chapter 16: health and stress

Question 1

what is stress?

Answer 1

a broad term used to refer to external environmental stimuli, internal emotional experiences, and bodily responses asscoiated with threats and challenges to balance

Question 2

Stress can have positive effects on our functioning and enhance our ability to thrive.

yes or no?

Answer 2

yes

Explanation
Stress is adaptive and helped your ancestors survive and thrive. Prolonged stress, on the other hand, is harmful.

Question 3

Whereas good stress is

Answer 3

beneficial for us, motivating us to work to achieve our goals and even enhancing our functioning

Question 4

while bad stress can

Answer 4

reduce motivation and impair functioning.

Question 5

say the name of one of the pioneers of stress research

Answer 5

Hans Selye

Question 6

what is eustress?

ang give examples

Answer 6

good stress, which includes exterrnal circumstances, internal emotional experiences, and bodily responses that can be beneficial and motivating

Eustress would occur in the context of experiences such as marriage, having or adopting a child, getting a promotion at work, or being confronted with manageable challenges in everyday life.

Question 7

what is distress?

Answer 7

Bad stress, which includes external circumstances, internal emotional experiences, and bodily responses that can be harmful, reduce motivation, and impar functioning

distress would be experienced in response to situations typically perceived as negative, such as being the victim of a crime, the loss or death of a loved one, failing a test, or experiencing challenges that you feel are beyond your capacity.

Question 8

hans selye mis l’emphase sur quoi?

Answer 8

He coined the term eustress to represent reactions to good stress and contrasted it with the word distress, which represents reactions to bad stress

Question 9

what is the Yerkes - Dodson law) hancock and Szalma)

Answer 9

which outlines an inverted U-shaped curve for the relationship between stress and performance (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). This law specifies that too little or too much stress impairs performance.

A review of over 25 years of research on stress and performance emphasized that there is very little empirical evidence to support the idea of an inverted U-shaped relationship between stress and performance (Muse et al., 2003).

Question 10

what is the Maximal Adaptability Model

Answer 10

emphasizes that humans and other organisms are actually highly adaptive to stressors and can maintain high levels of performance even when experiencing underload or overload in terms of the demands of the environment (Hancock & Warm, 1989). Given that striving to achieve goals or overcome adversity inevitably involves stress, it is important to remember that we can function well despite the negative aspects of stress.

Question 11

Your perception of an event or situation (i.e., potential stressor) influences your body’s response to the potential stressor. Thus, you can reduce the negative effects of stress on your health by changing how you perceive an event or situation.

true or false

Answer 11

true

Explanation
Research studies have demonstrated that your perception of an event influences how your body responds and health outcomes.

Question 12

what is the stress and coping theory?

Answer 12

A theory of stress that emphasizes the importance of appraisals of both the demands of a stressor and the resources available to deal with it in determining the outcome of stressor exposure(Lazarus and Folkman)

Question 13

based on what we can discriminate between external and internal aspects of stress

Answer 13

based on the highly influential Stress and Coping Theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and the work of Hans Selye

Question 14

what are stressors

Answer 14

are external circumstances and stimuli that are perceived as having the potential to disturb an individual’s balanced state. Stressors can range from mild (e.g., getting stuck in traffic or making a mistake in an email address) to severe (e.g., experiencing extreme poverty or being physically assaulted)

Question 15

what is stress responses

Answer 15

are internal integrated psychological and biological responses to stressors that work to restore a balanced state. The stress response has psychological components that involve thoughts (e.g., “I will get a really bad score on this test”) and emotions (e.g., fear and anxiety), and biological components that involve responses and feedback from bodily systems (e.g., increased blood pressure and faster heart rate).

Question 16

The Stress Coping Theory emphasizes the importance of an individual’s ……………..
of an event in the stress process.

Answer 16

appraisal

Explanation
We appraise what the stressor requires of us and how well we can cope with that stressor.

Question 17

Richard Lazarus and colleagues view stress as primarily a consequence of ______.

a
environmental events that impact the individual

b
a disruption in homeostasis

c
being alive

d
how a person appraises environmental events and the person’s coping resources

Answer 17

d
how a person appraises environmental events and the person’s coping resources

Explanation
A person evaluates the magnitude of external stressors and their coping mechanisms for those stressors. The result of this appraisal is the stress response.

Question 18

When it comes to precision in defining stressors, it is important that we distinguish among stressors based on…..

give example

Answer 18

how long they last and their level of severity

For example, speaking in front of your class for 15 minutes would have very different effects on you than dealing with long-term unemployment

Question 19

what are acute stressors?

Answer 19

are short-term external circumstances or stimuli, lasting minutes to hours, with the potential to disturb an individual’s balanced state. Some examples are giving a 15-minute speech in public, taking an important exam, or realizing that you sent an embarrassing text to the wrong person

Question 20

what are chronic stressors?

Answer 20

are enduring external circumstances or stimuli, lasting weeks to years, with the potential to disturb an individual’s balanced state. Living in poverty, caring for an elderly relative, and ongoing workplace stress are all stressors that can be considered chronic.

Question 21

Acute and chronic stressors can vary in severity from mild to moderate to severe. The most severe stressors, those involving a threat to your own or another’s life or physical integrity, are called

Answer 21

traumatic stressors

Question 22

what are traumatic stressors?

Answer 22

stressors involving threat to your own or another’s life or physical integrity

Some examples include experiencing or witnessing risks to life or physical integrity during war or combat, sexual assault, childhood abuse, natural disasters such as earthquakes and tornadoes, and major fires.

Question 23

explain how long is the time of the 3 different type of stressor and an example of each

Answer 23

Acute - minutes to a few days, being cut off in traffic

Chronic - Weeks to years - Long term care for an ill parent, living in poverty

Traumatic - immediate threat to physical integrity - Experiencing a natural disaster, witnessing a school shooting

See also the table above for examples. An acute stressor is a small and short-term circumstance such as being cut off in traffic. A chronic stressor is a long-term circumstance such as living in a high crime neighborhood; living in a high crime neighborhood doesn’t pose an immediate threat, but it is more probable to be exposed to crime there. A traumatic stressor is an immediate threat such as witnessing a school shooting. A school shooting is a more immediate threat to a person’s life and can be very distressing for those who witness the shooting.

Question 24

Stressors produce _____ changes.

a
cognitive

b
emotional

c
physiological

d
All of the above

Answer 24

d
All of the above

Explanation
Toward the beginning of the section on Stressors and Stress Response, we discussed how stress responses are internal and involve negative thoughts or cognition, emotions of fear and anxiety, and physiological changes like increased blood pressure.

Question 25

what is homeostasis?

Answer 25

the state of balance that can be disturbed by stressors, Cannon

Stressors have the potential to move the scale out of balance, and the stress response is a combination of alerts that the scale is out of balance and reactions that restore balance. The alerts include psychological factors such as thoughts and emotions, as well as sensations in the body that inform us there is a risk for disturbance to our balanced state. The reactions consist of psychological and biological responses that are designed to restore balance. To summarize, homeostasis is when the scale is balanced, stressors can unbalance the scale and disturb homeostasis, and the stress response can shift the scale back to a balanced state of homeostasis again.

Question 26

We can consider the stress response as an adaptation that helps us

Answer 26

maintain homeostasis in the face of life’s inevitable threats and challenges. In our ancestral past, encounters with predators such as bears and tigers and attacks from other humans were much more common than they are in many (but not all) societies today.

Encounters with predators and other humans who threatened our lives increased the need for energy to help us fight or run away to minimize the risk for injury or infection. A coordinated response that allowed us to mobilize energy to deal with a stressor, avoid damage, and reduce risk for infection was greatly advantageous. Adaptations that allowed us to mount this response even when only anticipating a potential stressor were also beneficial because they allowed us to prepare for stressors even before directly experiencing them.

Question 27

Homeostasis is defined as which of the following?

a
The fight-or-flight reaction.

b
The body’s physiological reaction to stress.

c
The tendency to maintain a balanced state

Answer 27

c
The tendency to maintain a balanced state

Explanation
Homeostasis isn’t the reaction to the stressor. Homeostasis is the balanced state that happens as a result of the reaction to the stressor.

Question 28

The brain plays a critical role in stress responses. It allows us to detect and evaluate potential stressors, and then it coordinates the stress response.

true or false

Answer 28

true

Question 29

The earliest stress responses typically occur in the

Answer 29

amygdala

Question 30

amygdala

Answer 30

is sometimes called the “neural watchdog,” because it responds to potential stressors rapidly and sometimes even before conscious awareness (Figure 16.4). The amygdala doesn’t act alone, but instead works in a coordinated way with other brain areas that can either increase or decrease the amygdala’s response

Question 31

amygdala works with which regions of the brain?

Answer 31

hippocampus, prefrontal cortex

Question 32

what is the hippocampus?

Answer 32

A brain area, adjacent to the amygdala, central to learning and memory. the hippocampus plays an important role in the consolidation of new memories and humans are particularly prone to encoding memories of situations that elicit stress responses. the hippocampus also allows us to filter ongoing experiences through past experiences and to imagine things that have not yet happened.

Question 33

what is the prefrontal cortex?

Answer 33

The prefrontal cortex is involved in higher-level processing of stimuli in our environment. It allows us to increase or decrease our amygdala response to potential stressors based on perceptions of other factors that make the stressor more or less threatening. For example, if your amygdala reacts to the sight of a tiger at the zoo, your prefrontal cortex might dampen this response based on recognizing that the tiger is secured within a pen and unable to get to you. Your hippocampus might also dampen the response based on memories of encountering tigers at the zoo in the past. Overall, your brain decides which situations are safe versus unsafe and elicits the appropriate reactions to enhance your survival and well-being and then restore homeostasis.

Question 34

true or false

Several areas of the brain are involved in the stress response. The earliest response to a stressor begins in the amygdala. The hippocampus is responsible for consolidating memories of the stressor for us to refer to if we encounter it again in the future. The prefrontal cortex allows us to evaluate the stressor and decide on the level of threat it presents.

Answer 34

true

Question 35

While _ is the region of the brain that responds rapidly to stress, the ___ evaluates the stressor and then determines what action to take.

a
Hippocampus, prefrontal cortex

b
Amygdala, hippocampus

c
Amygdala, prefrontal cortex

d
Prefrontal cortex, amygdala

Answer 35

c
Amygdala, prefrontal cortex

Explanation
According to the Neurobiological Responses to Stressors section, stressors first activate the amygdala, the hippocampus allows us to compare new memories of the current stressors to old memories of similar stressors, and the prefrontal cortex can evaluate the higher-level stimuli related to the stressors to mitigate or intensify the amygdala’s response.

Question 36

Specifically, once the brain registers a stressor, the

Answer 36

autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis are rapidly activated. The ANS and the HPA axis are biological systems that produce specific hormones that can travel throughout our bodies to coordinate and regulate our responses to a stressor.

Question 37

the ANS includes two major branches:

Answer 37

the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. These two branches of the ANS work together to maintain homeostasis through a process of reciprocal inhibition, where the activation of one system can suppress the other.

Question 38

what is the sympathetic nervous system?

Answer 38

One of the branches of the autonomic nervous system that plays a key role in switching on the stress response and promoting release of epinephrine and norepinephrine responses to stressors