Chapter 3 Flashcards
1
Q
Stress
A
circumstance where transactions lead a person to perceive a discrepancy between the physical or psychological demands of a situation and the resources of their biological, psychological, or social systems
2
Q
Stressors
A
physically or psychologically challenging events or circumstances
3
Q
Person-environment fit
A
whether the demands of the situation and the resource of the person match
4
Q
Appraisal of stress
A
- comprised of Primary and Secondary appraisal
- Appraising events as stressful depends on factors that relate to the person (ie. High self-esteem = less stress) and the situation (strong, imminent demands = more stressful)
5
Q
Primary Appraisal vs. Secondary Appraisal
A
- Primary appraisal: assessing the meaning of a potentially stressful circumstance for our well-being -> is it irrelevant, good, or stressful?
- If stressful, we appraise it further: harm-loss (how much damage has already occurred?), threat (is there future harm?), challenge (can I grow/profit if I meet this demand?)
- Secondary appraisal: assessing the resources we have for coping -> if we judge something as stressful, do we have the means to cope?
- If resources are sufficient to meet demands, we have little or no stress (and vice versa)
6
Q
Dimensions of stressful events
A
- Biopsychosocial
- Biological: Reactivity (physiological response to stressor); different stressors elicit different reactivity (ie. Different hormone secretions); often depends on effort and distress involved
- Psychosocial: Cognition, emotion, social aspects
7
Q
physiological response to stress
A
- Sympathetic nervous system takes over (heart rate increases, digestion suppressed, etc.)
- Endocrine system secretes adrenalin
8
Q
Cannon’s fight-or-flight response
A
- Body mobilizes to defend against stress through activation of sympathetic nervous system and adrenalin secretion
- Adaptive in life-or-death situations, but not with stress we typically experience, like traffic
9
Q
Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome
A
- 3 stages
- Alarm reaction (fight or flight response; body mobilized to defend against stressor)
- Resistance (arousal high as body defends and adapts to stressor)
- Exhaustion: (resources limited, resistance may collapse)
10
Q
Relationship between stress and cognition
A
- Cognitive appraisal plays a role in people’s physiological reaction to stressors
- High levels of stress affect people’s memory and attention -> disrupt cognitive processes
- Rumination/worrying about threats can maintain elevated stress response
11
Q
Relationship between stress and emotion
A
Cognitive appraisal of a stressor can influence your emotions (ie. Fear, anger, depression)
12
Q
Relationship between stress and social behaviour
A
Some stressors increase social behaviour, whereas some stressors (ie. ones that elicit anger) make people more hostile
13
Q
Gender differences in stress
A
- Women generally report experiencing more major and minor stressors than men (especially interpersonal strains and home-based stressors)
- May be because they are more willing to report, but typically women do have more stress b/c of “second shift”
- Men show more reactivity to stress than women, and take longer to return to baseline after
- This does depend on type of stress though: Men show greater reactivity when competence is challenged; women show greater reactivity when love/friendship is challenged
- Men’s responses = fight or flight, women’s responses = tend and befriend (increase effort to maintain social ties)
14
Q
Sociocultural differences in stress
A
- Being poor or part of a minority group also increases stressors people experience, which is related to those groups also experiencing greater health difficulties
- Blacks and aboriginals show greater reactivity than whites
- Adults with low income and education report more chronic stress and major stressors
15
Q
Sources of stress within person
A
- illness
- conflict
- Social motives (ie. Motives about interactions and relationships with others)
- Unattainable goals
16
Q
3 types of conflicts
A
- Approach-approach: 2 appealing goals that are incompatible (ie. Wanting to lose weight but wanting to eat cake)
- Avoidance-avoidance: choice between 2 undesirable situations (ie. Choosing between 2 treatments with negative side effects); very stressful – people often postpone choice, change their mind, or get someone else to decide
- Approach-avoidance: single goal has unattractive and attractive features (ie. Wanting to quit smoking to improve health, but getting cravings)
17
Q
Sources of stress within family
A
- Adding a new family member (especially if the baby has a difficult temperament); stress can also lead to prematurity, which leads to more stress
- Marital conflict and divorce: frequent and severe conflict leads to high stress and sleep difficulties, making recovering from stress harder; divorce produces many stressful transitions for all family members
- Illness and death in family: chronic illness leads to chronic stress (for kids, caregivers, etc.)
- Age sometimes influences stress (ie. Young children don’t fully understand death, so may not be as stressed)
18
Q
Sources of stress in community and society
A
Jobs and stress (many people report jobs as main source of stress)
19
Q
Factors that make jobs stressful
A
- Demands of the task (high workload, resources like having authority over others, repetitive manual labour)
- Responsibility for people’s lives -> can cause burnout
- Physical environment (ie. Extreme levels of noise, light, temperature, etc.)
- Perceived insufficient control over aspects of the job
- Poor interpersonal relationships with coworkers/customers
- Perceived inadequate recognition or advancement
- Job loss and insecurity
20
Q
Environmental stress
A
noisy, crowded environments, ones with serious threats of violence or harm, poorer neighbourhoods, rural, discriminatory places = high stress
21
Q
3 ways of measuring stress
A
- Measuring physiological arousal (heart rate, skin response, blood pressure, etc.; assessing hormones in blood and urine, etc.)
- Measuring life events: Social readjustment rating scale (giving stressful life events a value of stress and asking people to check off ones that have happened to them to get a stress score)
- Measuring daily hassles:
- Hassles scale (indicating which hassles occurred in past month, rating their stress; related to health) and uplifts scale (had no association with health status)
22
Q
Strengths and weaknesses of the 3 ways of measuring stress
A
- Physiological measures: reliable, direct, objective, but expensive and potentially stressful for the person (ie. When drawing blood) and can be influenced by age, gender, etc.
- Social readjustment rating scale: represents a wide range of stressful events, easy to fill out, but can be vague/ambiguous, disregards age and personal characteristics, some items could be desirable, emphasize single (not chronic) events
- Daily life events: measuring is important and simple, but people aren’t always accurate in remembering
23
Q
Benefits of stress
A
- Some people function best at a level of arousal that’s optimal for them
- Cognitive appraisal is important in determining experience of stress
- Eustress = good stress (distress = bad stress)
- Everyone is different in their susceptibility to effects of stress
24
Q
Is stress an objective or subjective experience?
A
- there are objective elements (ie. Major stress affects people similarly)
- but a lot is subjective (ie. Cognitive appraisal; individual susceptibility)
25
Characteristics of stressful experiences
Life transitions, difficult timing (ie. Having a baby at 16), ambiguity, low desirability, low controllability
26
allostatic load
effects of the body adapting repeatedly to stressors that accumulate over time; creates wear and tear on body
27
4 important factors in overall amount of physiological stress burden
- Amount of exposure
- Magnitude of reactivity
- Rate of recovery
- Resource restoration
28
Spillover vs. Crossover
- Spillover: when the individual carries their job stress home and become more stressed
- Crossover: when that stress has an effect on someone else in the home
