Unit 3 AOS 1 (B): Stress Flashcards
What is Eustress?
Referred to as positive stress
What is Distress?
Referred to as negative stress
What is chronic stress?
Refers to long term stress
What is acute stress?
Refers to intense stress
What is a stressor?
Event/something that causes the stress
What is stress?
State of physiological or psychological tension
What is a stress reaction?
The physiological and psychological impact of stress
What are daily pressures?
- Type of acute stress
e. g. Homework, chores, moving house
What are life events?
- Significant positive or negative changes
e. g. Death, pregnancy, divorce
What is acculturative stress?
- Psychological impact of adapting to a new culture
e. g. Language barriers, racism, separation from past country lifestyle, unemployment
What is major stress/catastrophes
- Refers to things that affect whole communities
- Can become chronic or acute stress
e. g. natural disasters, war, political uprising
What are physiological reactions to stress?
- Skin rashes
- Headaches
- Cold/flu
What are psychological reactions to stress?
- Changes to sleeping pattern
- Aggression
- Decreased concentration
What is the relationship between stress and illness?
- People who are stressed are more susceptible to illness
- Does not cause illness but leads to it becoming more likely
Role of the fight-flight-freeze response
- Initial reaction to stressor
- Occurs due to arousal of Sympathetic NS
- An adaptive response
- Gives the body the resources to maximise survival
What is the role of Cortisol?
- Important for maintaining the health and well-being of the body when under stress
- If it is activated for a long period of time it depletes
Hans Seyle
- Exposed rats to large amounts of stress researched the biological factors relating to stress
Stages of GAS
- Alarm reaction
- Stage of resistance
- Stage of exhaustion
What is the shock stage of an alarm reaction?
- Body acts as though it is injured
- Blood pressure and body temperature drop
What is the stage of resistance?
- Cortisol is released
- Unnecessary functions are shut down
- Individual appears normal
What is the stage of exhaustion?
- Below our normal ability to deal with anything
- Resources are depleted
- Immune system is weakened
- More susceptible to illness
What is the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)?
- Explains the experience of stress from a physiological perspective
- Seyle believed when an individual is threatened they move through three bodily stages
- Was first made to describe stress from a biological perspective
What is the counter-shock stage of alarm reaction?
- Sympathetic NS is activated
- FFF response activated
- Adrenalin released
Strengths and limitations of GAS
- Measures a predictable pattern that can be measured in individuals
- Research was not conducted on humans
Lazarus and Folkman’s Transactional Model of Stress and Coping
- Stress involves an encounter between a person and their external environment
- Stress response depends upon the individuals interpretation of the stressor and their ability to cope with it
What is primary appraisal?
- Evaluating whether the situation is stressful or not and what kind of stress it is
Challenge = eustress
Harm/loss = distress
Threat = distress
What is secondary appraisal?
- What resources are there to cope with the stress?
e. g. personality, support networks, money
What is problem-focused coping?
What can we actually do to avoid the stress?
What is emotional based coping?
Can I change my mindset?
What is reappraisal?
Reevaluates primary appraisal
Strengths and limitations of Lazarus and Folkman?
- Accounts for individual response
- Lack of empirical evidence (how do I measure stress level?)
What is coping flexibility?
- Individual replacing an ineffective coping strategy with another
- Positive outcomes for people with high coping flexibility
- Lower levels of mental illness for people with high coping flexibility
What is context-specific effectiveness?
- If there is a good match between coping strategies and stressor
What is an approach strategy?
- Behaviours that aim to decrease the stress
What is an avoidance strategy?
- Avoiding dealing with the stress to protect yourself from distress
- Maladaptive, unhealthy for individual and unhelpful for relieving stress
What are examples of coping strategies?
- Exercise: helps get rid of adrenaline built up from stress
- Social support: other people and networks who may have been in the same position
- Alcohol/drugs: an escape and avoidance strategy
