week 8

Question 1

what is stress?

Answer 1

a physiological response to potential threat/stimulus

Question 2

evolution of concept of stress

Answer 2

Throughout the last century, our understanding of stress evolved through three distinct periods in which it was conceptualized as:
○ Physiologic Response
○ Stimulus
○ Transaction

Question 3

As a physiologic response:

Answer 3

● A response to changing environmental conditions (the changes are perceived as threats to personal integrity or safety).
● Emotions like fear and anger are fundamental stress responses
● Fight or flight response
● Types of stressors that can be long term or short term:
○ Physical: infection, intense heat or cold, surgery, illnesses, etc.
○ Psychological: trauma, interpersonal problems
○ Social: lack of social support

● Total body response to stressors:
○ 1st stage: alarm reaction which all body systems respond in a coordinated effort to mediate the stressor.
○ 2nd: when 1st stage is not successful, moving to stage of resistance.
○ 3rd: when the stressors become chronic or extreme, moving to stage of
exhaustion- when the indv’s resources deplete, and exhaustion and death ensue.

Question 4

As a Stimulus

Answer 4

Life changes or events are stimuli that evoked the stress response (e.g., marriage, birth, divorce, relocation, etc.)

Question 5

As a Person-Environment Transaction

Answer 5

-resulting from a perceived imbalance btw an individuals’ resources and the demands placed on them.
● stress depends on how a stressor is appraised in relation to the individual’s resources for coping with it.
● “neither an environmental stimulus, a characteristic of the person, nor a response, but a relationship between demands and the power to deal with them without unreasonable or destructive costs”.

Question 6

Woolfolk, Lehrer, and Allen: new understanding of stress

Answer 6

○ Stress “is probably best thought of as a generic, nontechnical term, analogous to
disease or to addiction.”
○ Allostasis: coined by Sterling and Eyer to describe how the cardiovascular system
adjusts to resting and active states of the body
○ Allostatic load (McEwen)
● Lazarus argued that while the concept of stress is a useful one, it is not a single, unitary phenomenon. (most important) stress is defined by a response to the transaction, caused by PERSON’s response and perception, not by the stimulus.

Question 7

Lazarus & Folkman “Appraisal & Coping”

Answer 7

Transactional Model: Stress depends on how a stressor is appraised in relation to the individual’s resources for coping with it, not how threatening the stimulus is. HINT
● Central premise is that stress is “neither an environmental stimulus, a characteristic of the person, nor a response, stress is the relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised as exceeding the person’s resources and endangering their well-being.
● Cognitive Appraisal: the process by which individuals examine the demands and constraints of a situation in relation to their own personal and network resources.

EX: Working 3 jobs can be stressful for one person, but it’s coping mechanism for someone with PTSD because being busy makes them feel they are doing well. => It’s all about the perception of the person.