W5: Stress, health and self-control Flashcards

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1
Q

What is stress divided into? - (2)

A

Eustress (positive)

Distress (negative) -

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2
Q

How can stress manifest in the body?

Biological - (2)

A

Increased heartrate

Cortisol release (if the event is stressful for long-term engages HPA axis)

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3
Q

How can stress manifest in the body?

Psychology - (2)

A

Perceived demands versus resources to meet demands

Challenge versus threat appraisals of stress

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4
Q

How can we measure stress?

Cardiovascular system - (2)

A
  • Heart rate
  • Blood pressure
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5
Q

How can we measure stress?

Endocrine system - (2)

A
  • HPA activity
  • Cortisol
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6
Q

How can we measure stress?

Immune system -

A

Interleukins

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7
Q

How can we measure stress?

3 systems - (3)

A
  • Cardiovascular system
  • Endocrine system
  • Immune system
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8
Q

How do we measure stress psychologically?

A
  • Use self-report measures
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9
Q

Most popular/common self-report measure to measure stress is (2)

A
  • Perceived stress scale by Cohen et al (1983)
  • Assesses stress-related feelings/thoughts from last month
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10
Q

Theories of stress

Cannon-Bard theory (5)

A
  • When we experience stress it affects the sympathetic nervous system
  • Immediately body responds to stress by increasing circulation, respiration and metabolism rate.
    • Increases oxygen in the blood and lungs
    • more energy is available to cope with the stressor
  • This process happens automatically independent of the psychological appraisal of the stressor
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11
Q

Example of Canon-Bard Theory (3)

A
  • See stimulus of a growling dog
  • Triggers increase physiological arousal (increased heart rate)
  • Independent and simulatenosuly have psychological perception of the stressor and then makes you feel fear
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12
Q

Theories of stress - General adaptation syndrome theory

Hans Selye researched effects of stress on rats and found person who experiences contiual stress go through same process (3)

A
  • Adrenal glands (this release cortisol) became enlarged
  • Stomach ulcers and loss of weight occurred
  • Components of the immune system shrunk (because cortisol suppresses immune system)
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13
Q

General adaptation syndrome

When we experience/deal with the stress we go through these 3 specific phases (3)

A
  1. Alarm
  2. Resistance
  3. Exhaustion
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14
Q

General adaptation syndrome

Alarm phase (4)

A
  • Intense arousal occurs
  • There is the mobilisation of physical resources (activation of SAM axis)
  • Arousal remains above normal - energetic to overcome stress
  • Fight or flight response!
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15
Q

General adaption syndrome

Resistance phase (4)

A
  • If the stress continues, the body adjusts to the continuing stressful situation
  • Engagement of HPA axis
    • Constriction of blood vessels, blood pressure increases
    • Release of cortisol to increase the availability of glucose
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16
Q

General adaption syndrome

Resistance phase - Inability to cope with new stressors

A
  • Body’s resources already engaged/allocated to this one stressor
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17
Q

General adaptation syndrome

Exhaustion (if the stress continues on) - (2)

A
  • Physical exhaustion and damage appear (e.g weakened immune sys)
  • Energy reserves depleted and adaptation to stress blunted
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18
Q

Theories of stress

The biopsychosocial model of stress (4)

A
  • Biology (genetics, physiology, fitness, illness)
  • Psychology (lifestyle, cognitive functioning, mental illness)
  • Social factors (culture, family, relationships, social support)
  • Each of these factors influences and interact with our ability to overcome and cope with stressors
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19
Q

Theories of stress

Another concept of stress is Resiliency (3)

A
  • The idea that not everyone will respond to stress the same way
  • Ability to cope with stress, to adapt to negative or unforeseen circumstances, and to rebound after negative experiences
    • ​This all depends on prior experiences with stress
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20
Q

Theories of stress

Seery et al. (2010) - Resiliency Concept in Stress (3)

A
  • High and low levels of cumulative stress associated with poor health
  • Experiencing some stress was healthier than experiencing no stress
  • People who cope with a moderate stress develop most resiliency of stress
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21
Q

One of the major sources of stress for most people is

Daily hassles (5)

A
  • Everyday inconveniences or frustrations stresses us out
  • Experience several of these throughout the day
  • Low-levels of stress which are additive
  • Accounts for majority of stress we experience
  • If you have enough of those little inconvencies per day, lead to poor health choices
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22
Q

Example of daily hassles being additive (3)

A
  • Metro late
  • Go to store and forgot card
  • Each one adds stress to life
23
Q

Example of daily hassle scales and very predictive of health + examples (3)

A
  • Daily Hassle Scale: concern about weight, health of family member
  • College Daily Hassle Scale: increased class workload, review for exams
  • Acculturative Daily Hassles for Children: It bothers me when people force me to be like everyone else.
24
Q

Sources of stress

Burnout - (3) + example

A
  • Exhaustion and depletion of emotional and physical resources
  • This leads to pessimism, demonstrating negative or overly detached attitudes
  • (e.g don’t care about job as much as you would when you are healthy)
25
Q

Source of stress - Burnout

Causes of burnout (3)

A
  • Overwhelming amount of work
  • Feeling lack of control (e.g lack of optional mod in Stage 1)
  • Large emotional component of job
26
Q

Stress can impact health by influencing behaviour

High stress leads to maladaptive health behaviours because stress leads to… (3)

A

Impaired decision making

Impulsivity

E.g You may eat more or less healthy as you would like to

27
Q

Stress can impact health via influencing behaviour

Stress can lead to interpersonal consequences (2)

A
  • It can influence interactions with others
  • Lead to damage to relationships
28
Q

Stress can affect

A

self-control

29
Q

Too much stress can lead to

A

self-control failure/diminished self-control

30
Q

Self-control failure

Extended stress leads to reductions in self-control (6)

A
  • Inability to control or inhibit behavior - do things you shouldn’t
  • Poor decision making
  • Promotes rewarding behaviors:
    • Overeating
    • Alcohol use
    • Risk-taking
31
Q

However, self-control seems to be limited… (2)

A

After coping with stress, subsequent control impaired of behaviour

Dealing with stress temporarily depletes resources

32
Q

Strength model of self-control - Baumeister, Vohs, and Tice (2007)

What does the model purpose? (4)

A
  • Self-control is dependent on limited resources (e.g., glucose which gives us energy)
  • Stress depletes these resources (run out of glucose) to exert energy/effort
  • Self-regulation/self-control describes as a muscle
  • Coping with stress can cause “fatigue” in that muscle
33
Q

Diagram of strength model of self-control

A
  • When experiencing stress that depletes your resources available to exert self-control and inhibit behaviours
34
Q

Issues of strength model of self-control

Maybe we don’t run out of self-control resources (e.g glucose)

A
  • Blood glucose does not change after experiencing stress
35
Q

Contrasting evidence of strength model of self-control (3) - maybe self-control is not a muscle that gets fatigued when experiencing/coping with stress

A
  • Providing motivational incentives (e.g money) to suppress behaviour they will do it indefinitely - incentives eliminate self-control failure.
  • The belief of unlimited self-control, willpower, does not diminish inhibition after feeling stressed - willpower) moderates self-control failure
  • Teaching participants about self-control failure reduces the effects of self-control failure
36
Q

Alternative model to strength model of self-control

A

Process model of self-control

37
Q

Process model of self-control

Inzlicht et al. (2014) - (3)

A
  • Stress shifts motivation away from control and further coping with stress
  • Motivation is temporarily shifted towards rewarding behaviours (often times these are unhealthy behaviours)
    • Resources not depleted after stress, just redirected
38
Q

Why is self-control important? - Muraven et al. (2002)

PROCEDURE - (3)

A
  • Thought suppression task in experimental condition to mimcked self-control/stress and fatigue
    • They said to the participants to not think of a white bear for a period of time
  • Control condition did a simple arithmetic
  • Assessed alcohol consumption afterwards
39
Q

Why is self-control important? - Muraven et al. (2002)

Results (2)

A
  • Thought suppression group drank more alcohol compared to those in the control group
  • Maybe experiencing stress leads to greater consumption of alcohol
40
Q

­Muraven et al. (2005) - (6)

A

­Participants kept daily diary

­Assessed:

  • ­Demands on self-control (daily hassles - stress they experienced)
  • ­Alcohol consumption
  • ­Intended limits on drinking
  • Trait levels of self-control -
41
Q

­Muraven et al. (2005)

Results (2)

A
  • The more self-control demands (daily hassles - stress) experienced in a drink the more alcohol is consumed - especially true on those individuals that high intentions to limit their drinking than those with low intentions
  • Those with more self-control demands (daily hassles - stress) had higher alcohol consumption with individuals with low trait self-control than those with high trait self-control
42
Q

Diminished self-control impacts - (4)

A
  • Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)
  • Dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC)
  • Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)

All important components of health behavior!

43
Q

OFC (4)

A
  • ­Assigns value to behavior
  • ­Estimates risk/benefit of behaviour
  • ­Highlights rewarding stimuli
  • ­

­Increased OFC activity after stress!

44
Q

Dorsolateral PFC (dIPFC) - (4)

A
  • ­Response selection
  • ­Decision making and planning
  • ­Facilitates inhibition

­Reduced dIPFC activity after stress!

45
Q

Anterior cingulate cortex (3)

A
  • ­Monitors for errors in behaviour
  • ­Alarm system to reduce future mistakes and promote more deliberate decision making

­

Reduced activity after stress

46
Q

Self-control and the brain - ­Wagner et al. (2013)

PROCEDURE - (3)

A

Used fMRI to scan brains of

control participants and self-depleted group (a completed task known to result in self-regulatory depletion - make them stressed - emotional suppression)

While in fMRI made the groups look at food or neutral cue and see their reactivity in the fMRI

47
Q

­Wagner et al. (2013) - (3)

deplted and control grp

A
  • Those in the depleted group had greater activity in OFC area compared to control group when seeing food cue - found food cue more rewarding than control
  • Control group had healthy activity in dIPFC to down-regulate and inhibit craving for food cue
  • Depleted group had lower activation in dIPFC area compared to control group so not inhibiting the craving they have for food cue
48
Q

­Wagner et al. (2013)

Results - in both groups (2)

A
  • In both grps, see OFC is activated see rewarding food stimuli
  • See increases activity in ventral striatum (reward centre)
49
Q

­Wagner et al. (2013)

Conclusions - after prolonged stress

Decreased activity in OFC

A
  • ­Reduced inhibition
  • ­Poorer risk assessment and decision making
50
Q

­Wagner et al. (2013)

Conclusions - after prolonged stress

Increased activity in OFC

A
  • ­Increased sensitivity to rewarding stimuli
  • ­Reward seeking and craving
51
Q

Self-control and the brain

­Inzlicht et al. (2007) - (3)

A

­Control vs stressed groups

  • ­Emotion suppression - suppress emotions while watching sad animal video

­EEG - ­Assessed error-related negativity during Stroop + ­Index of ACC activity (i.e., impulse control)

52
Q

Error-related negativity

A

electrophysiological marker thought to reflect changes in dopamine when participants make errors in cognitive tasks

53
Q

­Inzlicht et al. (2007) - Conclusion (4)

A
  • ­After prolonged stress…
    • ­Reduced activity of the ACC
    • ­Less likely to detect errors in behavior
    • ­Poorer decision making!
54
Q

­Inzlicht et al. (2007) - findings

A
  • Suppression group made more errors when word was incongruent (also congruent)than those in control