Health Psychology Flashcards
(53 cards)
Stress as a stimulus
Stressors: Events that place strong demands on us/threatening situations
“I’ve got a lot of stress in my life right now. I have three exams next week, I lost my notes…”
Stress as a response
cognitive, physiological & behavioural components
Response to stressors
“I’m feeling stressed out. I’m tensed up. I’m having trouble concentrating, and I’ve been flying off the handle all week.”
Negative emotions involved
Stress as an on-going transaction between the organism & environment
A pattern of cognitive appraisals, physiological responses, & behavioural tendencies that occurs in response to a perceived imbalance between situational demands & the resources needed to deal with them
A person-situation interaction
Stressor
Stimulus that place demands on us & require us to adapt in some way
Physical (e.g., weight-lifting, physical injury)
Psychological (e.g., teasing, upcoming exams)
Eustress vs. Distress
Eustress: Optimal level, beneficial, enhancing performance
Distress: Demands outweighing resources
Microstressors
Daily hassles & annoyances
E.g., traffic jam, difficult colleague
Major negative events
Personal negative events placing major demands on the individual
E.g., divorce, death of a loved one, serious illness
Catastrophic events
Tend to occur unexpectedly & affect large numbers of people
E.g., acts of war, natural disasters
Aka cataclysmic events
Powerful single life-events requiring major adaptive responses
Measuring Stress
Physiological measures
E.g., heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones
Questionnaires concerned with stressors experienced
E.g., life events scales, daily hassles scales
Approach-approach conflict
Two desirable options, but only one can be chosen
E.g., going to a party or going on a trip
Approach-avoidance conflict
A scenario which has both desirable & unattractive options
E.g., win an award (acknowledgement) but have to give an acceptance speech
Avoidance-avoidance conflict
Two unattractive options
E.g., study or wash dishes
Physiological response to stress
General Adaptation Syndrome
Our body responds to stress (i.e., what we perceive)
Think about when you are stressed: Heart beats faster, maybe sweating, struggle to breathe
Cognitive response to stress
Cognitive Appraisal Model
We often respond to situations as we appraise (perceive) them
Think about: Why do I respond in one way to public speaking but you in another way
General Adaptation Syndrome
A physiological response pattern to strong & prolonged stressors
Organisms have a general, non-specific response to a variety of stressful events
1. Alarm phase
2. Resistance phase
3. Exhaustion phase
Alarm phase
Activation of the sympathetic nervous system & release of stress hormones by the endocrine system
Resistance phase
Resources are mobilised (& being depleted) by stress hormones
Exhaustion phase
Increased vulnerability to disease in weak body systems
Primary appraisal
Positive, negative, neutral/irrelevant or threatening?
Secondary appraisal
Can I cope? Do I have the resources?
Aspects of the appraisal process
Appraise nature & demands of situation (primary appraisal)
Appraise resources available to cope with it (secondary appraisal)
Judgments of potential consequences (e.g., if fail to cope)
Appraise personal meaning, or what the outcome might imply about us
Health Psychology
Addresses factors that influence well-being & illness, as well as measures that can be taken to promote health & prevent illness
Effects of stress on well-being
Can combine with other physical & psychological factors to influence physical illness
Directly harm body systems via physiological response
Indirectly stress can cause people to behave in ways increasing risk of illness
Can accelerate the aging process
Chronic levels damage telomeres & lowers telomerase, speeding up aging
Can weaken immune system functioning
Vulnerability factors
Personal & environmental factors that make people more reactive to stressful events
Reduce resistance to stress
E.g., low social support, poor coping skills, tendencies to become anxious or pessimistic
