Stress Psychology Flashcards
What is the significance of sickness absence?
Stress is a major cause of sickness absence
- health professionals have the highest rates of stress
What are the 3 elements of stress?
- response (general adaptation syndrome)
- stimulus (life events, daily hassles, environment)
- transaction (between person and environment, conservation of resources)
What are the 3 effects of the sex hormone injection?
- enlargement of adrenal cortex
- shrinking of thymus gland
- bleeding ulcers
= general body reaction to stress
What are the stages of general adaptation syndrome?
1) ALARM
2) RESISTANCE
3) EXHAUSTION
What is the alarm stage of general adaptation syndrome?
- acute response to meet threat
- similar to fight or flight
- immune system down so lowered resistance levels
What is the resistance stage of general adaptation syndrome?
- continued exposure to stereo
- efforts to cope with stress (adaptation and high resistance)
What is the exhaustion stage of general adaptation syndrome?
- stressor too severe/too long that ability resist breaks down
- diseases of adaptation
What are the strengths of general adaptation syndrome model?
- makes stress concept popular
- includes a variety of stressors
- explains physiological mechanism linking stress and illness
- inters with environment and physiology
What are the weaknesses of the general adaptation syndrome model?
- physiological responses more complex than described in model
- stress responses vary and are not uniform
- different types of stress cause different responses in the endocrine system
- limited role for psychological factors
How can stress be a stimulus?
- puts demand on a person
- environmental-external stimuli
What are the classifications of stressors?
- cataclysmic events (natural disasters)
- major life events (bereavement)
- minor life events (daily hassles)
- environmental conditions (crowding/noise)
- laboratory stressors (performance challenges)
What are the time frames of stressors?
- acute time limited stressors (driving test)
- stressor sequences (series of exams to finals)
- chronic intermittent stressors (once a day, month)
- chronic stressors
What is a primary appraisal, secondary appraisal and reappraisal of stress?
- Primary appraisal = first evaluation of the situation
- Secondary appraisal = evaluation of one’s ability to cope
- Reappraisal
What is stress defined as?
Exceeding the individuals resources to cope
What are the features of counselling?
- explore emotional problems
- supportive listening
- current crisis
- psychosocial issues
- no diagnosable disorder
