Stress

Question 1

What is Stress?

Answer 1

-A subjective feeling produced by events perceived as uncontrollable and threatening
-Normally, the body is in a state of balance called homeostasis.
-Anything that disrupts this balance is a stressor.

Question 1

What does the Adjustment Domain say about personality?

Answer 1

-Personality plays a key role in how we cope, adapt, and adjust to events in daily life
-Personality linked to:
–health outcomes
–problems in coping and adjustment

Question 2

What is Primary Appraisal?

Answer 2

Event –> situation perceived as relevant and threatening OR Event –> situation perceived as irrelevant and not threatening

Question 3

What is Secondary Appraisal?

Answer 3

Event –> situation perceived as relevant and threatening –> coping resources appear inadequate OR coping resources appear adequate (secondary appraisal) –> stress if inadequate or no stress if adequate
OR Event –> situation perceived as irrelevant and not threatening –> no stress (secondary appraisal)

Question 4

What are the models of personality-stress connection?

Answer 4

-Interactional model
-Transactional model
-Health behaviour model
-Predisposition model
-Illness behaviour model

Question 5

What is the Interactional Model?

Answer 5

-Objective events happen to a person
-But personality determines the impact of events by influencing a person’s ability to cope

Question 6

What is the Transactional Model?

Answer 6

-Personality has three potential effects
1. Coping
2. How a person appraises events
3. The events themselves

Question 7

What is the Health Behaviour Model?

Answer 7

-Personality has four potential effects
1. Coping
2. How a person appraises events
3. The events themselves
4. Health behaviours (which impacts physiological arousal and illness)

Question 8

What is the Predisposition Model?

Answer 8

-Associations may exist between personality and illness because of a third variable that influences both
-Association found between illness and personality because of some predisposition that underlies both
*predisposition –> physiological responsiveness –> illness OR personality

Question 9

What is the Illness Behaviour Model?

Answer 9

-Personality influences the degree to which a person perceives and attends to bodily sensations, and
-The degree to which a person interprets and labels sensations as illness

Question 10

What are the varieties of stress?

Answer 10

-Acute stress
-Episodic acute stress
-Traumatic stress (PTSD)
-Chronic stress
-Stress has additive effects

Question 11

What is the Stress Response?

Answer 11

-Startle, heart beats fast, blood pressure increases, sweaty palms and soles of feet
-General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

Question 12

How do daily hassles affect stress?

Answer 12

-Daily hassles provide the greatest stress in most people’s lives
-top three most common daily hassles: concerns about weight (52%); health of a family member (48%); rising prices of common goods (43%)

Question 13

What are the different coping strategies and styles?

Answer 13

-Positive Coping Strategies
-Attributional Style
-Optimism and Physical Well-Being
-Management of Emotions
-Disclosure

Question 14

What are the positive coping strategies?

Answer 14

-Positive reappraisal
-Problem focused coping
-Relationship focused coping
-Creating positive events

Question 15

What is Optimism-Pessimisim by Peterson (2000)?

Answer 15

-People who make stable, global, and internal explanations for bad events termed “pessimists,”
-Whereas people who make unstable, specific, external explanations for bad events termed “optimists”

Question 16

What is Dispositional optimism by Scheier & Carver (2000)?

Answer 16

-Expectation that good events will be plentiful and bad events rare in future

Question 17

What is Self-Efficacy (Bandura, 1986)?

Answer 17

-Belief that one can do behaviours necessary to achieve desired outcome

Question 18

What is Optimistic bias?

Answer 18

-People generally underestimate their risks, with the average person rating risks as below true average
-Optimism predicts good health and health-promoting behaviours

Question 19

What do theorists think of emotional inhibition?

Answer 19

-Some theorists suggest that emotional inhibition leads to undesirable consequences
-Other theorists see emotional inhibition more positively

Question 20

What does Pennebaker argue?

Answer 20

-Pennebaker argues that:
-Not discussing traumatic, negative, upsetting event can lead to problems
-Telling a secret can relieve stress, increase health

Question 21

How do people with hardy personalities cope with stress?

Answer 21

-Hardy personality are better able to “resist” the negative effects of stress and cope more effectively over time
-Hardiness involves three main traits:
1. Control
2. Commitment
3. Challenge

Question 22

How do psychologically resilient individuals cope with stress?

Answer 22

-Positive adaptation and successful coping after a stressful or adverse situation
-Major and colleagues (1998):
–resilience involves three main aspects of personality:
–high self-esteem
–high optimism
–sense of personal control

Question 23

What are the Type A behaviour patterns?

Answer 23

-Achievement motivation and competitiveness
-Time urgency
-Multi-tasking
-Hostility and aggressiveness

Question 24

How does the hostility component of Type A personality affect cardiovascular disease?

Answer 24

-Produce the fight-or-flight response
-An increase in blood pressure
-A constriction of the arteries
-An increase in heart rate and in the amount of blood pumped out with each heartbeat