Chapter 3 - Stress and Its Effects Flashcards
What is stress?
Involves any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one’s well being and thereby tax one’s coping abilities
What three ways is stress viewed by psychologists?
A stimulus, a response and an organism-environment interaction
How can we describe stress as a stimulus?
Events that place a strong demands on us - these situations are referred to as stressors
What do we often think of stress in terms of?
Major stressors such as tornados, hijackings, military combat
Why are routine hassles found to be more strongly related to mental and physical health than major stressors?
Because minor stressors can add up over time
What three components are included in stress as a response?
Cognitive, physiological, and behavioural components
What is an important feature of the stress response?
The presence of negative emotions, which links the study of stress with the field of emotions
What is stressed viewed as in a person-situation interaction?
A transaction between the organism and the environment
What is another definition of stress?
A pattern of cognitive appraisals, physiological responses, and behavioural tendencies that occur in response to a perceived imbalance between situational demands and resources needed to cope with them
What is ambient stress?
Chronic environmental conditions that, although not urgent, are negatively valued and that place adaptive demands on people
What are other sources of stress?
Self-imposed stress and culture (minority groups and negative stereotypes)
What are acute stressors?
Threatening events that have a short duration and a clear endpoint
What are chronic stressors?
Threatening events that have a long duration and no readily apparent time limit
When does frustration occur?
In any situation in which the pursuit of some goal is thwarted
What two types of appraisal are there?
Primary and secondary appraisal
What happens in primary appraisal?
You may perceive the situation as relevant/threatening or irrelevant/harmless
What happens in secondary appraisal?
You process whether your coping resources appear adequate or inadequate and likely to be taxed - this therefore leads to perceived of stress
What is the important point of appraisal mechanisms?
The same event might not be stressful for different people - stress isn’t experienced in the same way by everyone
What is a major type of stress that has three types?
Conflict
What are the three types of conflict?
Approach-Approach, Avoidance-Avoidance, and Approach-Avoidance
What occurs in Approach-Approach conflict?
There is choice between two attractive goals
What occurs in Avoidance-Avoidance conflict?
There is a choice between two unattractive goals
What occurs in Approach-Avoidance conflict?
There is a choice regarding a single goal that has attractive and unattractive aspects
What are two other major types of stress?
Change - can be positive or negative and pressure - to perform and conform
Can positive events be stressful?
Yes!
What are three types of responses to stress?
Emotional, Physiological and Behavioural
What are some negative emotional responses to stress?
Anger, anxiety, sadness
What are some positive emotions to stress?
Grateful, hopeful
What mechanisms occur in physiological response to stress?
The fight or flight reaction, and the autonomic nervous system including the PNS and SNS
What does the PNS do?
Conserves bodily resources, slows heart rate and promotes digestion
What does the SNS do?
Mobilizes bodily resources for emergencies
What main behavioural response is there to stress?
Coping, which can be adaptive or maladaptive
What main features are a part of the multidimensional response to stress?
An initial potentially stressful objective event followed by a subjective cognitive appraisal, which results in three different types of responses
What are some potential effects of stress?
Impaired task performance and disruption of cognitive functioning
What happens during impaired task performance?
Pressure to perform makes people self-conscious, which leads to diversion of attention and trying too hard (choking under pressure)
What is a potential effect of stress in the workplace?
Burnout
What is burnout?
Physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a lowered sense of self-efficacy that is attributable to work-related stress
What can burnout be caused by?
Work overload, interpersonal conflicts at work, inadequate recognition for one’s work
What are life event scales used for?
To quantify the amount of life stress that a person has experienced over a given period of time
What do post traumatic stress disorders involve?
Enduring psychological disturbance attributed to the experience of a major traumatic event
What are some other psychological disorders that could be an effect of stress?
Depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, eating disorders
What are some physical illnesses that may arise due to stress?
Heart disease, stroke, diabetes
What are some symptoms of PTSD?
Re-experiencing the traumatic event, emotional numbing, alienation, elevated arousal, anxiety, guilt
How does stress lead to some physical illnesses?
It can cause immunological changes that can lead to these diseases
Is stress always harmful?
No!
What are three positive effects of stress?
Satisfy the need for stimulation/challenge - people would be bored otherwise, promote personal growth with the development of new skills and strengths, protect against future stress by increasing tolerance
What are the factors that influence stress tolerance?
Social support, hardiness, and optimism
How does social support influence stress tolerance?
Social support acts as a buffer to reduce the negative impact of stressful events
What does social support refer to?
The various types of aid and succour provided by members of one’s social networks
What is hardiness?
A disposition marked by commitment, challenge, and control that is purportedly associated with strong stress resistance
How does hardiness influence stress tolerance?
May reduce the effects of stress by altering appraisals or fostering more active coping
What is hardiness positive related to?
Personality factors such as optimism that protect one against stress
What is hardiness negatively related to?
Personality factors such as neuroticism that make stress worse
What is optimism?
A general tendency to expect good outcomes
What is the pessimistic explanatory style?
The tendency to blame setbacks on your own shortcomings
What is the optimistic explanatory style?
The tendency to attribute setbacks to temporary situational factors
Do optimists or pessimists cope with stress in more adaptive ways?
Optimists
When can optimism not be beneficial?
When stress is more severe, it may not always be a good idea (realistic)
What is acculturation?
Changing to adapt to a new culture - major source of stress for immigrants
What are anticipatory stressors?
Upcoming or future events that are perceived to be threatening
What does frustration often lead to?
Aggression
When does internal conflict occur?
When two or more incompatible motivations or behavioural impulses compete for expression
Which type of conflict appears to be the least stressful?
Approach-approach
Which type of conflict is the most stressful?
Avoidance-avoidance
What is vacillation?
Produced by approach-avoidance conflicts when people go back and forth being indecisive
What are life changes?
Any noticeable alterations in one’s living circumstances that require readjustment
Why do positive events produce stress sometimes?
Because they produce change and a disruption of daily routines are stressful
Is change overall detrimental?
There is nothing truly proving that change is inherently or inevitably stressful
What does pressure involve?
Expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way
What two subtypes of pressure are there?
The pressure to conform and the pressure to perform
What does the frequency of pleasant emotions correlate positively with?
A measure of subject’s resilience
What can having positive emotions do for stress?
They can build positive social, intellectual, and physical resources that can be helping in dealing with stress
What does the inverted U hypothesis predict?
That performance should improve with increased emotional arousal up to a point, after which further increases in arousal become disruptive and performance deteriorates
What is the level of arousal at which performance peaks characterized as?
The optimal level of arousal for a task
What does the optimal level of arousal depend partly on?
The complexity of the task at hand
What happens to the optimal level of arousal when tasks become more complex?
It decreases
What is the fight or flight response?
A physiological reaction to threat that mobilizes an organism for attacking or feeling an enemy
What is the ANS made up of?
Nerves that connect to the heart, blood vessels, smooth muscles and glands
What is the general adaptation syndrome?
A model of the body’s stress response, consisting of three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion
Are stress reactions specific or nonspecific?
Nonspecific - they do not vary according to the specific type of circumstances encountered
What is the alarm reaction?
Occurs when an organism recognizes the existence of a threat
What is the stage of resistance?
Physiological changes stabilize as coping efforts get under way
What happens at the stage of exhaustion?
Body’s resources for fighting stress are limited, if the stress cannot be overcome the body’s resources may be depleted, and physiological arousal will decrease
What does the hypothalamus activate in stressful situations?
The sympathetic division of the ANS
What is a key part of this activation of the ANS?
Stimulation of adrenal glands which release catecholamines (hormones) that produce energy mobilizing effects
What other pathway does the hypothalamus activate in response to stress?
Sends signals to the pituitary gland, which secretes ACTH that stimulates outer part of adrenal glands to release corticosteroids
What is coping?
Active efforts to master, reduce or tolerate the demands created by stress
What three things are coping efforts directed at?
Reducing the perceived threat of a stressor, diminishing negative emotions brought on by stress, or addressing the problem directly
What two specific aspects of attention does stress disrupt?
- Increased participants tendency to jump to a conclusion too quickly without considering all their options
- Increased their tendency to do an unsystematic, poorly organized review of their available options
What type of cognition can stress have a detrimental effect on?
Aspects of memory functioning
What are psychosomatic diseases?
Genuine physical ailments thought to be caused in part by stress and other psychological factors - authentic organic maladies that are heavily stress related
Why do psychosomatic diseases not require their own category?
Because although they are thought to be caused by stress, many other physiological diseases are also influenced by stress
What is post-traumatic growth?
Positive psychological change in response to stress
What is behaviour modification?
A systematic approach to changing behaviour through the application of the principles of conditioning
How can many sources of stress be reduced?
By self-control
What is the first step in behaviour modification?
To specify the target behaviour that you want to change (has to be clearly defined)
What is the second step in behaviour modification?
Gathering baseline data
What are the three steps to gathering baseline data?
- Determining the initial response level of the target behaviour
- Monitoring the antecedents of your target behaviour
- Monitoring the typical consequences of your target behaviour
What are antecedents?
Events that typically precede a target response
What is the this step to behaviour modification?
Designing your program
What should be the general design of your program?
To either increase or decrease the frequency of the target response
How would you design a program to increase response strength?
Selecting a reinforcer, arranging the contingencies, and shaping
What do efforts to increase the frequency of a target response depend on?
The use of positive reinforcement
How do you use positive reinforcement in your program?
You need to find a reward that will be effective for you
What is important in regards to the part of the program that involves selecting a reinforcer?
You have to restructure the contingencies so that you get the reward only if you behave appropriately
What do reinforcement contingencies do?
They will describe the exact behavioural goals that must be met and the reinforcement that may then be rewarded
What type of behavioural goals should be set?
Those that are challenging but realistic
How can someone avoid becoming satiated when reinforcement is too easy to get?
Put themselves on a token economy
What is a token economy?
A system for doling out symbolic reinforcers that are exchanged later for a variety of genuine reinforcers
How is shaping accomplished?
By reinforcing closer and closer approximation of the desired response
When is shaping used?
When you want to reinforce a target response that you are not currently capable of making
How would you design a program to decrease response strength?
Reinforcement, control of antecedents, and punishment
How can reinforcers be used to decrease response strength?
In an indirect way, and this depends on how you define the target behaviour
What is an example of using reinforcement to decrease a response?
You may want to decrease the response of eating more than 1800 calories a day (versus increasing eating less than 1800)
How do we control antecedents?
To decrease the occurrence of an undesirable response, you can identify its antecedents and avoid exposure to them
What are some tips for using punishment as a method for decreasing unwanted behaviour?
Do not use punishment alone (use in conjunction with positive reward), and use a relatively mild punishment so that you will be able to administer it yourself
What two things can you do to increase the likelihood that you will comply with your program?
Make up a behavioural contract or having someone other than yourself administer the reinforcements and punishments
What is a behavioural contract?
A written agreement outlining a promise to adhere to the contingencies of a behaviour modification program
What three flaws are common in designing self-modification programs?
- Depending on a weak reinforcer
- Permitting lengthy delays between appropriate behaviour and delivery of reinforcers
- Trying to do too much too quickly by setting unrealistic goals
What does ending your program involve?
Setting terminal goals
What is a good way of ending your program?
Phasing it out by gradually reducing the frequency of potency of your reinforcement for appropriate behaviour
What can happen if your program is successful?
It may fade away without a conscious decision made by you
