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Psychology 2035 > Chapter 3 - Stress and Its Effects > Flashcards

Chapter 3 - Stress and Its Effects Flashcards

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1
Q

What is stress?

A

Involves any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one’s well being and thereby tax one’s coping abilities

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2
Q

What three ways is stress viewed by psychologists?

A

A stimulus, a response and an organism-environment interaction

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3
Q

How can we describe stress as a stimulus?

A

Events that place a strong demands on us - these situations are referred to as stressors

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4
Q

What do we often think of stress in terms of?

A

Major stressors such as tornados, hijackings, military combat

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5
Q

Why are routine hassles found to be more strongly related to mental and physical health than major stressors?

A

Because minor stressors can add up over time

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6
Q

What three components are included in stress as a response?

A

Cognitive, physiological, and behavioural components

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7
Q

What is an important feature of the stress response?

A

The presence of negative emotions, which links the study of stress with the field of emotions

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8
Q

What is stressed viewed as in a person-situation interaction?

A

A transaction between the organism and the environment

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9
Q

What is another definition of stress?

A

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

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10
Q

What is ambient stress?

A

Chronic environmental conditions that, although not urgent, are negatively valued and that place adaptive demands on people

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11
Q

What are other sources of stress?

A

Self-imposed stress and culture (minority groups and negative stereotypes)

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12
Q

What are acute stressors?

A

Threatening events that have a short duration and a clear endpoint

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13
Q

What are chronic stressors?

A

Threatening events that have a long duration and no readily apparent time limit

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14
Q

When does frustration occur?

A

In any situation in which the pursuit of some goal is thwarted

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15
Q

What two types of appraisal are there?

A

Primary and secondary appraisal

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16
Q

What happens in primary appraisal?

A

You may perceive the situation as relevant/threatening or irrelevant/harmless

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17
Q

What happens in secondary appraisal?

A

You process whether your coping resources appear adequate or inadequate and likely to be taxed - this therefore leads to perceived of stress

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18
Q

What is the important point of appraisal mechanisms?

A

The same event might not be stressful for different people - stress isn’t experienced in the same way by everyone

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19
Q

What is a major type of stress that has three types?

A

Conflict

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20
Q

What are the three types of conflict?

A

Approach-Approach, Avoidance-Avoidance, and Approach-Avoidance

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21
Q

What occurs in Approach-Approach conflict?

A

There is choice between two attractive goals

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22
Q

What occurs in Avoidance-Avoidance conflict?

A

There is a choice between two unattractive goals

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23
Q

What occurs in Approach-Avoidance conflict?

A

There is a choice regarding a single goal that has attractive and unattractive aspects

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24
Q

What are two other major types of stress?

A

Change - can be positive or negative and pressure - to perform and conform

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25
Q

Can positive events be stressful?

A

Yes!

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26
Q

What are three types of responses to stress?

A

Emotional, Physiological and Behavioural

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27
Q

What are some negative emotional responses to stress?

A

Anger, anxiety, sadness

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28
Q

What are some positive emotions to stress?

A

Grateful, hopeful

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29
Q

What mechanisms occur in physiological response to stress?

A

The fight or flight reaction, and the autonomic nervous system including the PNS and SNS

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30
Q

What does the PNS do?

A

Conserves bodily resources, slows heart rate and promotes digestion

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31
Q

What does the SNS do?

A

Mobilizes bodily resources for emergencies

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32
Q

What main behavioural response is there to stress?

A

Coping, which can be adaptive or maladaptive

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33
Q

What main features are a part of the multidimensional response to stress?

A

An initial potentially stressful objective event followed by a subjective cognitive appraisal, which results in three different types of responses

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34
Q

What are some potential effects of stress?

A

Impaired task performance and disruption of cognitive functioning

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35
Q

What happens during impaired task performance?

A

Pressure to perform makes people self-conscious, which leads to diversion of attention and trying too hard (choking under pressure)

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36
Q

What is a potential effect of stress in the workplace?

A

Burnout

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37
Q

What is burnout?

A

Physical and emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and a lowered sense of self-efficacy that is attributable to work-related stress

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38
Q

What can burnout be caused by?

A

Work overload, interpersonal conflicts at work, inadequate recognition for one’s work

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39
Q

What are life event scales used for?

A

To quantify the amount of life stress that a person has experienced over a given period of time

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40
Q

What do post traumatic stress disorders involve?

A

Enduring psychological disturbance attributed to the experience of a major traumatic event

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41
Q

What are some other psychological disorders that could be an effect of stress?

A

Depression, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, eating disorders

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42
Q

What are some physical illnesses that may arise due to stress?

A

Heart disease, stroke, diabetes

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43
Q

What are some symptoms of PTSD?

A

Re-experiencing the traumatic event, emotional numbing, alienation, elevated arousal, anxiety, guilt

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44
Q

How does stress lead to some physical illnesses?

A

It can cause immunological changes that can lead to these diseases

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45
Q

Is stress always harmful?

A

No!

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46
Q

What are three positive effects of stress?

A

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

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47
Q

What are the factors that influence stress tolerance?

A

Social support, hardiness, and optimism

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48
Q

How does social support influence stress tolerance?

A

Social support acts as a buffer to reduce the negative impact of stressful events

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49
Q

What does social support refer to?

A

The various types of aid and succour provided by members of one’s social networks

50
Q

What is hardiness?

A

A disposition marked by commitment, challenge, and control that is purportedly associated with strong stress resistance

51
Q

How does hardiness influence stress tolerance?

A

May reduce the effects of stress by altering appraisals or fostering more active coping

52
Q

What is hardiness positive related to?

A

Personality factors such as optimism that protect one against stress

53
Q

What is hardiness negatively related to?

A

Personality factors such as neuroticism that make stress worse

54
Q

What is optimism?

A

A general tendency to expect good outcomes

55
Q

What is the pessimistic explanatory style?

A

The tendency to blame setbacks on your own shortcomings

56
Q

What is the optimistic explanatory style?

A

The tendency to attribute setbacks to temporary situational factors

57
Q

Do optimists or pessimists cope with stress in more adaptive ways?

A

Optimists

58
Q

When can optimism not be beneficial?

A

When stress is more severe, it may not always be a good idea (realistic)

59
Q

What is acculturation?

A

Changing to adapt to a new culture - major source of stress for immigrants

60
Q

What are anticipatory stressors?

A

Upcoming or future events that are perceived to be threatening

61
Q

What does frustration often lead to?

A

Aggression

62
Q

When does internal conflict occur?

A

When two or more incompatible motivations or behavioural impulses compete for expression

63
Q

Which type of conflict appears to be the least stressful?

A

Approach-approach

64
Q

Which type of conflict is the most stressful?

A

Avoidance-avoidance

65
Q

What is vacillation?

A

Produced by approach-avoidance conflicts when people go back and forth being indecisive

66
Q

What are life changes?

A

Any noticeable alterations in one’s living circumstances that require readjustment

67
Q

Why do positive events produce stress sometimes?

A

Because they produce change and a disruption of daily routines are stressful

68
Q

Is change overall detrimental?

A

There is nothing truly proving that change is inherently or inevitably stressful

69
Q

What does pressure involve?

A

Expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way

70
Q

What two subtypes of pressure are there?

A

The pressure to conform and the pressure to perform

71
Q

What does the frequency of pleasant emotions correlate positively with?

A

A measure of subject’s resilience

72
Q

What can having positive emotions do for stress?

A

They can build positive social, intellectual, and physical resources that can be helping in dealing with stress

73
Q

What does the inverted U hypothesis predict?

A

That performance should improve with increased emotional arousal up to a point, after which further increases in arousal become disruptive and performance deteriorates

74
Q

What is the level of arousal at which performance peaks characterized as?

A

The optimal level of arousal for a task

75
Q

What does the optimal level of arousal depend partly on?

A

The complexity of the task at hand

76
Q

What happens to the optimal level of arousal when tasks become more complex?

A

It decreases

77
Q

What is the fight or flight response?

A

A physiological reaction to threat that mobilizes an organism for attacking or feeling an enemy

78
Q

What is the ANS made up of?

A

Nerves that connect to the heart, blood vessels, smooth muscles and glands

79
Q

What is the general adaptation syndrome?

A

A model of the body’s stress response, consisting of three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion

80
Q

Are stress reactions specific or nonspecific?

A

Nonspecific - they do not vary according to the specific type of circumstances encountered

81
Q

What is the alarm reaction?

A

Occurs when an organism recognizes the existence of a threat

82
Q

What is the stage of resistance?

A

Physiological changes stabilize as coping efforts get under way

83
Q

What happens at the stage of exhaustion?

A

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

84
Q

What does the hypothalamus activate in stressful situations?

A

The sympathetic division of the ANS

85
Q

What is a key part of this activation of the ANS?

A

Stimulation of adrenal glands which release catecholamines (hormones) that produce energy mobilizing effects

86
Q

What other pathway does the hypothalamus activate in response to stress?

A

Sends signals to the pituitary gland, which secretes ACTH that stimulates outer part of adrenal glands to release corticosteroids

87
Q

What is coping?

A

Active efforts to master, reduce or tolerate the demands created by stress

88
Q

What three things are coping efforts directed at?

A

Reducing the perceived threat of a stressor, diminishing negative emotions brought on by stress, or addressing the problem directly

89
Q

What two specific aspects of attention does stress disrupt?

A
  1. Increased participants tendency to jump to a conclusion too quickly without considering all their options
  2. Increased their tendency to do an unsystematic, poorly organized review of their available options
90
Q

What type of cognition can stress have a detrimental effect on?

A

Aspects of memory functioning

91
Q

What are psychosomatic diseases?

A

Genuine physical ailments thought to be caused in part by stress and other psychological factors - authentic organic maladies that are heavily stress related

92
Q

Why do psychosomatic diseases not require their own category?

A

Because although they are thought to be caused by stress, many other physiological diseases are also influenced by stress

93
Q

What is post-traumatic growth?

A

Positive psychological change in response to stress

94
Q

What is behaviour modification?

A

A systematic approach to changing behaviour through the application of the principles of conditioning

95
Q

How can many sources of stress be reduced?

A

By self-control

96
Q

What is the first step in behaviour modification?

A

To specify the target behaviour that you want to change (has to be clearly defined)

97
Q

What is the second step in behaviour modification?

A

Gathering baseline data

98
Q

What are the three steps to gathering baseline data?

A
  1. Determining the initial response level of the target behaviour
  2. Monitoring the antecedents of your target behaviour
  3. Monitoring the typical consequences of your target behaviour
99
Q

What are antecedents?

A

Events that typically precede a target response

100
Q

What is the this step to behaviour modification?

A

Designing your program

101
Q

What should be the general design of your program?

A

To either increase or decrease the frequency of the target response

102
Q

How would you design a program to increase response strength?

A

Selecting a reinforcer, arranging the contingencies, and shaping

103
Q

What do efforts to increase the frequency of a target response depend on?

A

The use of positive reinforcement

104
Q

How do you use positive reinforcement in your program?

A

You need to find a reward that will be effective for you

105
Q

What is important in regards to the part of the program that involves selecting a reinforcer?

A

You have to restructure the contingencies so that you get the reward only if you behave appropriately

106
Q

What do reinforcement contingencies do?

A

They will describe the exact behavioural goals that must be met and the reinforcement that may then be rewarded

107
Q

What type of behavioural goals should be set?

A

Those that are challenging but realistic

108
Q

How can someone avoid becoming satiated when reinforcement is too easy to get?

A

Put themselves on a token economy

109
Q

What is a token economy?

A

A system for doling out symbolic reinforcers that are exchanged later for a variety of genuine reinforcers

110
Q

How is shaping accomplished?

A

By reinforcing closer and closer approximation of the desired response

111
Q

When is shaping used?

A

When you want to reinforce a target response that you are not currently capable of making

112
Q

How would you design a program to decrease response strength?

A

Reinforcement, control of antecedents, and punishment

113
Q

How can reinforcers be used to decrease response strength?

A

In an indirect way, and this depends on how you define the target behaviour

114
Q

What is an example of using reinforcement to decrease a response?

A

You may want to decrease the response of eating more than 1800 calories a day (versus increasing eating less than 1800)

115
Q

How do we control antecedents?

A

To decrease the occurrence of an undesirable response, you can identify its antecedents and avoid exposure to them

116
Q

What are some tips for using punishment as a method for decreasing unwanted behaviour?

A

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

117
Q

What two things can you do to increase the likelihood that you will comply with your program?

A

Make up a behavioural contract or having someone other than yourself administer the reinforcements and punishments

118
Q

What is a behavioural contract?

A

A written agreement outlining a promise to adhere to the contingencies of a behaviour modification program

119
Q

What three flaws are common in designing self-modification programs?

A
  1. Depending on a weak reinforcer
  2. Permitting lengthy delays between appropriate behaviour and delivery of reinforcers
  3. Trying to do too much too quickly by setting unrealistic goals
120
Q

What does ending your program involve?

A

Setting terminal goals

121
Q

What is a good way of ending your program?

A

Phasing it out by gradually reducing the frequency of potency of your reinforcement for appropriate behaviour

122
Q

What can happen if your program is successful?

A

It may fade away without a conscious decision made by you

Psychology 2035 (8 decks)

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