Lecture 12: Stress, Coping, Adjustment, Health

Question 1

What percentage of modifiable risk factors account for health care costs?

Answer 1

modifiable risk factors account for 22% of Health Care costs

Question 2

What are the models of the personality illness connection?

Answer 2

• Interactional model
• Transactional model
• Health behavior model
• Predisposition model
• Illness behavior model

Question 3

What is the interaction model?

Answer 3

• Objective events happen to a person, but personality determines the impact of events by influencing a person’s ability to cope (Personality moderates (influences) the relation between stress and illness by having an effect on coping)
• Coping response influences degree, duration and the frequency of a stressful event
• Simple and unidirectional

Question 4

What is the transactional model?

Answer 4

Personality has three potential effects:
- Can influence coping (like in previous model)
- Can influence how a person appraises/interprets events
-Can influence events themselves
People don’t just respond to situations, they also create situations through choices and actions

Question 5

What is the health behaviour model?

Answer 5

• Personality does not directly influence the relationship between stress and illness
• Instead, personality affects health indirectly, through health promoting or health degrading behaviors

Question 6

What facets of conscientiousness predict health behaviour?

Answer 6

• Orderliness
• Industriousness
• Self control

Question 7

What traits are predictive of risk taking/health behaviours?

Answer 7

• impulsivity

Question 8

What is the predisposition model?

Answer 8

• Associations may exist between personality and illness because of a third variable that is causing them both
• – Association found between illness and personality because of some predispositions that underlies them both

Question 9

What is the illness behaviour model?

Answer 9

Personality influences the degree to which a person perceives and attends to bodily sensation, the degree to which a person interprets and labels sensations as illness and illness behaviour

Question 10

What is a common theme in models?

Answer 10

stress

Question 11

What is stress?

Answer 11

• Subjective feeling in response to events that are perceived as uncontrollable or threatening. There is nothing inherently stressful in our environment. It is subjective
• Stress can lead to distress or eustress
• All animals have a stress response, which can be life saving in some situations

Question 12

where does stress lie in our lives?

Answer 12

• Stress is not “out there” in our lives, representing something that happens to us
• Instead, stress lies in part in how we interpret and respond to those events
• Thus, stress lies “in between” the event and the person

Question 13

What is a stressor?

Answer 13

• Stressors: Events (positive or negative) that lead to stress and have several common attributes
  1) Produce a state of feeling overwhelmed or overloaded
  2) Produce opposing tendencies in us, such as wanting and not wanting some activity or object
  3) Perceived as uncontrollable

Question 14

What is the stress response?

Answer 14

• Startle, heart beast fast, BP increases, sweaty palms and soles of feet- fight or flight response- increase in sympathetic nervous system
• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS- Hans Selyes)

Question 15

What is the general adaptation syndrome?

Answer 15

• Alarm stage: fight or flight response (sympathetic NS activated)
• If stressor continues, Resistance stage: body uses resources at above average rate, even though fight or flight response subsided
• If stressor is constant, exhaustion stage: more susceptible to illness because physiological resources are depleted (burnout, irritability, headaches, illness). Only remedied by rest or replenishing.

Question 16

What are the types of stress and the associated symptoms?

Answer 16

• Acute stress (short lived). Symptoms: tension headaches, emotionally upset, agitated, restless, unprepared. (e.g., your car won’t start in the cold)
• Episodic (repeated) acute stress. Migraine headaches, unable to sleep, anxiety, rumination, gasto intestinal distress. (e.g., deadlines one after the other, work stressors)
• Traumatic stress (e.g., PTSD). Initially experienced as a massive acute stressor. Constellation of symptoms: can take up to 6 months for symptoms to manifest. Reexperiencing the trauma , intrusive thoughts, nightmares, leads to depression
• Chronic Stress- Day in - day out stressors (e.g., unhealthy relationship, traffic every day). Don’t have a clear onset but also don’t have a clear end in sight. More susceptible to diabetes or cardiovascular disease

Question 17

What is primary appraisal?

Answer 17

• According to Lazarus (1991) in order for stress to be evoked, two cognitive events must occur
• Primary appraisal: person perceives an event as a threat to goals. If they don’t perceive it as such then they don’t get stressed. Is this threatening or bad for me? If yes, move to secondary appraisal. If answer is no –> no stress

Question 18

What is secondary appraisal?

Answer 18

• Secondary appraisal: person concludes they do not have resources to cope with demands of threatening event. Can I manage? (resources, support, time, strength)

Question 19

What is the general hypothesis about the role of positive emotions in coping with stress?

Answer 19

General hypothesis: positive emotions and appraisals may lead to a lowered impact of stress on health

Question 20

What are the three coping mechanisms that are capable of generating positive emotion during stress?

Answer 20

• Positive reappraisal: person focuses on the good in what is happening; seeking opportunities for growth
• Problem focused coping: thoughts and behaviours that manage or solve an underlying cause of stress
• Creating positive events: creating positive time-out from stress and using humour (exercise, eating properly, laughing)

Question 21

What is an attributional style

Answer 21

dispositional way of explaining bad events

Question 22

Describe optimism as an attributional style

Answer 22

Expectation that good events will be plentiful, and bad events will be rare

Question 23

What does optimism predict?

Answer 23

• Optimism predicts good health and health-promoting behaviours. These findings are correlational.
• Psychologists have tried to devise ways to increase optimism

Question 24

What is the type a behaviour pattern?

Answer 24

• Collection of 3 sub traits (not necessarily a personality type): Competitive achievement motivation, Time urgency, Hostility and aggressiveness when blocked from goal

Question 25

What is type b behaviour pattern?

Answer 25

• Type B: Relaxed, unhurried

- Most people fall in the middle of these behaviour patterns but they are extremes as well

Question 26

What is the relationship between Type A behaviour pattern and cardiovascular disease?

Answer 26

• Early studies of Type A found it was an independent risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease
• Early studies conducted by physicians using structured interviews; Later research used self-report surveys
• Studies using surveys less likely to find relationships between Type A and heart disease than studies using structured interview
• Structured interview gets at the lethal component - Hostility

Question 27

How can we move towards type B?

Answer 27

1. Purposely slow down (allow more time for pacing)
2. Practice doing one thing at a time
3. Practice active listening (catch urge to interrupt)
4. Remove your watch
5. Practice meditation or relaxation exercises

Question 28

What is the stress hardy personality?

Answer 28

• Stress-hardy Personality: Personality traits that protect from effects of stress. Hardiness: “…personality characteristic describing an individual with three closely related tendencies” Kobasa (1979)
• Challenge: perceiving change as an opportunity to grow
• Commitment: believe in the truth, themselves and their goals
• Control: influencing the course of life within reasonable limits