Stress: Daily Hassles (Social Explanation)

Question 1

What points can be made when describing the explanation?

Answer 1

Hassles and uplifts
Research (Kanner)
Why they have such an effect

Question 2

What are daily hassles?

Answer 2

Minor irritations experianced in everyday life

Question 3

What are uplifts?

Answer 3

Small positive experiances in everyday life that neutralise the effects of daily hassles

Question 4

What is the reserch for the theory?

Answer 4

Kanner: Negative correlation between frequancy of hassles and wellbeing
Hassles a bigger predictor of wellbeing than life events
Longitudinal study of 100 participants between 45 and 64
Completed hassles and uplifts scale

Question 5

Who researched into the explanation?

Answer 5

Kanner

Question 6

Why do daily hassles have such a big effect?

Answer 6

Accumilation
Amplication
Lack of social support

Question 7

How can daily hassles accumilate to have a big effect?

Answer 7

The buildup of stressors over a long period of time leads to an ongoing feeling of stress

Question 8

How can hassles be amplifyed to have a big effect?

Answer 8

Chronic stress means people are more vunerable to their effects

Question 9

How do daily hassles have less social support?

Answer 9

Life events have more support but the lack of social support for daily hassles
Flett: 320 students described scenario with life events as getting more support

Question 10

What was Flett’s study into the social support received for daily hassles?

Answer 10

Asked 320 students to read scenarios involving either a daily hassle or life event and rate how much social supprt they seek or get.
Life events got more social support which explains why daily hassles are more serious

Question 11

What points can be made when evaluating the expanation?

Answer 11

Supporting evidence
Age differences
Psychiatric problems
Issues with self report

Question 12

What is the supporting evidence?

Answer 12

Bouteyre: 233 French students moving from school to university. 41% experianced depressive symptoms and daily hassles were a big factor
Sher: Daily hassles correlated with raised cortisol and contributed to depression
Courtois: Those with more daily hassles started drinking and smoking earlier.

Question 13

What was Bouteyre’s study?

Answer 13

233 French students going from school to univeristy
41% had depressive symptoms
Daily hassles were a big risk factor

Question 14

What percentage of participants in Bourteyre’s study had depressive symptoms?

Answer 14

41%

Question 15

What was Sher’s study?

Answer 15

Daily hassles correlated with raised cortisol and contributed to depression

Question 16

What was Courtois’ study?

Answer 16

Those with more daily hassles started drinking and smoking earlier.

Question 17

What age differences were found?

Answer 17

Daily hassles increases with age as people are less able to deal with them. Shows the importance of age when invesitgating and supports explanation as shows how it interacts with specific factors.
Baldwin: Longitudinal study of 1389 male participants between 48 and 101

Question 18

What did Baldwin find about the effect of age?

Answer 18

Longitudinal study of 1389 male participants between 48 and 101
Between 48 and 70 participants had fewer hassles but this increased with age as people became less able to deal with them

Question 19

How are psychiatric problems linked to the explanation?

Answer 19

Dohrenwend: 371 psychologists assessed the hassles and uplifts scale and found it was similar to tools assessing mental disorders.
People may score high as they are mentally ill, not stressed so no cause and effect

Question 20

Why are there issues with self report?

Answer 20

Social desirability bias
Scale restricts people’s responses and may make them answer more extremely than they would in real life
Data is reterospective so there may be issues with recall.

Question 21

What was the age range of participants in Kanner’s study?

Answer 21

45-64