confront the problem
Seeking social support
You seek informational and emotional support
Planful problem solving
You make a plan to solve the problem
Positive reappraisel
You try to create a positive meaning and focus on personal growth
4 passive coping strategies
Distancing
Self controlling
Accepting responsibility
Escape avoidance
Distancing
You expect the problem to solve itself
Self controlling
You make efforts to regulate feelings and actions
Accepting responsibility
You accept your own role in the problem
Escape avoidance
You try to avoid the problem by wishful thinking and behavioural efforts
Extraversion linked to
Reward
Neuroticism linked to
Avoidance system
Walter mischel proposed
Personality traits were illusory
Difficult to predict what someone would do in specific situation
What’s unique about the social cognitive approach
Emphasis on conscious thought
Derives from learning research
Recognizes both person and situation matters
Key points of social cognitive theory
How you think about things matter
We can think about things differently from others
Personal constructs are important
Your construal of the world and situations explain why you feel, think and behave the way you do
Trait
Emphasis on description
Self report meaningful
Emphasis on everyday people
Fundemental unit of the trait
Social cognitive
Emphasis on conscious awareness
Beliefs, expectations, and goals are important
Chronic stressor
Source of stress that occurs continuously or repeatedly
Stress
Physical and psychological response to internal or external stressors
General adaption syndrome
3 stage psychological stress response that appears regardless of the stressor encountered
General adaption syndrome stages
Alarm phase
Resistance phase
Exhaustion phase
Alarm phase
Body rapidly mobilizes it’s resources
Equivalent to fight or flight
Resistance phase
Body tries to cope with stressor
Body shuts down unnecessary processes (digestion, growth)
Exhaustion phase
Body’s resistance collapses
Many of the resistant defences cause damage to body
Type B personality
More calm
Less aggressive
Immune system response
Those less stressed fight off sickness faster or don’t get sick at all
Repressive coping
Avoiding situations or thoughts that are reminders of a stressor and maintaining a fake state of positivity
Rational coping
Sublimation
Biofeedback
The use of an external monitoring device to obtain information about a bodily function and possibly gain control over that function
Social support
Aid gained through interacting with others
Control
Feeing a sense of control can help lower stress
Personality traits
Different behaviors shown in across individuals, which tend to characterize the person across situations
continuous distribution
Characteristics can go from low to high. Traits are on a spectrum and one can not simply have that trait, but have amounts of it
Five factor model
Summarized by 5 traits to personality
eysenck’s personality factors
Believed extraversion and neuroticism is most important
Combining peoples standings on those two traits could account for many differences in personality
Active coping strategies
Confrontive coping
Seeking social support
planful problem solving
Positive reappraisal
Confrontive coping (ACTIVE)
You take action and confront the problem
Seeking social support (ACTIVE)
You seek informational and emotional support
Planful problem solving (ACTIVE)
you make plans to solve the problem
positive reappraisal (ACTIVE)
you try to create a positive meaning and focus on personal growth
Passive coping strategies
Distancing
Self controlling
Accepting responsibility
Escape-avoidance
Distancing (Passive)
you expect that the problem solves itself
Self-controlling (Passive)
You make efforts to regulate feelings and actions
Accepting responsibility (Passive)
you accept your own role in the problem
Escape avoidance
You try to avoid the problem by wishful thinking and behavioural efforts
Personality –> Stressor
tests exposure to stress
Stressor –> Outcome
tests reaction to stress
Do people high in neuroticism experience more stress?
Yes
Those high in N do more:
Planful problem solving
self controlling
social support
and escape avoidance
Do people higher in Neuroticism react more negatively to stress?
Yes
Those high in neuroticism react to stress with more
anger and depression
