Chapter 5 - Central Nervous System Integration of the Psychological Stress Response Flashcards
A model of psychological stress that was postulated in the 1980s by Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman is called …
the appraisal model of psychological stress
What is the main postulate of the appraisal model of psychological stress?
We constantly evaluate the stream of events we encounter. Similarly, we generate a stream of behavrioral strategies to deal with these unfolding events. Along with these appraisals and behavioral adjustments, we experience emotions that signal us about the success of our behavioral strategies and serve to motivate additional behaviors.
The appraisal model of psychological stress distinguishes between primary and secondary appraisals. What are they and why?
The primary appraisal is an evaluation of threat value and is intended to ensure that we assess each new event so that we do not blindly encounter danger but, instead, recognize it and behin to evolve a plan to deal with it. We next evaluate our optins for coping with these presumed threats using secondary appraisals.
What is considered to be the main elements entering into our primary appraisal of an event?
Our beliefs about how the world should work and our commitments to given courses of actions.
Lazarus and Folkman consider the main elements entering into our primary appraisal of an event to be our beliefs about how the world should work and our commitments to given courses of actions. Illustrate this with an example.
If I fall and break my arm, I might find this event to be inconvenient, painful, and a disruption to my daily life, but the misfortune would not amount to a personal disaster. On the other hand, imagine this same broken arm happening to an athlete preparing to take part int he Olympic Games. In this instance, th ebroken arm is appraised as a serious threat to the athlete’s commitment to a major goal in life. The same event means different things to the athlete and me because we differ in our personal commitments and threat appraisals.
The interventions we employ to ensure that harm is limited or avoided are referred to as …
coping strategies and coping behaviors.
Lazarus and Folkman classified coping responses into two categories. Which?
Problem focused and emotion focused.
Lazarus and Folkman classified coping responses into two categories one of which is problem focused. What is meant by this?
Problem-focused strategies increase the person’s awareness, level of knowledge, and range of behavioral and cognitive coping options. They can act to reduce the threat level value of the event.
Lazarus and Folkman classified coping responses into two categories one of which is emotion focused. What is meant by this?
Emotion-focused strategies call for psychological changes to limit the degree of emotional disruption caused by an event, with minimal effort to alter the event itself.
Which coping strategy is best: problem-focused or emotion-focused?
They both have their strengths and benefits in different situations. Problem-focused strategies may be costly in terms of the energy and time necessary to put them into effect, but they can potentially lessen the stressor value of the event. Emotion-focused strategies are initially less energy consuming but in the long term may be more costly due to a continued drain on coping resources and lack of impact on the event itself. However, some work suggests that emotion-focused coping, denial in particular, can be stress reducing in patients faced with sever cancers where problem-focused strategies might be more anxiety provoking.
We know that psychological stressors act much the same as physiological stressors. How do physiological stressors act as psychological stressors?
Persons conscious of their situation are likely to have significat psychological responses to any genuine physical threat.
How important is the amygdala in classifying incoming stimuli based on their threat level?
Very important! When surgically removed, primates approach rubber snakes and try to eat them and rats will climb on and explore a sedated cat. Human patients with no amygdalae due to disease usually have to be supervised to keep them out of danger.
