Chapter 3 Flashcards
What does stress involve?
> perturbation of the system / movement away from homeostasis or resting state
in response to some perceived threat or demand.
When did the study of the body’s reaction to stress begin?
> launched by Cannon’s (1929) work on the fight-or-flight response and by Selye’s idea of a General Adaptation Syndrome (Selye, 1976).
What bodily system coordinates the body’s neuroendocrine response with respect to stress?
> the hypothalamic-adrenal-pituitary axis
When is stress less funcitional?
> but is less functional in dealing with the vaguer psychological threats of modern life, which cannot often be resolved by either fighting or fleeing
With respect to stress, what is the main negative outcome that has received the most research? What is this research based on?
> Heart disease.
Much research based on the “reactivity hypothesis” that repeated blood pressure spikes lead to hypertension and heart disease.
What is stress actually meant to do?
> meant to give us the resources to deal with threats, rather than add to the negative experience of the situation.
What distinction did Selye make with respect to stress?
> he also distinguished between distress, which has negative health consequences, and eustress, which is positive.
> This good stress generally comes from confronting challenges that one can adequately deal with and thus can provide a sense of meaning and well-being
On the other hand, distress comes from feeling that one’s resources are insufficient to meet the demands of a situation
What notion is eustress associated with?
> it is connected to the notion of optimal arousal, and there is considerable evi-dence that people can perform better, if not live longer, when they reach an optimal level of arousal (i.e., with some pressure on them)
One factor underlying the difference between positive and negative stress is what?
> Duration
Stress researcher Robert Sapolsky (2004) has theorized that the physiological stress response was designed (in evolutionary terms) to address what?
> acute threats, such as being chased by a predator.
> It is when these short-term changes, such as increases in blood pressure, become long-term that stress can lead to disease.
Chronic stress is not always a product of the actual stressor being extended or recurring; rather, what actually causes it? What is this process known as?
> dwelling on events that are themselves very brief (“You’re fired!” “I’m leaving you!”) can turn these acute stressors into chronic ones. This process is known as rumination.
What have studies revealed about rumination?
> Research shows that ruminating on a stressor can extend elevated blood pressure response, or later recreate it
> People who tend to ruminate also have a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease, suggesting that this tendency to extend acute stressors into chronic ones can be damaging to one’s health.
Overall then, what is the main difference between acute and chronic stress?
> Rumination
Among the most studied sources of situational stress are what?
> Various occupations
Timio et al. (1988) followed
for two decades a group with particularly low job stress: nuns living in a secluded order in Umbria. Compared to the nuns, what was found about the control group?
> Over the span of the study, blood pressure rose significantly—roughly 40 mmHg SBP—for people in the control group, while for the nuns it did not rise at all.
The most simple, intuitive notion of job strain is what?
> that some professions intrinsically come with high levels of stress, while others are naturally more relaxing. However, it is not immediately clear what the most stressful jobs would be
One key question about job stress (and stress in general) is the issue of control; namely, is it
more stressful to have control in a demanding situation or to have no control? What do the studies say?
This has been explored in animal studies with conflicting results.
> Studies with humans show that the effect of job stress on health seems to rely on multiple factors, though there is not complete agreement on what those factors are.
The model of occupational stress developed by Karasek et al. (1988) suggests what about job stress?
> suggests that job stress is a function of job demands and “decision latitude,” or amount of autonomy.
> The argument is that jobs with high demands but little autonomy would be highly stressful and, consequently, damaging to health.
> moves away from a simple hierarchical view, since upper executives may have high demand, but this can be offset by high control, and those nearer the bottom of the pyramid may have fewer demands, but also less control.
People holding high-demand/low-autonomy jobs, such as waiters and firefighters, are roughly four times as likely to suffer heart attacks as those with what?
> the greatest balance of autonomy and strain
hose who put in high effort and receive few rewards are also at risk for what?
Job strain
the imbalance of effort and reward can predict what, in large samples of blue-collar workers?
> negative health events such as coronary heart disease (CHD, or, colloquially, harden-ing of the heart’s arteries), myocardial infarction (MI, or, colloquially, a heart attack), and death (colloquially, kicking the bucket)
Aside from Karasek’s model of stress, what do other models theorize?
> damage results from a misfit/incongruence between the person and the environment,
- or - the demands of the job and capabilities of the employee
In general, what do job-strain models rely on?
> job strain models rely on some interactive aspect of the effort involved in the job and whether that job includes factors that make its successful completion viable.
What scale measures stressful life events? How does it work? Lastly, what is one notable feature about this scale?
> the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS), more commonly known as the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale (Holmes & Rahe, 1967).
> This scale includes numerous possible life events, and people obtain a score for each event they have experienced in some given interval, with more points assigned for the more major events
> One notable feature of this scale is that it does not distinguish between positive and negative events; both contribute to the total stress score.
What are issues with the SRRS scale?
> One argument points
out the somewhat arbitrary weighting of the various factors
> Another issue has been the question of whether positive items produce the same sort of stress as negative ones.
Another debate about the measurement of life stress is whether what occurs?
> is whether stress problems depend on
rare major events, or whether they have a greater relationship to frequent and minor ones.
Kanner, Coyne, Schaefer, and Lazarus (1981) developed a scale with questions about more than 100 life hassles. People indicate which events they have experienced in the past month and also rate the severity of the events. Following 100 people for 9 months what did Kanner and colleagues (1981) find?
> found a large and significant
> correlation between reports of these daily hassles and psychological symptoms. In fact, these daily hassles were more associated with scores on a self-reported symptom checklist (including such symptoms as headaches and feeling lonely) than were the more major events.
What is a negative outcome of caregiver stress (bodily)?
> This sort of stress has been shown actually to reduce telomere length, which is a marker of cellular aging (Epel et al., 2004). Chronically caring for others, it seems, even makes one’s cells feel old.
Nolan, Grant, and Ellis (1990) suggested that caregiver stress is produced by what?
> the perceived nature of the demand ex-ceeding the perceived capabilities of the person.
Besides the model proposed by Nolan et al., what do other caregiver stress models note?
> Other views of caregiver stress are more specific to this stressor and suggest that caregiving is stressful because it interferes with the caregiver taking care of himself or—more commonly—herself.
> In addition to such objective burdens there is also the subjective burden, which includes the feelings experienced when providing care.
Cause of death varies by occupation, race, and nationality, but also what unsuspecting factor? What is the most discussed example?
> by region!
> New York City is a hot spot for heart-attack mortality and there is a “stroke buckle” in the southeastern area of the US.
The stress of caregiving does not seem to impact all caregivers equally. What does this mean?
> With traumatic brain injury, partners seem particularly affected
> perhaps because it represents a more profound or unexpected change to the prior relationship.
> Women seem to report more caregiver-associated stress and depression than men
Some forms of stress are thought to result not from the particulars of one’s employment, family responsibilities, or specific life events, but more generally from what?
> one’s status in society. (socioeconomic status)
The SES positions thought to be associated with poor health outcomes are? How does this relate to the other models about strain so far?
> those subjected to discrimination, harassment, and limited opportunities.
> Again consistent with some job-strain models and care-giver stress, people in positions of less power often experience demands that overwhelm their personal resources.
How do negative health effects relate to SES?
> Some of these relationships seem to be due to the relatively poorer health behaviours of those in lower SES groups as compared to those of higher SES
> People of lower SES and those who are marginalized, for example, are likely to have poorer nutrition and are more likely to smoke.
With respect to SES and health outcomes, which interventions improve health?
> Evidence, however, indicates that education interventions improve health
Stress relating to SES is different than other forms of stress, how?
> in that it is due to relative position, rather than to any absolute level of daily events, task demands, and the like
How does gender affect health?
> Role conflict for women, for example, has been associated with increased psychosocial symptoms
> Women have a longer lifespan than men
> at least through menopause, women have significantly lower blood pressure levels
Pascoe and Smart Richman (2009) found that per-ceived discrimination was associated with health outcomes? Also, what specific type of stress is caused because of racial discrimination?
> with poor physical health, as well as psychological distress.
Reports of racial discrimination were associated with red blood cell oxidative stress
