Topic 3 - psychological aspects

Question 1

What is “specific”/unique about psychological stress?

Answer 1

Psychological stress is different from biological stress

We can ask people to do math, and that could be a psychological stressor

Traditionally we think about stressors in terms of that a tiger coming to get us is a threat (physical), where a psychological stressor is all mind-driven.
Important characteristics of psych stressors: they don’t have specific on-off points.

We typically distinguish between stressors we consider to start INSIDE body, or OUTSIDE body - but they are not necessarily seperate
Psych (internal) stuff can affect external stuff, leading to external stressors, and vice-versa.

Take away: psych stress affects body in pretty much top-down manner - we have psychological stressors, creating bodily effects.

Big take away…
• Internally generated

Question 2

Yerks-Dodson law

Answer 2

Imagine the graph of arousal (x axis) and performance (y axis), with a “hill” on the graph.

there is an optimal arousal level for optimal task performance - over or above reduce task performance. (you might not have motivation to go and do things)
Found out about this through conditioning research.
This is extremely well-supported, pretty much to the point where we consider it a law.

What constitutes this arousal level?
Perhaps stress - animals with low/high cortisol level show low learning effects (/ performance)

This law started out in behavioral task performance, but maps onto stress as well - if we map stress to x-axis, applies as well - more or less stress can be problematic

Question 3

What is psychological stress?

Answer 3

• Psychological Stress- when an individual perceives that environmental demands tax and/or exceed their adaptive capacity (i.e., ability to cope).
• Cohen, Kessler, & Gordon (1995)

Psychological stress account with what most people consider stress in everyday life. These are often challenges we can conquer, but not always.

Examples of psychological stress include e.g. Failure at achieving a goal, losing a loved one.
Psych stress –> triggers negative emotions –> can trigger behavioral/biological effects.

• Psychological stress results from harm to the psychological system
• Therefore, threat is communicated symbolically
• So, something has to be deemed dangerous in order to result in stress

Also just THINKING about a stressor can trigger psychological stress.

We might think of psychological stress as a problem of the modern era, but its really not a new issue, scholars back to 1800s.
We are just paying more attention to what is going on, in terms of psychological stress, nowadays.

Question 4

Research traditions

Answer 4

When we think about psych stress and coping, two research traditions stand out, giving rise to different perspectives.
These are two approaches to studying psych stress. Emerging from these traditions: a general interest in psych outcomes, and difficulties associated with aversive environments and stimuli.
These two approaches broadened the field, so to say.

• First- comes from clinical observations and field studies of human subjects
• Second- comes from animal lab studies

Question 5

Differing Definitional Perspectives

Answer 5

• Stimulus or Environmental Perspective
• The Response Perspective
• The Environment-Organism Transaction Perspective

The differences:
Where the emphasis is placed: on the environment, or on the organism, or on the interaction of the environment and organism.
–> influences how psych stress is operationalized / researched in the field.

Question 6

Stimulus or Environmental Perspective

Answer 6

• Psychological stress results from the environment that the person (or organism) encounters
• Underlying assumption is that objective external circumstances can be conceptualized and defined as psychologically demanding, benign, threatening etc.

Emphasis on the CHARCATERISTICS OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Numerous factors where influential in promoting this perspective, but become espcially salient post WWII.
Thought BEFORE WW2: Individual biology mostly accounted for who ended up with psychological distress - biolgocial predispositioned/vulnerable people would break down (others could make do)
AFTER WW2: severe distress caused breakdown in previously normal people (lots of “casualties” from the war were non-physical.) This was inflicted by harsh environments.

This perspective gave rise to life stress questionnaires.

Limitations: environment don’t always predict person’s response correctly (people respond differently to the same stimulus)

Question 7

Life Stress Questionnaires

Answer 7

• Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe
• Schedule of Recent Experiences (SRE)

Idea: life stress can be examined by asking question of participant’s current life events. By checking questionnaire we can see what people are stressed about –> may infer what events are stressful, and how people can be helped

Question 8

The Response Perspective

Answer 8

• Psychological stress is viewed as reactions of the organisms to the adaptive demands imposed by the environment and by challenge
• Attention shifted to the implications on the organism from the environmental demands
• Awareness also of the ongoing adaptation due to ever changing external circumstances

More focused on what someone DOES once they have some kind of stressor that is going on (externally)

• Idea can be traced back to Darwin and natural selection.
• Emphasis on RESPONSE - how PERSON/ORGANISM responds!
• We look to the ongoing adaptation need for the organism, as external environment always changes.
• From psychological perspective, evolution created e.g. Ability of expectation and anticipate (e.g stress and anxiety) - we use anticipation to prepare.

Limitations: many levels of response, and numerous possible response indicators. E.g. A response could be low level or high level (weak or intense response) - what a person chooses can vary widely.
Response patterns = complex = hard to predict.

Question 9

The Environmental-Organism Transaction Perspective

Answer 9

• Psychological stress: represents a particular relationship over time between the organism and environment
• = the product of an individual’s ongoing interaction with circumstances
• Therefore, psychological stress is the product of an individual’s ongoing interaction with circumstances (particularly those that are taxing or exceeding adaptive resources)

Arose from limitations of the two other perspectives?

Core thing to remember = its an active process between DYNAMIC environment and ADAPTIVE/ADAPTING organism over time.

Question 10

Two issues in stress and coping

Answer 10

These were the typical challenges that people were presented with in the field of stress and coping.

• Issue #1- Individual differences
• Issues #2- generality versus specificity of psychological stress

Question 11

Individual differences issue

Answer 11

• Common to see variability in people’s responses to stress circumstances
• So, research and theory needed to account for this
• This led to the idea of factors that moderate stress

How do we account for individual differences in a way that is still meaningful to understanding the way stress impacts a person?

Question 12

Generality versus Specificity issue (of the stress concept)

Answer 12

• Generality - Stress concept has united a variety of related constructs and emphasized the general nature of the stress response
• If we get too general, we don’t really understand things? At least we can’t use it to help and understand, because it’s too broad.
• Specificity – the unique implications of specific challenges and distinct responses could be obscured within this general viewpoint
• If we get too specific, we loose ability to get a general idea of stress and coping
• –> we have to find a balance!

Focuses on the NATURE of stress.

Question 13

Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping

Answer 13

Lazarus & Folkman (1984)

stressor –> primary appraisal –> secondary appraisal –> coping response

A stressor = something perceived to be beyond capability of coping /something that pushes capability of coping?

Primary appraisal: when perceiving a stressor, determines if we can really consider it a stressor “Is this a threat” - less conscious - not very well defined, this is where the literature is lacking - more of a gut feeling, “is this stressful” - not something we are thinking about. Emphasis on UNCONSCIOUS part. We have thousands of unconscious things going on in cognitive life

Secondary appraisal: Can I deal with it? Do I have the resources to deal with it? making the consideration “can I deal with this?” - thinking about whether you have the ability
Definition: individual’s evaluation of resources and coping strategies they have available for the situation. Based on active thought of “this is what’s going on, do I have ability/resources to cope with it”
Secondary appraisal really affects coping response.

Possibly circular process, next time we consider a similar situation, we might think differently - “is this still a threat to me?” - if it is not, it might not go through to next stage.

Question 14

2 General Themes in psychological stress and coping:

Answer 14

• Characteristics of psychological stressors
• Individual differences in response to psychological stressors
Two general themes in psychological stress and coping:

Despite general consensus that psych stress is harmful, it is hard to determine what it is about psychological stressors that are harmful.

Take away: within field of psych stress research:
These two are what are driving research within field
• What is it about stressors that make them stressful?
• What are the individual differences in response to stressors (and how do they affect responses)?

These 2 themes were addressed by Lazarus
• Lazarus’s thoughts led to this idea
• A person’s appraisal of a stress is central to the stress experience
•  Appraisal is a key aspect in thinking about psychological aspects of stress and coping
• And whether or not something is seen as distressing depends on a number of personal and contextual factors
• Individual reactions depend on a number of factors

Indivuals react differently based on a number of factors, e.g. Optimism, identity.

Emotional characeristics of stressor also important (but these depend on the individual!)

Emotional positive stressors also affect physiological responses typically affect same structures as negative stressors, (e.g. Herat rate), but typically don’t have cortisol release.

How a stressor is experienced depends on individual factors/differences.

Question 15

Studies of psychological stress tend to focus on:

Answer 15

• Environmental events
• Individual responses
• Perceived stress, and if it triggers negative affective state, something something??
Why might we have a tendency to focus on reactions?
–> easier to quantify and operationally define.
–> people are bad at introspection (hard to identify WHY we are saying what we are saying)

Generally accepted that verbal responses are dependent on personal thoughts and errors - people might not want to report their true experiences truthfully, they might be embarassed about their reactions.
Also, we are good at deceiving ourselves, we might not recognize a response, or we might look back and not see things accurately

Question 16

Consequences of Psychological Stress

Answer 16

• Chronic health conditions
• Worsening of these health conditions
• Psychological difficulties (depression, anxiety)
• Cognitive distortions
When we have recurring/ongoing stressors, THATS when we get the negative health consequences.

Question 17

Studying psychological stress (challenges in doing so)

Answer 17

• Lab studies
• Lab studies = generally create artificial environments –> when we try to put it in real world, might not translate!
• Human studies
• Self-report measures
• Limitations in self-report measures:
• E.g. A question about “Dealing with sickness of family member”: could be your child have the flu, or our brother died of heart attack = both check the box, but how an individual would answer varies greatly!
• Or “recent loss of job” could be because they struggled with depression, or because something else
• –> Self report measures don’t visualize the bidirectional nature!
• Semi-structured interviews
• Semi-structured interviews = while we might get a lot of great and complex information, they are very time consuming both to develop and to interpret.

Question 18

• Self-report measures

Answer 18

• Limitations in self-report measures:
• E.g. A question about “Dealing with sickness of family member”: could be your child have the flu, or our brother died of heart attack = both check the box, but how an individual would answer varies greatly!
• Or “recent loss of job” could be because they struggled with depression, or because something else
• –> Self report measures don’t visualize the bidirectional nature!

Question 19

• Semi-structured interviews

Answer 19

• Semi-structured interviews = while we might get a lot of great and complex information, they are very time consuming both to develop and to interpret.

Question 20

• Daily Process Method

Answer 20

Daily process method = day to day monitoring of variables –> allows better mapping of methods onto stressors. –> better theoretical understanding. Increases our understanding of what is actually a very rapid and frequently changing process (which isn’t really captured with other methods –> better real-time understanding + diminish call-recall errors (we see things different retrospectively - hindsight bias)

= creates better mapping of what coping strategies worked in what scenarios, and when they were used, and how some methods might have worked well immediately, but not in the long term.
(found in the delongin study)
Depending on what outcome variable they were checking, the outcome of how well a specific strategy worked, varied.
Also found that there was a bidirectional nature so both specific stressors could lead to specific coping, but also specific coping could lead to specific behaviors (e.g. one coping behavior lead to greater experience of pain later in the day)
 we can better get an idea of the causal nature!

But still gives us real-world information, while overcoming challenges of other methods

Question 21

• DeLongin & Holtzman paper

Answer 21

Experiment 1:
• 88 families
• With minimum 1 child from a pervious marriage that lived in the home for a cumulative total of 3 months (minimum) in one year
• Telephone interview, written questionnaire package, structured diaries (2 x daily for 1 week)
• These structured diaries are the daily process model
• Two years later, a second interview was conducted

Findings indicate outcomes and efficacy can better be mapped with daily process methods.
E.g. Coping method A is helpful if done within 20 minutes, but not within 2 hours.
Or method B was helpful short term, but not long term.
Addresses the issue that when asked to recall, our memories may be biased, we could perhaps not remember method B was helpful in the moment.

Also saw, depending on what outcome they were looking at, the effectiveness of a method differed.
Experiment 2:
• 73 community living individual with RA
• And their spouses
• Background questionnaire
• Structured daily record (2 x daily for 1 week)
• Daily process model

Focus of this: underlined the bidirectional nature of coping and outcomes.
The investigating of this bidirectional nature is super criticized in literature: from self-report, we don’t know what comes first
Found coping can affect experienced stress?
Coping had direct impact on health (e.g. Cognitive reframing led to decreased pain)
From questionnaire, we wouldn’t know if decreased pain led to cognitive reframing, or if cognitive reframing lead to reduced pain.