Problem 1 - Stress Flashcards
What is Stress?
Stress is the circumstance in which transactions lead a person to perceive a discrepancy between the physical or psychological demands of a situation and the resources of their systems. It often results from inaccurate perceptions of discrepancy.
Conditions:
- Physical: direct material/bodily changes.
- Psychological: how individuals are perceiving circumstances in life.
Examining the conditions:
- Environment: stress = stimulus, challenging events = stressors.
- Response perspective: the reaction to the stressors = physiological or psychological strains.
- Transactions: process of stressors and strains + the relationship between the person and the environment. The experience/impact of the strain through behavioural, cognitive and emotional strategies.
Cognitive appraisal
A mental process by which people assess two factors:
- Whether a demand threatens their physical or psychological well-being.
- The resources available for meeting the demands.
Primary appraisal
Assessing the meaning of the situation for yourself. It leads to 1 of 3 judgements:
- Irrelevant appraisal
- Good appraisal (benign-positive)
- Stressful appraisal
Stressful appraisal receives 3 further implications:
- Harm-loss: the amount of damage that has already occurred.
- Threat: the expectation of future harm.
- Challenge: the opportunity to grow or profit from the situation.
Secondary appraisal
The assessment of the resources available for coping.
- Conscious when judging stressful situations.
Factors leading to stressful appraisals (2)
- Personal factors: intellectual, motivation and personality characteristics. These define how one will view the stressor - harmful, threatening or challenging.
- Situational factors: situations that induce stress. Strong demands + imminent events = stressful.
Bio-psychosocial aspects of stress: basics
- The body is aroused and motivated to defend itself during stress
- The arousal is caused by the sympathetic nervous system and the endocrine system.
- Reactivity is the physiological portion of the response to a stressor/strain, measured at baseline.
- Genetic factors influence the degree of reactivity to stressors.
Bio-psychosocial aspects of stress: Fight or flight
It’s the process of preparing the organism to attack or flee the threat.
- The perception of danger > sympathetic nervous system stimulates organs + adrenal glands of the endocrine system > epinephrine is secreted > body is aroused further.
- Arousal can have positive of negative effects = its adaptive but can be harmful if prolonged.
Bio-psychosocial aspects of stress: General adaptation syndrome (GAS)
The syndrome when the fight or flight response is prolonged.
Alarm reaction
- Response to an emergency.
- Mobilises the body’s resources.
- Fast acting arousal
- Results from: the SNS activates organs + adrenal glands > epinephrine and norepinephrine secretes into the bloodstream > HPA axis is activated
Stage of resistance: when the strong stressor continues.
- HPA axis predominates.
- Body tries to adapt to the stressor.
- The physiological arousal remains high and the body replenishes the hormones secreted by the adrenal glands.
- The stage can make individuals vulnerable to health problem = disease of adaptation.
Stage of exhaustion: when the prolonged physiological arousal is severe and long term.
- Costly to the body = weakens the immune system and depletes the body’s energy reserves.
- Stress continues and damages internal organs.
- Death is likely to occur.
Criticism:
- Non-specific with regard to the type of stressor.
- Does not take cognitive processes into account.
Bio-psychosocial aspects of stress: Allostatic load
The effect of the body having to adapt repeatedly to stress, such as flections in hormones and immune functions that accumulate.
- Creates wear and tear on the body.
- Impairs ability to adapt to future stressors.
-High levels related to poor health. - The cumulative amount of strain has a greater influence on health than the degree of activation in response to any one stressor.
- The restoration of resources is a major impact on the load.
Bio-psychosocial aspects of stress: Factors for allostatic load
- Amount of exposure: the more stressors the more physiological activation.
- Magnitude of reactivity: individual differences.
- Rate of recovery: individual differences but the longer the recovery, the greater the total amount of psychological activation.
- Resource restoration: sleep is most important in replenishing the resources.
Bio-psychosocial aspects of stress: physical reactions of stressors
Some stressors appear to elicit stronger responses than others = sudden vs gradual stressors.
The pattern of physiological arousal under stress depends on:
- Effort: the person’s interest, striving, and determination. Active and successful coping. Increase In catecholamine and suppression of cortisol.
- Distress: anxiety, uncertainty, bordered and dissatisfaction. Increase in cortisol and catecholamine may be elevated too.
- Effort + distress: The state of daily hassles. Increase in both catecholamine and cortisol.
Psychological aspects of stress: Cognition
Stress can impair cognitive functions by distracting our attention.
- Memory, executive functions.
- These depletions can lead to even more stress and difficulty in dealing with the stress.
Psychological aspects of stress: emotions
Stress can influence emotional states of individuals, such as fear, sadness or anger.
Psychological aspects of stress: social behaviour
Some situations lead people to come together and others to isolate.
Psychological aspects of stress: Gender and sociocultural differences
- Women report more major and minor stressors than men = more open, more daily hassles.
- Men show more reactivity when psychologically stressed.
- Men take longer to return to baseline levels.
- Both differ in what is considered stressful = strength of reactivity changes drastically.
Sources of stress:
Within the person:
Within the family:
- Addition to the family, marital strain/divorce, illness, disability and death.
Within the community and society:
- Job stress and environmental stress
Measuring stress: physiological arousal
- Electrical/mechanical equipment for blood pressure, heart rate, respiration etc = can be measured individually or together using a polygraph.
- Biochemical analysis of blood, urine and saliva samples to assess the level of hormones the adrenal glands secrete during stress = corticosteroids (cortisol) and catecholamines (epinephrine and norepinephrine)
Advantages:
- Direct and objective
- Reliable and easily quantified
Disadvantages:
- Expensive
- The techniques themselves can be stressful.
- The measures are affected by gender, body weight, consumption of substances, and the activity prior to the measurement.
Measuring stress: life events
Targets long-term stress.
The act of asking about individual’s experience of stress.
- Self-reports but these not enough to assess stress.
Social readjustment rating scale (SRRS):
- values range from 100 to 11 points
- Individuals indicate which event has happened in the past 24 months.
Strengths:
- Items represent a wide range of stressful events
- Values assigned to each are carefully determined.
- Easy and quick to fill out.
Weaknesses:
- Items can be vague or ambiguous.
- The meaning or impact of the event is not taken into account = no subjective appraisal.
- No distinction between desirable and undesirable events.
- Susceptible difficulties recalling events accurately and willingness to report honestly.
Measuring stress: daily hassles
Targets short term stress.
- Hassles scale: measuring people’s experiences with day-to-day unpleasant or harmful events. Individuals indicate which hassle has occurred in the past month and rate them on a severe scale.
- Uplift scale: events that have made hassles more bearable and reduce their impact over a 9 months period.
Distress vs eustress
- There is a threshold as to where stress becomes detrimental (distress)
- Individuals differ in their susceptibility to the effects of stress.
The stress response:
When the body is exposed to harm or threat, the result is a cluster of physiological changes.
- Short-term stress: adaptive changes that help respond to the stressors.
- Long-term stress: maladaptive changes, ex: enlarged adrenal glands.
The stress response: HPA axis
The activation of the Anterior-Pituitary Adrenal-cortex system.
- Stressors stimulate the release of Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) from the anterior pituitary.
- ACTH triggers the release of glucocorticoids from the adrenal cortex.
- The HPA axis is often long-term and if not terminated, the body runs out of resources and enters the stage of exhaustion = chronic stress.
The stress response: Sympathetic nervous system Adrenal-medulla system
The Sympathetic Nervous System Adrenal-Medulla system
- Stressors active the system and release epinephrine and norepinephrine form the adrenal medulla.
- Often short-term stress = fight or flight response.
Influence of emotion on learning - implicit learning
Pavlovian learning (NS acquires aversive properties when paired with aversive event = fear conditioning).
- Conditioned respones = implicit knowledge
- Stimulus-reponse relationship = explicit knowledge.
