Stress Flashcards
What is stress?
Stress is a negative emotional experience accompanied by predictable biochemical, physiological, cognitive, and behavioral changes that are directed toward altering the stressful event or accommodating to its effects.
What is a stressor?
stressful events
Describe the relationship between stress and a persons appraisal processes…
Stress is a consequence of two types of appraisal processes: primary and secondary.
Primary Appraisal
Is about understanding the nature of the event and what it will mean. Events can fall into three categories: harm, threat or challenge.
What is ‘harm’ in terms of primary appraisal?
Harm is the assessment of damage already done.
What is ‘threat’ in terms of primary appraisal?
Threat is the assessment of possible future damage.
What is ‘challenge’ in terms of primary appraisal?
Challenge is the assessment of potential for overcoming or profiting from a stressor.
Secondary Appraisal hint COR theory
Secondary appraisals asses whether personal resources are sufficient to meet the demands imposed by the stressful environment
According to ‘person-environment fit’ stress is determined by…
the process of appraising events (harmful, threatening, or challenging), resources, and responses.
Walter Cannons historical contribution to stress research was his (1932) description of …
The fight or flight model
Hans Selye’s (1956, 1976) early contribution to stress was his work on…
General Adaption Syndrome
What are the three phases of Selye’s General Adaption Syndrome?
Alarm (mobilize physiological resources),
Resistance (expend them to cope),
Exhaustion (if depletion of physiological resources are accompanied by failure, exhaustion results.)
Four criticisms of Selye’s model:
- Limited role for psychological factors 2. Not all stressors produce the same physiological response 3. Exhaustion fails to account for chronic stress 4. Fails to account for stress that continues after the stressful event is over
Taylor and colleagues (2000) theory of responses to stress…
Tend and Befriend
Tend and Befriend supplements Fight or Flight by accounting for the fact that people and animals respond to stress with…
social affiliation and nurturing behavior toward offspring. esp women role of oxytocin (affiliation, calming, social and nurturing).
Four routes of stress on adverse health outcomes:
- Physiology (HPA, +BP, -Immune Sys)
- Health Behaviors (smoke, drink, -sleep, -exercise, -nutrition)
- Psychosocial Resources (isolation from social support, -behaviors repel social support eg a-hole baboons)
- Health Care (- likely to seek help or follow thru on regimen)
A Model of Stress as it relates to Mental and Physical Health Disorders
Two physiological systems related to psychological stress:
- SAM (sympathetic-adrenomedullary) 2. HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical)
Sympathetic-adrenomedullary (SAM) system activation….
•Begins in the Cerebral Cortex (appraisal mediating chain reactions) •Information transmitted to Hypothalamus (sympathetic nervous system arousal) which in turn stimulates… •The Medulla of the Adrenal Glands which in turn stimulate the secretion of… •Catecholamines: Epinephrine and Norepinephrine Which are responsible for… • +BP, +HR, +sweating, constriction of blood vessels
Parasympathetic nervous system functioning (responsible for restoration after sympathetic nervous system arousal) can also become disregulated in response to stress, resulting in heart rate variability creating a pathway for…. (Hint three negative effects)
+sleep disruption + illness +mortality
HPA AXIS
Repeated activation of the HPA axis via chronic or recurring stress can alter… and compromise…
alter daily cortisol rythms
alter responses to stressors (over, under or none)
compromise ability to respond and recover from stress
Normal daily Cortisol rythms…
Begin with High Cortisol in the Morning
Decrease throughout the day
Peak after lunch
Flatten out at low levels in the afternoon
Altered Cortisol leves as a result of chronic stress can show several deviant patterns including…
- Elevated C levels into the afternoon and evening
- Flattening of the diurnal rythm (cortisol/circadian)
- Exaggerated cortisol response to a stressor
- Extended cortisol response after a stressor
- No cortisol response to a stressor
Excessive discharge of catecholamines epinephrine and norepinephrine can lead to…
- suppression of cellular immune function
- produce hemodynamic changes: +BP and +HR
- provoke varations in normal heart rythms: ie ventricular arrhythmias (precursor to sudden death!)
- produce neurochemical imbalances (that may contribute to the development of psychiatric disorders.
- effect lipid levels, free fatty acids and contribute to the development of atherosclerosis
Prolonged cortisol secretion…
- Compromised immune system functioning
- Destruction of neurons in the hippocampus leading to problems with:
- Verbal functioning
- Memory
- Concentration
- +Depression
- +Belly Fat
Which phisiological stress system response may have more significant implications for disease: Sympathetic Adrenal-Medullary SAM (catecholamine: epinephrine and norepinephrine) or HPA (Cortisol)?
HPA
This may explain why exercise which produces sympathetic arousal SAM but not HPA activation is health protecting rather than health compromising.
T/F people vary in the degree to which they phisiologically react to stress
True
Reactivity
is the degree of change that occurs in
autonomic,
neuroendocrine,
and/or immune responses
as a result of stress.
Variation in individual differences in reactivity between individuals can stem from…
- genetic makeup
- prenatal experiences (dutch famine)
- early life experiences (touch in babies)
- amount of negative life events
Allostatic Load
the physiological costs of repeated or chronic stress.
(may be thought of as accelerated aging in response to stress)
over time can lead to illness and death
made worse with poor coping
Characteristics of stressful events:
- Negative events are more stressful than positive ones
- Uncontrollable, Unpredictable, Unexpected
- Ambiguous (resources are drained in an effort to understand the stressor)
- Overload (insufficient resources available to meet demands)
In which domains are people more vulnerable to stress:
central or peripheral?
Central
Because importrant aspects of the self are more heavily invested in central life domains i.e. family over work
Under which circumstances are people able to adapt and habituate to permenant or chronic stressors?
- Moderate or Predictable Stressors (ie. evironmental noise or crowding)
- Exceptions include vunerable populations (ie. children, elderly, and the poor). due to little control and pre-existing levels of high stress.
T/F Must one be subjected to a stressor to experience stress?
False
Our ability to abstract, worry, and anticipate can induce the stress experience
T/F The aftereffects of stress can persist long after the stressful event is no longer present
True
List four examples of afteraffects that persist after a stressful event is no longer present:
- Shortened attention span
- Poor performance on intellectual tasks
- Ongoing physchological distress
- Physiological arousal
- Social effects include decreased willingness to help others
- Worry and Rumination = sustained high levels of BP and HR
