Stress Flashcards
(116 cards)
1
Q
What is general adaptation syndrome?
A
Selye’s explanation of how the body responds in the same way to any stressor.
The response goes through three stages which are alarm reaction, resistance and exhaustion.
2
Q
What does HPA stand for?
A
Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system
3
Q
What is HPA?
A
This controls how the body responds to a chronic stressor.
The hypothalamus triggers the pituitary gland to release the hormone ACTH which, in turn, stimulates the release of cortisol.
4
Q
What is the SAM pathway?
A
This controls how the body initially responds to an acute stressor.
The sympathetic nervous system triggers the flight or fight response.
This includes the release of the hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline which communicate with target organs in the body such as the heart.
5
Q
Where is cortisol produced?
A
Adrenal cortex
6
Q
What does cortisol do?
A
It helps the body to cope with stressors by controlling how the body uses energy.
It also supresses immune system activity.
7
Q
How did Selye (1963) view stress?
A
As the body’s attempt to adapt to a stressor.
This adaptation protects the body but is dangerous if the stressor is prolonged.
The process of adapting to a stressor goes through three stages which Selye called the general adaptation syndrome.
8
Q
What are the three steps of GAS?
A
Alarm reaction- immediate physiological response.
Resistance- body attempts to adapt to stressful situation and physiological activity is greater than normal so after time the PNS is activated to conserve energy.
Exhaustion- Adaptation to the chronic stressor is failing so individual experiences symptions of the alarm reaction . This can damage the adrenal glands and compromise the immune system.
9
Q
Research support of GAS.
A
Selye subjected rats to various physical stressors.
He found the same collection of responses occured regardless of the stressor and the response appeared after 6-48 hours.
Selye could also track the rats’ continuing reponses through the resistance and exhaustion stages.
10
Q
A limitation of GAS.
A
Mason (1971) replicated Selye’s procedures using monkeys measuring response to seven different stressors by measuring levels of urinary cortisol.
Mason found outcomes depended on the stressor.
This challenges the validity of the GAS.
11
Q
What is acute stress associated with?
A
The SAM pathway.
12
Q
What happens during the SAM pathway?
A
When a stressor is perceived, the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system.
The arousal stimulates the adrenal medulla to produce adrenaline and noradrenaline.
This causes physiological responses.
13
Q
What are some physiological responses to acute stress?
A
Turning glycogen into glucose.
Sweating.
Pupil dilation.
Increased heart rate.
Slowed digestion.
14
Q
When does the sympathetic response to stress end?
A
When the stress becomes chronic or the parasympathetic nervous system takes over.
15
Q
What is the body’s response to chronic stress?
A
HPA system.
16
Q
Does the HPA take longer to activate than the SAM pathway?
A
Yes but also lasts for longer.
17
Q
How does the HPA work?
A
When the sympathetic nervous system is activated, the hypothalamus also produces a hormone called CRF.
CRF is detected by the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland causing the release of ACTH into the bloodstream.
ACTH levels are detected by the adrenal cortex which secretes cortisol in response.
18
Q
What does CRF stand for?
A
Corticotropin releasing factor.
19
Q
What does cortisol do?
A
Helps the body cope with stress.
It is glucocorticoid because it affects glucose metabolism by mobilising and restoring energy supplies to power the stress response.
It has other effects which can be damaging to the body such as suppressing the immune system.
20
Q
Is HPA a negative feedback loop?
A
Yes.
Levels of cortisol circulating in the bloodstream are monitored back at the pituitary and the hypothalamus.
High levels of cortisol trigger a reduction in both CRF and ACTH, resulting in a corresponding reduction in cortisol.
21
Q
Real world application of the physiology of stress.
A
Knowledge of it has practical value.
Addison’s disease is a rare disorder of the adrenal glands, meaning people cannot produce cortisol- this means they cannot mobilise energy to deal with stress.
The lack of cortisol can trigger life threatening symptoms such as severe drops in blood pressure.
This knowledge has revolutionised treatment.
Now people with it can self administer daily cortisol replacement therapy.
Therefore the understanding of the physiology of stress has improved some peoples lives.
22
Q
A limitation of the physiology of stress.
A
Physiological explanations ignore psychological factors in stress, for example cognitive appraisal.
Speisman et al. (1964) asked students to watch a medical procedure on film while their heart rates were measured.
Changes in heart rate depended on how the students interpreted what was happening in the film.
If they believed the procedure was traumatic their heart rate increased but if they were told it was voluntary, heart rates decreased.
This finding cannot purely be explained by physiology.
23
Q
Gender bias of the physiological response.
A
Fight or flight is regarded as the universal response to an acute stressor.
That understanding is based on research of males and avoiding females due to hormone fluctuations.
However, Taylor et al. (2000) argue that the most adaptive stress response in females is ‘tend and befriend’.
It was adaptive for ancestral females to respond to stress by nurturing offspring and co-operating with other females.
The hormone oxytocin inhibits the fight or flight response in females some of the time.
24
Q
How does cortisol affect the immune system?
A
Cortisol inhibits the production of lymphocytes.
25
What is immunosuppression?
Stress can cause illness by preventing the immune system from working efficiently and carrying out its usual task of identifying and destroying invading germs and other foreign bodies.
26
What are cardiovascular disorders?
Any disorder of the heart or blood vessels including events which affect the brain.
27
What did Kiecolt-Glaser investigate?
The affect of stress in immunosuppression.
28
What was Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (1984)- procedure?
Investigates the effects off exams on 75 medical students.
The participants gave blood samples twice, one month before an exam period and on the day of the first exam.
They also completed questionnaires measuring sources of stress and self-reported psychological symptoms.
29
What was Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (1984)- findings?
The researchers found that the activity of the NK and killer T cells decreased between the first and second samples, evidence of an immune response being suppressed by a chronic stressor.
This decline was most apparent in students who reported feeling most lonely and in those experiencing other sources of stress such as significant events in their life.
30
What was Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (1991)- procedure?
Carried out another longitudinal study in which they compared the health of two groups of people- caregivers looking after a relative with Alzheimer's disease, and a matched group of non-caregivers.
31
What was Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (1991)- results?
Over a period of 13 months, the caregivers showed a weaker cell-based immune response.
There was no such increase in the control participants.
The caregivers also had infectious illnesses on significantly more days, and higher levels of depression with 32% meeting the criteria for the clinical depression (only 6% in the control group).
32
Who conducted acute stress research and its effect on cardiovascular disorders?
Wilbert-Lampen et al. (2008)
33
Who conducted chronic stress research and its effect on cardiovascular disorders?
Yusuf et al. (2004)
34
What was Wilbert-Lampen et al. (2008) procedure?
They looked at incidences if heart attacks in German football supporters during matches played during the 1996 world cup.
35
What was Wilbert-Lampen et al. (2008) results?
On the days when Germany played, cardiac emergencies increased by 2.66 times compared with a control period.
It appears that the acute emotional stress of watching your favourite football team can more than double your risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event.
36
What was Yusuf et al. (2004) procedure?
Examined chronic stressors in the INTERHEART study.
This involved 52 countries, to identify major risk factors for CVDs across different cultures.
They compared 15000 people who had a heart attack with a similar number of people who had not.
37
What was Yusuf et al. (2004) results?
They found chronic stressors with a strong link to hear attacks, included workplace stress and stressful life events.
The contribution of stress was greater than obesity and only third to smoking and high cholesterol.
Stress not only contributes to the development of CVDs in the first place but also makes existing disorders worse.
38
What is a limitation of research into stress and immunosuppression?
Some research shows that stress response can make illness less likely.
Dharbhar (2008) subjected rats to mild acute stressors and found that lymphocytes flooded into the bloodstream and body tissues in preparation for physical damage.
This shows that acute stressors may not have the same immuosuppressive effects as chronic stressors.
This shows the relationship between stress and the immune system is not yet fully understood.
39
What is a strength of research into the effect of stress on immunosuppression?
There is real-world application.
Dharbhar's research into acute stressors could eventually lead to patients being given low doses of stress hormones before surgery.
This would stimulate their immune systems and improve their chances of making a full an fast recovery afterwards.
40
What is a limitation of research into cardiovascular disorders and stress?
The effects of stress on CVDs are mostly indirect.
Orth-Gomer et al. (2000) found that marital stress tripled the risk of a heart attack in women who already had CVD.
This is a different situation from demonstrating that stress causes CVDs to develop in the first place.
This suggests that stress increases a person's vulnerability to developing CVDs mainly through indirect effects.
41
What is a strength of the link between CVDs and stress?
Song et al. (2019) identified more than 130000 people with stress-related disorders.
Other participants were unaffected siblings of these people and a million people with no stress-related disorders.
Compared with controls, people with stress-related disorders had a 64% greater risk of a CVD in the first year after diagnosis.
42
What are sources of stress?
Any feature of the environment that causes stress, including factors associated with work, everyday minor hassles and major changes in our lives.
43
What are life changes?
Significant and relatively infrequent events in people's lives that cause stress.
They are stressful because we have to expend psychological energy coping with changed circumstances.
44
Who created the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)?
Holmes and Rahe (1967)
45
What is the SSRS?
It measures stress by assigning a certain number of life change units to each item on a list.
46
What did Rahe (1972) find?
People scoring less than 150 LCUs in a given year were less likely to experience illness.
80% of those with a score over 300 LCUs experienced illness within the following year.
47
What was Rahe et al. (1970) procedure?
Studies US Navy personnel assigned to three ships and participants completed a version of the SRRS called the 'schedule of recent experiences'.
This covered the six months before a tour of duty and a total LCU score was calculated for each participant for this period.
One on board the ship all illnesses were reported to the medical unit and after the tour an independent researcher calculated an illness score for each participant.
The personnel nor the medical staff were aware of the purpose of the study or data.
48
What was Rahe et al. (1970) findings?
Significant positive corrleation of +.118 between the LCU score and illness score.
Those who experienced more stressful life changes in the final six months before leaving were more likely to experience illness in the following six months aboard the ship.
49
What is a limitation of life changes and SRRS in relation to the types of changes?
The SSRS contains both psotove and negative changes as it is based on the assumption all change is stressful.
Turner and Wheaton (1995) asked participants to rate the desirability of selected SSRS items.
They found undesirable life changes were greater causes of stress and not life changes as such.
This challenges the validity of life changes.
50
What is a limitation of life changes in relation to causality?
Caustality cannot be established and research such as Rahe et al. (1970) is purely correlational.
There would be ethical issues associated with making the study causational as it would be unethical to deliberately put people through stress.
51
What is a limitation of life changes relating to individual differences?
Life changes do not affect everyone in the same ways.
Byrne and Whyte (1980) tried to predict who would experience a heart attack on the basis of SSRS scores.
They found that they could only do so if they took the subjective interpretations of life changes into account.
Therefore, the life changes approach lacks validity as it does not consider individual differences.
52
What is research support of life changes?
Lietzen et al. (2011) used data from the Health and Social Support study in Finland.
They followed 16000 adults who did not have asthma at the start of the study.
This was a retrospective study.
They found a high level of life change stress reliably predicted asthma onset.
This suggests stressful life changes can contribute to the onset of a chronic illness.
53
What are daily hassles?
the relatively minor but frequent aggravations and annoyances of everyday life that combine to cause us stress.
54
Who suggested looking at daily hassles to give us a better understanding of stress and illness? How?
Lazarus et al.
It is done through primary (subkjectively work out how threatening it is to our psychological health) and secondary appraisal (how we can subjectively cope).
55
Who created the Hassles and Uplifts Scale (HSUP)?
Kanner et al. (1981)
56
What is the HSUP scale?
A self report scale measuring how many hassles a person experiences in a defined period and how severe the hassles are.
Uplifts are daily enjoyable things that give us a small boost and offset the stress of hassles.
57
What was Kanner et al. (1981) procedure?
Constructed a hassles scale with 177 hassles in terms of how often and severity, which 100 particiapnts completed every month for nine months.
Participants also completed a scale to measure life changes on two occasions.
They also completed the Hopkins symptom checklist, a scale to measure psychological symptoms of anxiety and depression.
58
What was Kanner et al. (1981) findings?
Significant positive correlation between hassle frequency and psychological symptoms at the start and end of the study.
Hassles were a stronger predictor of psychological symptoms than life changes.
59
What is a limiation of daily hassles in terms of causality?
Research on daily hassles are only correlational and not causational so a definitive conclusion could not be found.
A reason for this could be that extraneous varibale could be having an affect for example someone with depression may experience hassles more intensely causing more stress.
This may suggest there is an indirect link between hassles and stress.
60
What is research support of daily hassles?
Ivancevich (1986) asked participants to complete the HSUP.
Measures of general health, job performance and work absenteeism were also taken.
He found that daily hassles were strong predictors of poor health, poor job performance and absenteeism from work.
This suggests daily hassles are a valid explanation of stress experienced by many people.
61
What is a counterpoint to research support of daily hassles?
Ivancevich's study depends on retrospective self report.
The usefulness of the data depends on the participants' memories.
This is a problematic issue when looking at daily hassles as they are minor happending and so are much easier to forget.
This means the validity of hassles research may be doubtful.
62
What is a strengths of daily hassles?
This approach explains individual differences.
People differ in their understanding of what a hassle is due to primary and secondary appraisal.
Therefore the daily hassles approach can explain individual differences in how stress affects our health and behaviour.
63
What is workplace stress?
Sources of stress that people experience in relation to their job.
64
What is the demands-control model?
Karasek (1979)
The model states that the stressful demands of a job such as workload can lead to poor health, dissatisfaction and absenteeism.
This relationship could be modifies by the amount of control an employee has over their work.
Having job control acts as a buffer againsy the negative affect of work demands.
65
What was Marmot et al. (1997) procedure?
Prospective study of over 10000 civil servants in a wide range of job grades.
They used a detailed questionnaire to measure various aspects of workload and job control.
Participants were also screened for symptoms of CHD and followed up after 5 years.
66
What was Marmot et al. (1997) findings?
No correlation between workload and stress so job demands were not a significant workplace stressor.
Employees who reported a low degree of control at the start of the study were more likely to have CHD five years later, even when other risk factors were statistically accounted for.
67
What was Johansson et al. (1978) procedure?
Natural experiment.
Compared two groups of workers in a Swedish sawmill.
One group had 14 wood 'finishers' who job was to prepare the timber.
This job as repetitive and isolating and they had very little control but was also very demanding.
The second group consisted of cleaners who had more control and greater flexibility and much less responsibility.
The researchers measured illness and absenteeism levels and also adrenaline and noradrenaline levels from urinary samples.
68
What was Johansson et al. (1978) findings?
Higher levels of stress hormones in finishers group and had higher levels before they even got to work compared to cleaners.
There were more stress-related illnesses among the finishers and absenteeism was higher.
Lack of control and high workload creates chronic psychological arousal and this causes development of stress-related illness and production of stress hormones.
69
What is an evaluation point of workplace stress in relation to validity?
Many studies are conducted in the workplace rather than labs which means they have high external validity and are more generalisable.
However they also tend to be natural experiments where the job is already assigned meaning employees could differ systematically in ways that affected the outcome.
So confounding variables could reduce a study's internal validity.
70
What is a limitation of workplace stress involving work control?
Having job control could be more stressful than not as this is depenedent on self efficacy.
Meier et al. (2008) found that employees with a low sense of self-efficacy reported feeling stressed in jobs that gave them more control. The reverse was also true.
People with low self-efficacy find control difficult and so it becomes another stressor in addition to others they face.
This shows that individual differences may play a role.
71
What is a strength of workplace stress in terms of cultures?
It is a culturally generalisable concept.
Liu et al. (2007) investigated perceptions of job stress in China and the US.
They used a qualitative method by asking workers to descrive events at work over the previous month.
There were differences between the US and Chinese workers in their perceptions of several work-related stressors but not for workload.
This suggests that workload is understood as stressful in very different cultures and can therefore be generalised.
72
What is a counterpoint to there being similarities between cultures in terms fo workplace stress?
Gyorkos et al. (2012) reviwed cross cultural studies of job control.
Lack of control was more stressful in individualist cultures than in collectivist.
The whole concept of job control may reflect individualist ideals such as personal rights and so may not generalise to collectivist cultures which prioritise the good of the wider group.
This shows that workplace stress may have many aspects and not all of them are generalisable.
73
What is the social readjustment rating scale (SRRS)?
Holmes and Rahe (1967).
43 life changes not weighted equally and eah assigned a life change unit.
500 LCUs in total.
Participants indicate how many life changes they have expereinces over a period of time, typically 12 months.
74
What is the hassles and uplifts scale?
Kanner et al. (1981).
Hassles scale has 117 items in 7 different categories such as work, environment and health.
Severity measured on 3 point scale.
Uplifts scale has 135 items in the same 7 areas.
Indicate how often they experience these.
75
Name two self-report measures of stress.
SRRS
HSUP
76
What is a strength of self-report measures of stress?
Valid way of measuring stress.
Stress is a personal experience and a self-report is the most direct way of understanding people's experiences.
People are also likely to answer with as much insight and honesty as they can.
77
What is a counterpoint to the validity of self-report measures of stress?
Many items on these measures are general categories rather than individual events.
Dohrenwend et al. (1990) asked participants what they thought the items meant.
An example would be 'serious illness and injury' some perceived this as 'sprained arm' and others perceived it as 'heart attack'.
This means there is a 'built-in' bias which inflates stress scores and reduces the validity of self-report measures.
78
What is a limitation of self-report measures of stress?
Mix together the causes and effects of stress.
Many items on the HSUP and SRRS have items which overlap with symptoms of stress.
For example 'personal injury and illness' is included as a source of stress on the SRRS.
In reality these scales reflect illness rather than predict it.
Some psychologists argue that self-report measures should be abandoned and replaced by direct observations of behaviour.
79
What is skin conductance response?
Based on fight or flight response as when we stress the autonomic nervous system is aroused inducing sweat.
Electrodes are attacthed to the index and middle fingers of one hand and an electric current is used but it is so weak it cannot be felt.
The electrodes measure conductance and skin is a good conductor, so more sweat means more conductance.
80
What are the two types of skin conductance?
Tonic
Phasic
81
What is tonic conductance?
When we are not experiencing a stimulus and is used as a baseline measure.
82
What is phasic conductance?
Occues when something happens for example someone being shown an image and asking a question.
82
What is phasic conductance?
Occues when something happens for example someone being shown an image and asking a question.
83
What is the response to phasic conductance known as?
SKin conductance response.
When measured alongside heart rate, respiration and blood pressure it makes up a polygraph.
84
What are other physiological measures of stress?
Adrenaline and cprtisol are 'biomarkers' of acute and chronic stress.
Both can be measured in blood and urine but cortisol can be measured in saliva.
Blood pressure is also known to increase during stressful experiences.
85
What is a limitation of physiological measures of stress?
People differ systematically in the SCRs.
SCR measurement does recognise that people have additional patterns of skin conductance hence why a basline measure is taken.
Additionally, people can be divided into two groups based on their SCRs-
- some are stabiles whose SCRs cary little when at rest and not infleunced by external events or internal thoughts.
- others are labiles who produce a lot of SCRs even when they are at rest.
Many research studies do not take this into account.
Therefore SCR measurements are not a straightforward matter of comparine tonic SCRs to phasic SCRs.
86
What is a strength of the physiological measures of stress?
Not affecetd by personal biases.
Skin conductance, blood pressure and hormone secretion are all reliably associated with experiences of stress.
As long as researchers take baseline levels of individual into account, physiological measures are free of biases which undermine self-reports.
More scientific.
87
Who came up with the idea of personality types relating to CHD?
Friedman and Rosenman (1959)
88
How did Friedman (1996) descibe people with type A personality?
Time urgent
Hostile
Competitive
89
How are people with type B personality described?
Relaxed
Tolerant
'Laid back'
90
What was the Western collaberative group study?
Friedman and Rosenman's prospective study of over 3000 men living in California.
91
What was the procedure of the WCGS?
Men were medically assessed as free of CHD at the start of the study.
Personality type was assessed by 25 questions in a structured interview.
The interviews were conducted in a way designed to incite Type A personality behaviours.
Behaviour was observed so researchers classified participants as Type A or Type B.
92
What were the findings of the WCGS?
8.5 years later, 257 men developed CBD and 70% of these were Type A.
Type As had higher levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline and higher blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Suggests Type A are vulnerable to stressors.
93
Who proposed Type C personality?
Temoshok (1987) who said it also might be linked with cancer.
94
What are traits of a Type C personality?
Pathological niceness
Passive
Self-sacrificing
95
What was Dattore et al.'s (1980) procedure?
200 veterans from Vietnam War - 75 were cancer patients, rest were control group.
They all completed scales to measure repression of emotions and symptoms of depression several years before diagnosis.
Prospective study.
96
What were the findings of Dattore et al. (1980)
Cancer patients reported greater emotional repression and fewer depression symptoms than the control group.
The depression finding may be suprising but supports the view that people who repress their emotions are unlikely to acknowledge they're depressed.
97
What is a strength of personality types in stress?
Real world application.
Ragland and Brand (1988) followed up men from the original WCGS who survived a heart attack - the death rate for Type B was higher than Type A.
This may be because Type A are more likely to change their behaviour after than a Type B.
98
What is a counterpoint to real world application of personality types in stress?
The participants in the WCGS were all men and so there is a beta bias - findings from studies into men are applied to females without furthertesting.
This means practical advice about surviving CVDs may work for men but not necessarily women.
Therefore gender bias.
99
What is a limitation of personality types and stress relating to Type A personality?
Type A concept is too broad and encompasses too many personality traits.
Carmelli et al. (1991) analysed 27 year follow up data from the WCGS and they found high CHD related deaths in a subgroup of men with high hostility scores.
Illness may be linked to hostility and not the entirety of Type A personality.
100
What is a limitation involving Type C personality?
Greer and Morris (1975) found a link between breat cancer and Type C personality.
This link however was only found in women under the age of 50 and so the link is plagued by inconsistent findings.
Suggests role of personality in cancer is not straightforward and is moderated by age and other biological factors.
101
What is hardiness?
A personality factor used to explain why some people seem able to thrive in stressful circumstances whereas others don't.
It consists of three elements.
102
Who proposed the idea of hardiness?
Kobasa (1979)
103
What are the three C's?
Commitment
Challenge
Control
104
What is commitment?
Hardy people throw themselves fully into all life has to offer them rather than standing on the sidelines.
They are optimistic they will get something good out of experience.
105
What is challenge?
Hardy people view stressful situations as opportunities for self-development rather than threats to their self esteem.
106
What is control?
Hardy people believe that stressful situations can be overcome through their own efforts.
107
What was Kobasa's (1979) procedure?
Measured life changes of 670 male American middle and senior managers between ages 40 and 49.
Used the schedule of recent experiences to identify those who has experienced high levels of stress over the previous three years.
Measured illness with the seriousness of illness survey and recorded the number of days taken off work.
108
What was the forerunner of the SRRS?
Schedule of recent events
109
What is Kobasa's (1979) findings?
Managers didn't all respond to the same stress in the same way.
Some of them appeared to cope with their stressful jobs without becoming ill or taking time off work.
This subset of resilient managers scored very highly on measures of challenge, commitment and control.
This confirms the role of hardiness.
110
What was Maddi's (1987) procedure?
Spent several years studying 400 managers and supervisors at the Bell Telephone company in the US.
During this time, the company underwent one of the biggest reorganisations in American corporate history.
Thousands of people lost their jobs and it was an extrememly stressful for the employees who stayed with the company.
111
What was Maddi's (1987) findings?
Significant declines in performance and health in about 2/3 of participants.
Outcomes included strokes, heart attacks, depression and drug abuse.
1/3 of the managers flourished and their health did not deteriorate and they felt happier.
These resilient managers scored highly on measures of the Three Cs.
They welcomes the reorganisation as a challenge over which they could exercise control, and commited themsleved into making it 'work for them'.
112
What is research support of hardiness in stress?
Contrada (1989) studied cardiovascular responses in men to a stressful task in lab conditions.
He found that those students who scored highest on a measure of hardiness had lower levels of resting blood pressure in response to the stressor.
The lowest blood pressure levels were found in students who were not only hardy but also had Type B personalities.
This shows hardiness affects the physiological stress response.
113
What is a counterpoint to research support for hardiness in stress?
There are difficulties in measuring hardiness for research.
For example, Contrada used five questionnaires to measure the components of hardiness.
The fact that hardiness cannot be measured by a single scale implies the concept is vague.
When Contrada analysed his data more closely, he found that only the challenge component of hardiness was linked to blood pressure, raising issues about how hardiness should be measured.
Much of the research into hardiness lacks validity.
114
What is weakness of hardiness in stress?
There is disagreement over the relative contributions of the Three C's.
Hull et al. (1987) recommended that research should only focus on control, and abandon the challenge component altogether.
There is much psychological research showing how important a personal sense of control is to well-being in various contexts.
So control may be the crucial factor however Contrada (1989) provided evidence that challenge is the most important component.
Suggests the concept of hardiness is so broad it has little validity.
115
What is a strength of hardiness in stress?
Real-world application.
Bartone et al. (2008) measured hardiness in candidates applying for positions within the US army special forces - this is a highly stressful job so candidates endure tought selection procedure with a 4 week assessment course.
Researchers found those who passed the course were significantly hardier than those who did not.
Elite units of the US military now routinely select people with high levels of hardiness.
