Stress Flashcards
Spending conscious effort to reduce stress and conflict
Coping
Most effective coping techniques
Perceived control: having influence over your life
Optimism: having a positive outlook
Social support: Friendships and family
“Healthy” coping techniques that reduce stress.
Include anticipation (reducing stress by anticipating effects of stressor), social coping (seeking out social support), and meaning-focused coping (deriving meaning from stressful experience)
Adaptive coping mechanisms.
These mechanisms reduce symptoms but reinforce underlying disorder. Not successful long-term
Include dissociation, sensitization, safety behaviors, escape, overcompensation, surrender, avoidance
Maladaptive coping mechanisms
Minority groups cope with discrimination by putting forth less effort to fit into the dominant culture
Also called “low-effort coping”
Low effort syndrome
Example: Minority students may put in minimal effort due to their perception of the dominant culture’s discrimination against them
Changes in one’s personal life
Example: Death of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job, having children
Significant life change
Large scale event that is widely considered threatening
Example: Wars, natural disasters, pandemics
Catastrophic event
Minor events and hassles of daily living
Example: Traffic, email spam, forgetting car keys
Daily hassle
Global stressors that are integrated into the environment. Perceivable, but difficult to control
Example: Pollution, crowding, noise
Ambient stressors
Threatening or challenging event
stressor
Subsequent physical and emotional response to stressor
stress reaction
Appraisal theory of stress
Stress arises from the assessment and interpretation of stressors
There are two stages to the cognitive stages of stress - primary and secondary appraisal
Assessing stress in present situation
3 categories: irrelevant, benign/positive, or stressful/negative
primary appraisal
Only occurs if primary appraisal yields stressful/negative
Appraisal of harm (what damage has already been caused), threat (how much damage could be caused), and challenge (how can the situation be overcome or conquered)
Secondary appraisal
Stress effects on the heart
High blood pressure → buildup of plaque and vascular disease → coronary artery disease
Stress effects on metabolism
Increased cortisol and glucagon during stress → increased circulating levels of glucose → metabolic syndrome and diabetes, heart disease
Stress effects on reproductive system
Impotence and downregulation of reproductive functions in both men and women
Stress effects on immune function
Downregulation of immune response, resulting in increased susceptibility to illness
Stress effects on cognition
Stress primarily affects the hippocampus and parts of the frontal lobe
Atrophy of hippocampus → inhibits learning and changes emotional responses
Changes to dendrites in amygdala and prefrontal cortex → increased anger, anxiety, hypervigilance and poor coping skills
