PSYC 102 Final Flashcards
3 primary ways in which researchers study stress
Stressors as Stimuli/What is Stressful: focuses on identifying different types of stressful events, pinpointed categories of events, which can have cumulative effects, unite (cement interpersonal bonds, increase social awareness) or divide
Stress as a Transaction/Why is Something Stressful: transaction b/w people & their environments, how do people interpret & cope with stressful events
Stress as a Response/Diversity of Stress Responses/How dow we Respond: differently assess people’s psych+phys reactions to stressful circumstances, studied by exposing subjects to stress-producing stimuli or subjects who’ve encountered real-life stressors, measure a host of outcome variables (depression, hostility, heart rate, stress hormones-corticosteroids which activate the body to prepare us for stressors)
Stress + Traumatic Event
Stress: Negative emotional experience/response that consists of biochemical, physiological, cognitive & behavior changes that arises when a stressor perceived threatening strains ability to cope effectively.
Traumatic Event: stressor that’s so severe it can produce long-term psychological or health consequences
Clinician’s Illusion
Error of overestimate people’s fragility & underestimate their resilience as they only see those who react emotionally to stress who seek them, healthy people don’t seek out help
Who are more high risk for stressful events?
- Young, unmarried, immigrants, BIPOC, low socioeconomic status, recently retired (low income, physical disability)
- Women higher risk of sexual assault & child abuse, speeds up pregnancy
- Men higher risk of nonsexual assaults, accidents, disasters, fires, wartime combat
- Stress-producing events are widespread among all sectors of society, no difference b/w rural & urban environments
9 Types of Stressful Events
- Acute Stressors: threatening events that have a relatively short duration & a clear end point (ex.Exam, flat tire)
- Chronic Stressors: threatening events that have a relatively long duration & no readily apparent end point (ex.Financial insecurity, Caretaking)
- Major Life Events: cause noticeable alterations in one’s living circumstances that require (re)adjustment (ex.Funerals, Marriage, Baby)
- Frustration: occurs in any situation in which the pursuit of some goal is thwarted
- Hassles: minor annoyances or nuisances
- Failures: goal unreached
- Losses: losing
- Pressure: expectations or demands that one behave in a certain way or perform to a certain level
- Self-Imposed Pressure:
- Pressure from Social Roles:
- Work & School Pressure:
- Time Pressure: perception that there is not enough time to do what needs to be done
- Internal Conflict: competition b/w two or more incompatible motivations or behavioral impulses
- Approach-Approach: choosing b/w 2 attractive goals
- Avoidance -Avoidance: choosing b/w 2 unattractive goals
- Approach -Avoidance: deciding whether to pursue a goal with both attractive & unattractive aspects
- Unpredictability
- Uncontrollability
- Repeated Stressors
- Ambiguous Situations
How is stress a subjective phenomenon using Lazarus & Folkman’s model of stress + Crit
Psychological Appraisal: Stress is a subjective experience that is dependent on the interaction b/w individual & the environment
Primary Appraisal: initial decision regarding whether an event is harmful, positive, neutral or negative
Negative: presently harmful, threatening to the future or challenging
Ex. Very hard test coming up will decide future vs insignificant
Second Appraisal: perceptions regarding our ability to cope with an event that follows primary appraisal, are coping abilities & resources sufficient to overcome the harm, threat, or challenge posed by the event
Depends on self-efficacy, social support, knowledge, training, experience, resources
Ex. Not prepared short time vs prepared lots of time
Crits: stress is all in your head, victim blaming
5 ways in which attitudes, beliefs & personality might impact the ways people respond to stress?
Our attitudes, personality, and socialization shape our reactions—for better and worse—to potential stressors
Hardiness: set of attitudes marked by a sense of control over events, commitment to life & work, & courage & motivation to confront stressful circumstances, tend to view change as a challenge rather than a threat. Closely associated with low levels of anxiety-proneness, Tendency to act calmly vs hardiness still unclear which is major predictor of successful coping
* Belief of control over situation predicts how stressful situation is perceived to be: West: mastery focused on individual, degree to which personal effort & problem-solving skills can be used to solve & cope with problem
Indigenous+East: communal focus, individual mastery may not be successful outcomes when dealing with stress
Optimism: rosy outlook, don’t dwell on dark side of life, more productive, focused, persistent & better at handling frustration than pessimists, lower mortality rate, risk of heart failure, lower risk of depression following heart attack, distress in infertile females trying to have child, better surgical outcomes, physical complaints, vigorous immune response,
Spirituality/Religion: limited research (unquantifiable), search for the sacred (may or not extend to belief in God), vital role in many lives, religious have lower mortality rates, improved immune system functioning, lower blood pressure, greater ability to recover from illnesses.
* Many religions foster self-control & prohibit risky health behaviors (drugs, alcohol, unsafe sexual practices)
* Religious engagement often boosts social support & marital satisfaction
* Sense of meaning & purpose, control over life, positive emotions & positive appraisals of stressful situations associated with prayer & religious activities may enhance coping
Flexible Coping: ability to adjust coping strategies as the situation demands critical to contending with many stressful situations
Rumination - Counterproductive: focusing on how bad we feel & endlessly analyzing the causes & consequences of our problems, recycling negative events in our minds leads us to depression, all would benefit from cutting down rumination & confronting problems head on
* Cardiovascular Recovery: heart rate & blood pressure higher for those ruminating after stressor, prolongs cardio activation
* Romantic Relationship: negative adjustment of regret, brooding, relationship preoccupation, positive adjustment of reflection
* Women ruminate more → higher rates of frequent bouts of depression than men, parented to analyze & talk about problems
* Men stressed focus on pleasurable or distracting activities (work, drinking, games) & adopt more direct approach to solving problems than women, parents actively discouraged boys from expression feelings, encourage to take action or tough it out
Physiological responses to stress
Fast Pathway (immediate) Sympathetic: nerve signals from the brain signal the release of adrenaline, incr. Heart rate, lung volume, blood to the muscles, decrease digestion
Slower Pathway(delayed): hormones released from the brain trigger the release of cortisol, prevents inflammation, liver releases glucose for energy
Tend to Befriend: primarily seen in women, relying on social connections, caring for children & others, evolutionary roots
Having fight or flight for long periods of time can have major consequences on our health GAS
Chemicals: cortisol, adrenaline, Adrenaline/Epinephrine and Glucocorticoids, backbones of stress response
Why is the stress response that was so critical to the survival of our ancestors such a hazard for modern human beings?
Survival: helped be aware, ready for fight or flight, was over after 3 minutes, only basic processes, not essential components turned off, life or death
Modern: lowers life expectancy especially if prolonged, we turn own stress for purely psychological states, not just physical threats, can seem to turn it off, for no physiological reason and doing it nonstop. No control in life. Lack of predictability.
* Increased risk of cardiovascular disease, early death, aging, kill shrink brain cells, fat gain, unraveling chromosomes, accelerate shortening of telomeres, weaker immune system
* Stress affects memory, Brain chemistry, learning, vulnerable to depression + psychiatric strategies, respond to stress, chronic changes brain circuits lose capacity to remember things that we need to, acute stress make it impossible in short term periods to remember things you know perfectly well
* Stress hormones of mother impact fetuses nervous system
Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrom (GAS) + 2 Influences + 4 Crits
Patterns of responding to prolonged stress on the body, different stressors have similar impacts on body, labs of chronic stress on mice. Recognized a connection b/w stress response of animals (stomach ulcers, adrenal gland size increase which produces stress hormones) and that of physically ill patients who showed consistent patterns of stress-related responses
1) Alarm Phase: fight or flight-phys+psych reaction that mobilizes people & animals to either defend themselves (fight) or escape (flee) a threatening situation, excitation of the autonomic nervous system
* Fight or flight: a set of physiological & psychological reactions that mobilize us to confront (attack the threat or cope in the immediate situation) or leave a threatening situation (escape)
* Discharge of stress hormone adrenaline & physical symptoms of anxiety from the emotional brain of the limbic system (amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus)
Ex. Dry mouth, heart pounding, breathing rapid, dizzy, imagining scenarios from amygdala terrifying images.
2) Resistance Phase: stress still activated, after initial rush of stress hormones, no longer fight or flight, adapts to stressor, finds ways to cope, when hippocampus detects danger it opens gateway to portions of cerebral cortex, basal ganglia plans wiser thinking “thinking brain”
Ex. Reminding yourself statistically you are unlikely to die, eating lots of food, seeing how other people are reacting, reminding oneself to breathe slowly
3) Exhaustion Phase: if prolonged stressor that is uncontrollable, resistance breaks down, levels of activation bottom out, run out of hormones and energy to resist causing damage to organs/body, depression, anxiety, break down in immune system, diseases
Ex. Wartime combat lasting months (chronic) not same as a flight that will end after a set amount of time (acute)
Influence: (1)Offers a general theory of reactions to a wide variety of stressors over time. (2)Suggests a physiological mechanism for the stress-illness relationship (cardiovascular diseases, arthritis, hypertension)
Crits:
* Very little attention on psychological factors
* Assuming that responses to stress are uniform, we appraise events differently causing different physiological responses (ex. Tiger vs Social)
* Stress is evident only when the GAS has run its course to exhaustion
* Prolonged exposure to the physio cascade from stress, not exhaustion of physio resources that causes health problems
Eustress
Advantageous Stress: opposite of distress, eu good Greek, events that are challenging, not overwhelming can create positive stress, provide opportunities for personal growth or short term stress that lasts minutes to hours can trigger healthy immune response to help fend off physical ailments
Ex. Athletic event, giving speech, performance, watching a hockey game
Sapolsky
This was the first time anyone had linked stress to the deteriorating health of a primate in the wild
Higher heart rates and blood pressure for lower ranking baboons, weaker immune and reproductive system, more stress hormones, brain chemistry bares similarly to clinical depressed humans
A baboon’s rank determine the level of stress hormone in his system, so if you’re a dominant male you can expect your stress hormones to be low and if you are submissive much higher, but there was an even more revealing find.
Shively
Stress, causes clogged arteries & cardiovascular issues. Resulting flood of hormones, had increased blood pressure, damaging artery walls, making them repositories for plaque. Threatened, arteries don’t expand, muscles don’t get more blood, causes heart attack.
- Arteries of a dominant monkey one with little history of stress, its arteries were clean. But a subordinate monkey’s arteries told a grim tale… A subordinate artery has lots more atherosclerosis build up inside it than a dominant artery has.
Pleasure vs Stress: dominant primates reward area lights up more, feel more pleasure about life, subordinates very dull due to less receptor binding in area, less dopamine means less pleasurable
Blackburn & Eppel
Blackburn: mothers to young disabled children. Length of the telomeres directly relates to the amount of stress somebody is under, and the number of years that they’ve been under the stress.
Eppel: Being a mother to young special needs children, it can tax the very reserves that sustain people, and if they’re stressed, if they report stress, they tend to die earlier. Roughly 6 years of aging
Whitehall Study
British Civil Service, every job is ranked in a precise hierarchy perfect lab to determine link between rank & stress, stable jobs, no industrial exposures
Control: everybody has same medical healthcare system, just like baboons all eat the same, remove confounds, and both studies produce identical findings
Determined whether there might be a link between rank and stress, length of life, risk of disease
Findings: Lower you were in the hierarchy the higher your risk of heart disease and other diseases
People second from the top had higher risk than those at the top.
People third from the top had a higher risk than those second from the top and it ran all the way from top to bottom
Putting on weight and distribution of weight, putting it on center is related to position in the hierarchy. Stress changes the way body deposits fat on body. Dangerous inside abdomen, produces different effects on health
Psychoneuroimmunology + Stress on Immune System
Psychoneuroimmunology: study of the relationship b/w they immune system & central nervous system-seat of emotions & reactions to environment, links b/w life circumstances & immune effectiveness
Careful of exaggerated claims, positive or negative thoughts don’t cause or reverse physical diseases (nocebo + placebo), alternative medical practitioners. Nor is psychotherapy prolong survival of breast cancer patients.
Stress & Colds: more likely to get a cold when really stressed out, but exposure to cold is necessary, best predictors are significant stressors (unemployment, interpersonal difficulties lasting a month at least) as promotes inflammatory response known to increase risk. Social support affords protection. Ruling out stress affecting health behaviors not directly colds: Even when controlling for sleep quality & other health related behaviors, stress & cold relation remained
Healing Wounds: small wound took 24% longer to heal in Alzheimer’s caregivers compared to those who weren’t taking care of relative with Alzheimers
