Stress

Question 1

What is stress?

Answer 1

A psychological state asssociated with hormonal/physiological changes caused by stressors.

Question 2

What are the stress responses?

Answer 2

Behavioural - social withdrawal
Physiological - increased HR
Cognitive - negative thoughts
Biochemical - increased cortisol
Emotional - depression

Question 3

What categories of events do stressors fall into?

Answer 3

Traumatic - e.g. rape
Uncontrollable - e.g. death of loved one
Unpredictable - e.g. flood warnings
Highly challenging - e.g. exams
Internal conflicts - e.g. smoking
Accumulation of daily hassles - e.g. can't pin it on one thing

Question 4

What are the models of stress?

Answer 4

1) Response models
- Fight or flight
- General Adaption Syndrome
2) Life events
3) Interaction Models

Question 5

What is the fight or flight response? What 2 physiological systems does it invovle?

Answer 5

stressor –> hypothalamus –>HPA + sympathetic.
Adrenal medulla and adrenal cortex –>Neural impulses activate various glands and smooth muscles and stress hormones carried via blood to relevant organs respectively.

Question 6

What is the General Adaption Syndrome model?

Answer 6

3 stages of response after exposure to stressor.

• Alarm stage - activation of HPA and SNS
• Resistance stage -attempts to cope and resist, actions of cortisol
• exhaustion stage - if resistance doesnt end the stressor, adaptive processes fail.

Question 7

What are the signs of exhaustion stage in the General Adaption Syndrome model?

Answer 7

Early warning signs:

Headaches, GI disturbance, skin rashes, dizziness, fatigue, hypertension, aggravation of asthma, ulcers etc

Question 8

What are the main criticisms of the response models?

Answer 8

Automatic response to a stress:

• no consideration of individual variation
• dont recognise psychological factors
• response non-specific irrespective of stressor

Question 9

What is the Life Events (Readjustment) Model?

Answer 9

Each life event has a life change unit

Question 10

What are the main criticisms of the Life Events model?

Answer 10

Variation in individual response to the event - one event stressful to some but not others.

• Accumulations of stressors can have different effects - marriage, new home
• No recognition of time scale, short lived or on-going event

Question 11

What are the interaction models of stress?

Answer 11

The actual model is the Transactional model of stress (Lazarus). Incorporates both response and life events models.
Emphasis on how internal psychological factors interact/influence perception of external factors.
Important factor seems to be how well a person copes with stress rather than how much stress they face.
E.g. you have individual responses to stress with mountain climbing

Question 12

Whats is the Transactional model of stress?

Answer 12

(Lazarus). Stress is a transaction between the individual and environment. Appraisal is crucial - stress response only elicited if the individual appraises the potential stressor as stressful.
Primary and secondary appraisal
1* - individual first appraises the event
2* - individual evaluates their coping strategies

Question 13

What is the person-environment fit?

Answer 13

(Lazarus) consider stress as a transaction between people and the environment:

• good person-environment fit - low stress
• poor person-environment fit - high stress

Question 14

Why is personality important in appraisal of a potential stressor?

Answer 14

Personality factors play a role in the appraisal of a potential stressor.

Personality types (Friedman and Rosenman 1959)
Type A
Type B

High N Personality - Eysenck

Question 15

What are type A and type B personalities (Friedman and Roseman, 1959)?

Answer 15

Cardiologists investigating risk of CHD.
Type A personality - Competitive, achievement-oriented, sense of time urgency, difficulty relaxing, impatient, angry, hostile, outwardly confident but full of self-doubt
Type A behaviours - Thinking of, or doing, two things at once. Hurrying the speech of others. Unduly irritated by queues. If you want something done, do it yourself. Frequent knee jigging or rapid finger tapping
Playing every game to win, even with children. Impatience when watching someone else do something you think you could do better. Rapid blinking or tic-like eyebrow lifting. Eating & speaking very fast.

Type B personality -
Relaxed, easy-going, unpressured

Type C: pathologically nice, conflict avoidance

Question 16

What are the four humours that Extraversion and Neuroticism are based on?

Answer 16

Phlegmatic - calm, thoughtful, private. Low N, low E
Melancholic - serious, quiet, analytical. High N, Low E.
Sanguine - lively, sociable, optimistic. Low N, High E
Choleric - impulsive, restless, excitable. High N High E

Question 17

What does high N personality have?

Answer 17

High N - worrying, negative outlook, introspective, low self-concept, social anxiety.

Question 18

What is learned helplessness?

Answer 18

Seligman - when people or animals become conditioned to believe that a situation is unchangeable or inescapable so when exposed to it later, even when they cant escape, they dont.

Model of depression.

Question 19

What is the pessimistic attributional style? Becks cognitive triad.

Answer 19

Interpret negative events as their fault - internal, stable and global e.g. it’s all my fault, I will never change and it affects everything I do.

This is a characteristic of learned helpessness.

Question 20

What are ways of coping with stress?

Answer 20

Approach vs avoidance

• Approach: confront the problem, direct action
• Avoidance: minimise the event

Problem focused vs emotiona focused:
-Problem focused: directly deal with stressor e.g. work problems
Emotion focused: alter/reduce negative emotions that result from the stressor. E.g. health/relationship problems. E.g. of emotion-focused coping: seeking emotional support from friends and relatives, denial, avoidance, distraction, venting anger, praying, exercise, using alcohol, drugs, humour.
Coping is context dependent and dynamic.

Question 21

How do you measure stress?

Answer 21

Measure number & type of stressors
e.g., Life Events Scale

Measure psychological responses to stress
e.g., Perceived Stress Scale

Measure psychological symptoms of stress,
e.g., Anxiety/Depression Scales

Measure physiological symptoms of stress,
e.g., blood pressure, heart rate, hormone levels, immune response

Measure coping styles/strategies,
e.g., COPE

Question 22

How stress affects health?

Answer 22

Cancer - not clearly associated with onset, but associated with acceleration of disease

CHD - increased risk in high stress jobs and in employed mothers

Psychoneuroimmunology - medical students have decrase immune function around exam periods.

Bereavement - increase in hospital admissions, mortality increased.

Question 23

Can stress be good?

Answer 23

yerkes-dodson law - some stress can be constructive and motivational. curve

Question 24

How are stress and health behaviours linked e.g. in exam period = stress?

Answer 24

Smoke more, drugs, less exercise and sleep, more caffeine and alcohol, poor diet etc

Question 25

How can doctors help with stress?

Answer 25

Stress management training:
Problem-solving
Time management
Cognitive restructuring
Behavioural change plans
Relaxation
Positive self-talk (self-instruction training)

Formal psychological therapy - CBT

Psychotropic meds