Personality & Health: Stress & Illness

Question 1

Among psychological factors, personality has perhaps the greatest potential to predict the diseases responsible for most mortality in humans. Explain why.

Answer 1

The leading causes of death in adults are chronic diseases that develop slowly over a long period of time.
- the behaviours that precede and predict these chronic diseases need to be enduring or repeated to achieve lasting effects on humans.

Question 2

What was the most influential prospective study to look at personality traits identified in childhood and the predictive power on health outcomes in adulthood?

Answer 2

Friedman et al ((1993) which utilised data from the Terman Life Cycle Study of gifted children.

Question 3

What were the 6 dimensions Friedman et al constructed from Terman’s data?

Answer 3

1. High energy
2. Cheerfulness / Optimism
3. Conscientiousness
4. High motivation
5. Sociability
6. Permanency of mood

Question 4

After controlling for gender what 2 personality factors did Friedman et al find to predict longevity?

Answer 4

Consciousness
- the strongest predictor and was positively related to longevity

Cheerfulness/ optimism
- the size effect was only slightly weaker but contrary to expectations, this dimension was inversely related to longevity

Question 5

While reports of robust associations between personality and health are interesting, in order to interpret these associations we first need to consider….?

Answer 5

The potential causal pathways between personality and health (I.e models of association).

Question 6

What are 2 models of association that argue personality moderates the relationship between stress and health?

Answer 6

1. Unidirectional: the biological stress model (Hans Selye)
2. Triadic: Transactional stress model (Richard Lazarus)

Question 7

Selye argued that stress is essentially the rate of wear and tear in the body. This wear and tear was associated with….?

Answer 7

The non specific response of the body to any demand.

Question 8

How is stress conceptualised within a unidirectional S-R framework?

Answer 8

1. The biological stress Reaction/Response
2. The environmental stressor / Stimulus

Question 9

The biological stress model: Explain the biological stress reaction/response.

Answer 9

A set of defensive biological adjustments the body makes in response to environmental demand

Question 10

The biological stress model; What is the environmental stressor?

Answer 10

The environmental demands that automatically triggers the biological stress reaction.

Question 11

For Selye, stress was reflected in an orchestrated set of bodily adjustments that occur in response to environmental demand. These adjustments developed throughout time during continued exposure to the stressor in what Selye termed the General Adaptation Syndrome. A fully developed General Adaptation Syndrome consists of 3 stages, being?

Answer 11

1. Alarm
2. Resistance
3. Exhaustion

Question 12

The biological stress model: Describe the Alarm stage of Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome.

Answer 12

In this initial stage stressors activate a defensive response in two great integrated mechanisms: the nervous system and the endocrine system to elicit a cascade of physiological responses.
- the sympathetic nervous system
- the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis

Question 13

The biological stress model: Describe the Resistance stage of Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome.

Answer 13

The same body systems that promote adaptation and defence can also damage one’s health. Frequent, intense or prolonged experiences of stress-induced physiological arousal can contribute to the development or progression of illness.

Question 14

The biological stress model: Describe the Exhaustion stage of Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome.

Answer 14

If the stressor persists long enough all of the body’s resources eventually become depleted. There is limited adaptive energy in the system which eventually becomes exhausted.

Question 15

Environmental stressors have been operationalised as ;
- Major life events requiring people to make significant changes in their lives ,
- frequency of major life events,
-specific (traumatic) major life events,
Thus operationalised almost entirely in terms of frequency of major life events. However Lazarus and co workers developed a scale comprising..?

Answer 15

117 hassles (micro / daily hassles)

Question 16

Environmental stressors: the cumulative impact of daily hassles is thought to produce …..?

Answer 16

The type of neuro-hormonal changes that result in stress related diseases.

Question 17

Lazarus points out that compared to major life events, daily hassles are events that are ….?

Answer 17

Far more open to interpretation.

Question 18

The transactional stress model: Lazarus was instrumental in shifting the focus of research away from the biological adjustments the body makes in response to environmental demand and towards the ….?

Answer 18

Psychological adjustments the person makes in response to environmental demand.

Question 19

The transactional stress model: researchers started to question the unidirectional model, I.e the notion that humans are simple stimulus-response biological organisms…?

Answer 19

With stressor inputs producing predictable biological outputs.

Question 20

The transactional stress model: Lazarus emphasised the phenomenological, and how different individuals have ….?

Answer 20

Different responses to the same event (I.e. alpha press) based on their interpretation of the event (I.e beta press).

Question 21

The transactional stress model: rather than passively responding to environmental demands, the person is an …

Answer 21

Active participant, a cognitive-affective processing system.

Question 22

The Transactional Stress Model; Lazarus and other in the field now define stress in terms of a …..?

Answer 22

Transaction (a two way process) between environment demands and the person.

Question 23

The Transactional Stress Model: Stress is the result of a mismatch…?

Answer 23

Between the perceived demands of a given situation and the individual’s perceived ability to deal with those demands.

Question 24

Lazarus & Folkman (1984) argue that what critical processes mediate this person-environment transaction?

Answer 24

1. Cognitive appraisal
2. Coping

Question 25

Explain cognitive appraisal from the framework of the transactional stress model.

Answer 25

Cognitive appraisal is the initial evaluation a person makes to determine whether an event is stressful or not - and if stressful the degree to which the event is perceived as challenging or threatening.

Question 26

According to the transactional stress model, the cognitive appraisal being threat appraisal, the focus is on what?

Answer 26

On the potential for harm or loss in situations of demand. Emotional responses linked to the perception of threat include negative emotions such as fear, anxiety and anger.

Question 27

According to the transactional stress model, the cognitive appraisal being challenge appraisal, the focus is on what?

Answer 27

On the potential for gain or growth in situations of demand. Emotional responses linked to the perception of challenge include pleasurable emotions such as eagerness, excitement and exhilaration.

Question 28

What similarity does Lazarus’s cognitive appraisal share with Selye’s Biological Stress Model?

Answer 28

The challenge appraisal function involves positive emotions which the biological stress model agues as also taxing and stress inducing.

Question 29

Finish this sentence: Transactional Stress Model - Coping: once threat or challenge is perceived, ….?

Answer 29

coping responses may influence physiological arousal by altering the intensity, duration, or reoccurrence of the stressor.

Question 30

Lazarus & Folkman - Finish this sentence: Coping is a complex evaluative process that ……?

Answer 30

Takes into account which coping options are available, the likelihood that a given coping option will accomplish what it is supposed to, and the likelihood that one can apply a particular strategy or set of strategies effectively.

Question 31

Coping - cast in Bandura’s terms of our efficacy expectations….?

Answer 31

A person is more or less vulnerable to the biological stress reaction, depending on the confidence they have in their ability to master/cope with the demands of the situation.

Question 32

According to the transactional stress model, what are the 3 different coping strategies that people can adopt in the face of demand?

Answer 32

1. Problem (or task) focused coping
2. Emotion focused coping
3. Avoidance focused coping

Question 33

Describe the coping strategy of problem (task) focused coping from a transactional stress model framework.

Answer 33

Managing or altering the environmental demand.

Question 34

Describe the coping strategy of emotion focused coping from a transactional stress model framework.

Answer 34

Regulating the emotional response to the environmental demand.

Question 35

Describe the coping strategy of avoidance focused coping from a transactional stress model framework.

Answer 35

Trying to evade or ignore the environmental demand

Question 36

In general (and with some exceptions) problem focused coping is associated with …….., while emotion focused coping and avoidance coping ……..?

Answer 36

Better mental and physical health outcomes
Are considered maladaptive in most contexts

Question 37

The claim that emotion focused coping is maladaptive is somewhat controversial and not true unconditionally. Why?

Answer 37

Palliative coping, being where the person implements strategies to try and calm themselves down is often seen as an adaptive emotion focused coping strategy. In fact it may be a necessary prerequisite to effective problem focused coping.

Question 38

How do most questionnaires operationalise emotion focused coping?

Answer 38

In terms of brooding, self-blame, or the venting of negative emotions such as frustration and anger.

Question 39

It has been argued that the negative emotions associated ( those often operationalised in questionnaires) of emotion focused coping - that emotion focused coping of this kind is in fact ….?

Answer 39

The absence of coping.
The unregulated negative affect associated with situations that are perceived as threatening.

Question 40

The transactional stress model is considered truly triadic in nature. Explain what makes it so.

Answer 40

The stress process begins when a person appraises the situation and tried somehow to cope with the demands of this situation. Coping may then change both the actual situation and the appraisal of the situation, which in turn may lead to modifications in further coping.