Chapter 11: Stress and Health

Question 1

What is the term used to describe the physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to events that are appraised as threatening or challenging.

Answer 1

Stress

Question 2

What are stress-causing events called? They can come from within a person or an external source.

Answer 2

Stressors

Question 3

What are the 2 kinds of stressors?

Answer 3

• Distress
• Eustress

Question 4

This kind of stress occurs when people experience unpleasant stressors.

Answer 4

Distress

Question 5

This kind of stress occurs when people experience positive events that still make demands on a person to adapt or change (marriage, job promotion, having a baby, etc).

Answer 5

Eustress

Question 6

In an update of Selye’s original definition, eustress is now defined as what?

Answer 6

Optimal amount of stress that people need to promote health and well-being.

Question 7

An example of a stressor wherein an unpredictable. This kind of stress occurs when people experience a major catastrophic event/

Answer 7

Catastrophe

Question 8

What is the scale devised by Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe to measure the amount of stress in a person’s life by having that person add up the total “life change units” associated with each major event?

Answer 8

Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)

Question 9

One of the more recent versions of the SRRS that use as life events some of those things more likely to be experienced by college students is?

Answer 9

College Undergraduate Stress Scale (CUSS)

Question 10

The bulk of the stress we experience daily actually comes from little frustrations, delays, irritations, minor disagreements, and similar small aggravations. These daily annoyances are called what?

Answer 10

Hassles

Question 11

The scale that Lazarus and Folkman (1984) developed a scale that has items such as “mis-placing or losing things” and “troublesome neighbors.”

Answer 11

Hassle Scale

Question 12

When there are urgent demands or expectations for a person’s behavior coming from an outside source, that person is experiencing what?

Answer 12

Pressure

Question 13

A factor that increases a person’s experience of stress is the degree of control that the person has over a particular event or situation.

Answer 13

Uncontrollability

Question 14

This occurs when people are blocked or prevented from achieving a desired goal or fulfilling a perceived need.

Answer 14

Frustration

Question 15

Also know as personal frustrations, occur when the goal or need cannot be attained because of internal or personal characteristics.

Answer 15

Internal Frustrations

Question 16

When frustrated, people may use this response, the continuation of efforts to get around whatever is causing the frustration. It may involve making more intense efforts or changing the style of response.

Answer 16

Persistence

Question 17

Actions meant to to harm or destroy, is unfortunately another typical reaction to frustration.

Answer 17

Aggression

Question 18

Early psychologists in the field unfortunately another typical reaction to frustration. Early psychologists in the field of behaviorism proposed a connection between frustration and aggression, calling it what?

Answer 18

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

Question 19

Taking out one’s frustrations on less threatening, more available targets, is a process called?

Answer 19

Displaced Aggression

Question 20

Another possible reaction to frustration refers to the psychological escape or withdrawal into apathy.

Answer 20

Escape/Withdrawal

Question 21

This refers to whenever you find yourself torn between two or more competing and in compatible desires, goals, or actions.

Answer 21

Conflict

Question 22

In conflict, this is when a person experiences desire for two goals, each of which is attractive. Typically, this type of conflict, often called a “win–win situation,” is relatively easy to resolve and does not involve
a great deal of stress.

Answer 22

Approach-approach conflict

Question 23

In conflict, this is much more stressful. In this conflict, the choice is between two or more goals or events that are unpleasant.

Answer 23

Avoidance-avoidance conflicts

Question 24

In conflict, this is a bit bit different in that they only involve one goal or event. That goal or event may have both positive and negative aspects that make the goal appealing and yet unappealing at the same time.

Answer 24

Approach-avoidance conflicts

Question 25

In conflict, this is when the choice is between two goals that have both positive and negative elements to each goal.

Answer 25

Double approach-avoidance conflict

Question 26

In conflict, this is when one would have more than two goals or options to consider, making the decision even more difficult and stressful.

Answer 26

Multiple approach-avoidance conflicts

Question 27

The ANS consists of two divisions, such as the:

Answer 27

- Parasympathetic - Sympathetic

Question 28

This is the "fight-or-flight" system that reacts when the human body is subjected to stress.

Answer 28

Sympathetic Nervous System

Question 29

This is the system that returns the body to normal, day-to-day functioning after the stress is ended.

Answer 29

Parasympathetic Nervous System

Question 30

He is the endocrinologist who was the founder of the field of research concerning stress and its effects on the human body.

Answer 30

Hans Selye

Question 31

He studied the sequence of physiological reactions that the body goes through when adapting to a stressor, called what?

Answer 31

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

Question 32

What are the 3 stages of General Adaptation Syndrome according to Hans Selye (GAS)?

Answer 32

- Alarm - Resistance - Exhaustion

Question 33

In GAS, this is when the body first reacts to a stressor, the sympathetic nervous system is activated.

Answer 33

Alarm

Question 34

In GAS, this is when the stress continues, the body settles into sympathetic division activity, continuing to release the stress hormones that help the body fight off, or resist, the stressor.

Answer 34

Resistance

Question 35

In GAS, this is when the body’s resources are gone, exhaustion occurs. It can lead to the formation of stress-related diseases, or the death of the organism if outside help is unavailable.

Answer 35

Exhaustion

Question 36

This refers to the system of cells, organs, and chemicals in the body that responds to attacks on the body from diseases and injuries.

Answer 36

Immune System

Question 37

This is the field that concerns the study of the effects of psychological factors such as stress, emotions, thinking, learning, and behavior on the immune system.

Answer 37

Psychoneuroimmunology

Question 38

Stress has been been shown to put people at a higher risk of ________ _____ _______ (CHD), the buildup of a waxy substance called plaque in the arteries of the heart.

Answer 38

Coronary Heart Disease

Question 39

A chronic illness sometimes associated with excessive weight gain is what?

Answer 39

Diabetes

Question 40

A collection of diseases that can affect any part of the body. Unlike normal cells, which divide and reproduce according to genetic instructions and stop dividing according to those same instructions, cancer cells divide without stopping.

Answer 40

Cancer

Question 41

An immune-system cell called a _______ ______ (NK) cell, has as its main functions the suppression of viruses and the destruction of tumor cells.

Answer 41

Natural Killer

Question 42

This type of psychology psychology focuses on how our physical activities, psychological traits, and social relationships affect our overall health and rate of illnesses.

Answer 42

Health Psychology

Question 43

He is a cognitive psychologist who developed a cognitive view of stress called the cognitive–mediational theory of emotions, in which the way people think about and appraise a stressor is a major factor in how stressful that particular stressor becomes.

Answer 43

Richard Lazarus

Question 44

This is the first step in appraising a stressor which involves estimating the severity of the stressor and classifying it as a threat, a challenge, or a harm or loss that has already occurred.

Answer 44

Primary Appraisal

Question 45

This is a step in appraising a stressor wherein appraisal, people who have identified a threat or harmful effect must estimate the resources that they have available for coping with the stressor.

Answer 45

Secondary Appraisal

Question 46

Type of people who are workaholics—they are very competitive, ambitious, hate to waste time, and are easily annoyed. They feel a constant sense of pressure and have a strong tendency to try to do several things at once.

Answer 46

Type A

Question 47

Type of people who are not that competitive or driven, tend to be easygoing and slow to anger, and seem relaxed and at peace.

Answer 47

Type B

Question 48

Type of people who are very pleasant and try to keep the peace but find it difficult to express emotions, especially negative ones.

Answer 48

Type C

Question 49

Type of people who actually seem to thrive on stress instead of letting stress wear them down. These people have what is called the "hardy personality", a term first coined by psychologist Suzanne Kobasa (1979).

Answer 49

Type H

Question 50

People who always tend to look for positive outcomes.

Answer 50

Optimists

Question 51

People who seem to expect the worst to happen.

Answer 51

Pessimists

Question 52

This can be defined as negative changes in thoughts, emotions, and behavior as a result of prolonged stress or frustration, resulting in both mental and physical exhaustion.

Answer 52

Burnout

Question 53

The stress resulting from the need to change and adapt to the dominant or majority culture is called?

Answer 53

Acculturative Stress

Question 54

This refers to when the minority person gives up the old cultural identity and completely adopts the majority culture’s ways.

Answer 54

Assimilation

Question 55

This refers to a pattern in which the minority person rejects the majority culture’s ways and tries to maintain the original cultural identity.

Answer 55

Separation

Question 56

This refers to neither maintaining contact with their original culture nor joining the majority culture. They essentially live on the “margins” of both cultures without feeling or becoming part of either culture.

Answer 56

Marginalized

Question 57

These are actions that people can take to master, tolerate, reduce, or minimize the effects of stressors, and they can include both behavioral strategies and psychological strategies.

Answer 57

Coping Strategies

Question 58

A type of coping strategy is to work on eliminating or changing the stressor itself; when people try to eliminate the source of a stress or reduce its impact through their own actions.

Answer 58

Problem-focused coping

Question 59

A type of coping strategy is changing the way a person feels or emotionally reacts to a stressor. This reduces the emotional impact of the stressor and makes it possible to deal with the problem more effectively.

Answer 59

Emotion-focused coping

Question 60

A series of mental exercises meant to refocus attention and achieve a trancelike state of consciousness.

Answer 60

Meditation

Question 61

This type of meditation refers to focusing the mind on some repetitive or unchanging stimulus so that the mind can forget daily hassles and problems and the body can relax.

Answer 61

Concentrative Meditation