Stress

Question 1

Hans Silye

Answer 1

General Adaptation Syndrome

Question 2

General Adaptation Syndrome three phased process

Answer 2

1. Alarm & mobilisation
   - release hormones that help mobilise against stressor
2. Resistance
   - Move into this if the stressor persists
3. Exhaustion
   - When we fail to cope in resistance we burn out
   - Physical illlness, hard to concentrate, heightened degree of irritability

Question 3

Contextual model of stress

Answer 3

Stress depends on the context and appraisel of stressor

People perceive and and react to stressors in context

Question 4

Assumptions of contextual model

Answer 4

1. An event does not have a universal meaning
2. Communities share beliefs and meanings
3. When an event is perceived as a stressor, a positive or negative meaning is assigned to it
4. Events gain meaning through perception

Question 5

Five phases of stress

Answer 5

1. Encountering potential stressor (universal events/ personal events/ micro events)
2. Performing primary appraisal (positive/ negative/ neutral/ ambiguous)
3. Experiencing stress (heightened psycho-physiological arousal)
4. Performing secondary appraisal (finding ways to cope)
5. Apply coping strategies (problem solving strats/ avoidance strategies/ social support strategies)

Question 6

Yerkes-Dodson Law

Answer 6

Basic relationship between psycho-physiological arousal and performance
Performance increases as arousal increases only if stress increases to moderate level
Beyond this, performance starts to decrease
Performance is low when arousal is low, hard to concentrate
Two factors play a role: novelty and complexity

Question 7

Psychosomatic disease

Answer 7

When psychological factors contribute to physical damage or harmful changes in bodily functioning
Person with condition has a potential physical weakness in particular organ and in the presence of stress, the function breaks down

Question 8

Response specificity

Answer 8

People tend to respond to stress in a particular way and have a pattern in reaction to stress

Question 9

Burnout

Answer 9

Can develop unobtrusively over months/years
Occurs when person is subjected to too much stress for too long
Becomes emotionally drained, empty and alienated from the people around them
Alienation causes a sense of unreality leaving people without hope and aspiration
Feelings of inadequacy
All together the feelings lead to a decline in performance which causes more stress and repeats a vicious cycle

Question 10

Physical tension

Answer 10

Sympathetic and parasympathetic determine level of physical tension
Some have a more dominant sympathetic activity which increases general basic tension and vice versa
(sympathetic/parasympathetic ration)

Question 11

Labile nervous system

Answer 11

Body is more like to react more quickly and intensely to incoming stimuli as the autonomic balance is disturbed more easily
Has lower degree of autonomic homeostasis

Question 12

Emotional tense

Answer 12

Physical tension + cognitive content of stress leads to conscious experience of feeling tense
Degree of the tension depends on the autonomic homeostasis

Question 13

Psycho-physiological arousal

Answer 13

Consists of physical and emotional tension

Physical arousal + psychological arousal

Question 14

Universal events

Answer 14

Affect majority of the people in society/ the world

Natural disasters, terrorists attacks,cure for previously incurable disease

Question 15

Personal events

Answer 15

Specific to community/ individual

New shopping mall, getting married, car accident

Question 16

Micro event

Answer 16

Affects individual on everyday basis

Leak in roof, who picks up kids, shopping for right pair of shoes