Stress Flashcards
What is Stress?
-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.
What does the Adjustment Domain say about personality?
-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
What is Primary Appraisal?
Event –> situation perceived as relevant and threatening OR Event –> situation perceived as irrelevant and not threatening
What is Secondary Appraisal?
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)
What are the models of personality-stress connection?
-Interactional model
-Transactional model
-Health behaviour model
-Predisposition model
-Illness behaviour model
What is the Interactional Model?
-Objective events happen to a person
-But personality determines the impact of events by influencing a person’s ability to cope
What is the Transactional Model?
-Personality has three potential effects
1. Coping
2. How a person appraises events
3. The events themselves
What is the Health Behaviour Model?
-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)
What is the Predisposition Model?
-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
What is the Illness Behaviour Model?
-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
What are the varieties of stress?
-Acute stress
-Episodic acute stress
-Traumatic stress (PTSD)
-Chronic stress
-Stress has additive effects
What is the Stress Response?
-Startle, heart beats fast, blood pressure increases, sweaty palms and soles of feet
-General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
How do daily hassles affect stress?
-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%)
What are the different coping strategies and styles?
-Positive Coping Strategies
-Attributional Style
-Optimism and Physical Well-Being
-Management of Emotions
-Disclosure
What are the positive coping strategies?
-Positive reappraisal
-Problem focused coping
-Relationship focused coping
-Creating positive events
What is Optimism-Pessimisim by Peterson (2000)?
-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”
What is Dispositional optimism by Scheier & Carver (2000)?
-Expectation that good events will be plentiful and bad events rare in future
What is Self-Efficacy (Bandura, 1986)?
-Belief that one can do behaviours necessary to achieve desired outcome
What is Optimistic bias?
-People generally underestimate their risks, with the average person rating risks as below true average
-Optimism predicts good health and health-promoting behaviours
What do theorists think of emotional inhibition?
-Some theorists suggest that emotional inhibition leads to undesirable consequences
-Other theorists see emotional inhibition more positively
What does Pennebaker argue?
-Pennebaker argues that:
-Not discussing traumatic, negative, upsetting event can lead to problems
-Telling a secret can relieve stress, increase health
How do people with hardy personalities cope with stress?
-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
How do psychologically resilient individuals cope with stress?
-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
What are the Type A behaviour patterns?
-Achievement motivation and competitiveness
-Time urgency
-Multi-tasking
-Hostility and aggressiveness
How does the hostility component of Type A personality affect cardiovascular disease?
-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
