Week 6

Question 1

Surviving VS Thriving: Surviving

Answer 1

Ability to adapt in the face of challenging circumstances, but it costs you.

Find it difficult to be in the moment
Unaware of the good things that are happening
Pessimistic explanatory style
Self-critical and judgemental 
Give up when overwhelmed

Question 2

Surviving VS Thriving: Thriving

Answer 2

Knowing about and using positive skills, strategies, and routines that enable you to lead a happy, meaningful, and fulfilling life.

Mindfulness 
Gratitude
Optimism
Self-compassion
Grit

Question 3

Coping

Answer 3

Effort to master, tolerate, or reduce demands created by stress.

Question 4

Short term coping strategies: learned helplessness

Answer 4

Theory of learned helplessness understood through an experiment done to dogs in an enclosure. The floor gave electrical shocks, once a wall came down, offering dogs a chance to escape the shocks, some merely laid down and accepted their fate.

A belief that we can’t change our outcome.

Question 5

Behavioural Disengagement

Answer 5

Giving up the attempt to cope.

Question 6

Self Indulgence

Answer 6

Works as a short term distraction to give ourselves a chance to regroup and calm down, problem arises if it gets out of control.

Question 7

Self-blame

Answer 7

Self criticism
Catastrophic thinking: 
-attribute failures to personal shortcomings
-focus only on negative feedback
-results in pessimistic view of future

Question 8

Negative self talk

Answer 8

Counterproductive

associated with depression

Question 9

Self-Delusion

Answer 9

Convincing ourselves that things are not real
Avoidance
Wishful thinking
Relates to poor health and delays in solution which results in distress

It is healthy to be realistic about stressful events

Optimal margin of illusion: there’s room to feel better or good, helps us to stay motivated.

Question 10

Healthful coping is not correlated with

Answer 10

intelligence.

Question 11

Appraisal-Focused Constructive Coping: Rational-Emotive Therapy

Answer 11

Focuses on altering irrational patterns of thinking to reduce maladaptive emotions and behaviour.

Question 12

Appraisal-Focused Constructive Coping: Humour

Answer 12

Finding something funny in a stressful situation.

Results in more positive appraisals
Increases positive emotions
Facilitates rewarding interactions

Question 13

Problem-Focused Constructive Coping: Systematic Problem Solving

Answer 13

1. Clarify the problem
2. Find alternative courses of action
3. Evaluate options and pick a course of action
4. Take action but remain flexible

Question 14

Problem-Focused AND Emotion-Focused Constructive coping

Answer 14

Seek help!

Instrumental Support: Get advice and help from others

Emotional Support: Getting comfort and understanding from others

Question 15

Problem-Focused Coping

Answer 15

Handling the stressor directly

Question 16

Procrastination

Answer 16

Negatively affects task performance
Positively correlated with anxiety
Negatively correlated with physical and mental health

Low Conscientiousness:
-relying on a burst of energy to get tasks done

Low self efficacy

Unlikely due to excessive perfectionism, this idea is not supported in the literature.

Question 17

Emotion-Focused Constructive Coping: Expressing Emotions

Answer 17

A journalling study found that people who wrote their emotions down and expressed their feelings had lower levels of stress which resulted in a list of increased health benefits like lower blood pressure and increase in immune system functioning.

Question 18

Venting is beneficial when

Answer 18

It helps you to express yourself and move past an event,

facilitates insight,

brings us closer to each other,

and reduces stress.

Question 19

Venting is harmful when

Answer 19

It interferes with active coping strategies,

can have a destructive influence on interpersonal relationships,

and turns into rumination.

Question 20

Emotion-Focused Constructive Coping: Reduce feelings of anger

Answer 20

Hospital/heart attack experiment
-link shown between intense anger and heart health

Steps to reduce hostile feelings:

• Recognize anger
• Decrease hostility by reinterpretation, distraction, and self talk
• Increase empathy, tolerance and forgiveness

Strategies increase likelihood of forgiveness.

Question 21

Researchers have found that individuals with high forgiveness did not experience

Answer 21

negative health due to stress.

Question 22

Vengefulness can lead to

Answer 22

Rumination
Negative emotions
Lower life satisfaction

Question 23

Meditation

Answer 23

Involves conscious effort to focus attention

Alter state of consciousness

Question 24

Meditation: Mindfulness

Answer 24

Emptying one’s mind

Question 25

Meditation: Concentration

Answer 25

Concentrating on images or mantras

Question 26

The key success of meditation is

Answer 26

relaxation.

Question 27

Although studies have found that people who meditate reap the benefits from this activity, it could be that

Answer 27

people who meditate also participate in other behaviours that result in these health benefits.

Question 28

Issues with claims about meditation:

Answer 28

• placebo effect, lack of follow up
• small sample sizes
• lack of randomization, sampling biases
• imprecise measures of constructs

Question 29

3 types of coping strategies

Answer 29

Appraisal focused
Problem focused
Emotion focused