Biological Psychology

Evaluation of the hardy personality Hardiness and negative affectivity -Characteristics of hardiness can be explained -Distress and negativity -Positively correlate

- Some argue that the characteristics of the hardy personality can be more simply explained by the concept of negative affectivity. -High NA individuals are more likely to report distress and focus on negative aspects of themselves. -Hardiness and NA correlate well and suggest that those with low hardiness are simply those low on NA.

Methodological problems- the problems of retrospective recall -Previous month -Diary method -Rating minor stressors

-Participants are usually asked to rate the hassles experienced over the previous month. -Some researchers have overcome this problem through the use of a diary method where participants rate minor stressors on a daily basis.

Individual differences (personality factors and stress) -Riska -Traditional masculinity -Success

-Preoccupation with Type A personality was a reflection of the importance of traditional masculinity in the 1950s and 60s. -The behaviours and attributes of a Type A man were those ideally required of ubiquitous and successful men in a competitive capitalist society.

Individual differences, can everybody use problem focused coping? -Mullis and Chapman -Coping strategy -Adolescents -Self-esteem

-Relationship between adolescents self-esteem and the coping strategy used. -Those with higher self-esteem used more problem-focused coping and less emotion-focused than those with lower self esteem.

Threat and coping -Ruckholm and Viverais -Stressors -Anxiety

-Relationship between threat, stress and coping. -If a person feels a significant degree of threat when confronted by a stressor, they may need to deal with the resultant anxiety through emotion-based coping first.

Reliability (life changes approach) -Retrospection -Rahe-time intervals -Positive reliability

-Reliability of retrospective reports has been questioned. -Rahe found that test-retest reliability varies on time interval between testing. -Most researchers have reported positive reliability for retrospective reports.

Positive and negative events (life changes approach) -SRRS (Damage health) -Quality of event

-Research appears to suggest that any life-changing event has the potential to damage health. -Some critics suggest that it is the quality of the event that is crucial. -'Undesired', 'unscheduled' and 'uncontrolled' events are the most harmful.

Real world applications (workplace stress) -Suggestions about dealing with negative consequences of workplace stress -Ritvanen et al -Aerobics -High aerobic finess- lower heart rate

-Research has led to many different suggestions about how to deal with its negative consequences. -Ritvanen et al investigated whether aerobics could reduce the physical stress response in teachers. -Found that teachers with the highest aerobic fitness had lower levels of heart rate, muscle tension and perceived stress.

Daily hassles -Minor -Short lived

-Daily hassles are relatively minor events that arrive during the course of a normal day. -May arise from the everyday concerns of work or from family life. -Such issues and their associated emotional effects are usually short-lived.

Personality factors and stress Type A personality -Achievement -Friedman -Rosenman -Characteristics -Type B

-Describes a person who is involved in an incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time. Friedman and Rosenman believe that characteristics include: -Competitiveness and achievement striving. -Impatience and time urgency. -Hostility and aggressiveness. -Characteristics would lead to increased stress hormones. Type B was the opposite, lacking such characteristics.

Research on hardy personality (Maddi) -Employees -Declining company -Health problems

-Employees of a US company, that was dramatically changing the size of its workforce. -Over this period, two thirds of employees suffered stress-related health problems, while the rest thrived, showing hardiness attributes.

BZs -Enhances -Chloride ion entry -Excitatory neurotransmitters

-Enhance the action of GABA, binding to special sites on the receptor and boosting the actions. This allows more chloride ions to enter; as a result the brain's output of excitatory neurotransmitters is reduced

Daily hassles -Bouteyre et al -Daily hassles and mental health -First-year psychology students -Depression

-Investigated the relationship between daily hassles and mental health of students during the transition period between high-school and university. -First-year psychology students at a french university completed the hassles part. -41% of the students studied suffered from depressive symptoms, finding a positive correlation between scores on the hassles scale and the incidence of depressive symptoms.

Individual differences (life changes approach) -Significance for different people -Death of spouse/death of elderly sibling -Christmas

-SRRS ignores the fact that life changes will inevitably have different significance for different people. -The death of a spouse will have a devastating effect on the remaining partner. -The death of an elderly sibling after a long and painful illness may not be quite so stressful for the survivor. -Christmas may be stressful for some but not for others.

Holmes and Rahe -SRRS -LCU

-SRRS scale -Life changes -Death of a spouse -Average scores were taken from the results of participants to produce Life Change Units.

Research on type A personality -Freidman and Rosenman -Western collaborative group study -Interview -8 1/2 years

-Set up the Western collaborative group study in 1960. -Approximately 3000 men aged 39-59 were examined for signs of CHD and their personalities were assessed using a structured interview. The interview was conducted in a provocative manner, trying to elicit type A behaviour. -After 8 and a half years, twice as many participants had died from cardiovascular problems.

The hardy personality -Kobasa and Maddi -Hardy personality -Characteristics

-Some people are more psychologically 'hardy' than others. -The hardy personality involves a range of different characteristics, which, if present, provide defences against negative effects of stress: -Control -Commitment -Challenge.

Individual differences (workplace stress) -Different responses to lack of control -Schaubroek et al -Saliva -Immune responses -Low-control

-Some workers respond differently to lack of control. -Measured saliva and could assess immune system functioning directly from this. -Found that some people have higher immune responses in low-control situations.

Approaches to coping with stress Problem-focused coping -Strategies -Stressful situations

-The use of strategies designed directly to alleviate the stressful situation itself -Taking control of the stressful situation. -Evaluating the pros and cons of different options for dealing with the stressor. -Suppressing competing activities.

Emotion focused coping -Denial -Emotional venting -Thinking -Positive and negative

-The use of strategies that will deal only with the emotional distress associated with stressful events. -Denial. -Focusing on and venting emotions. -Wishful thinking. -Some forms are positive while some are negative.

Physiological methods of stress management Benzodiazepines

-Used to treat anxiety and stress, slowing down the activity of the CNS.

Rahe et al -Military units -Positive correlation -Stress and Illness

-Wanted to test Holmes and Rahe's hypothesis that the number of life events a person experiences would be positively correlated with stress. -Gave scale to men aboard 3 navy boats. -Found a positive correlation between LCU score and illness score of +.18 -Findings support hypothesis

The impact of workplace stressors -Lazarus -Stressful factors -Differences in coping -High job demands

-Lazarus claims that the study of stressful factors in the workplace misses the point that there are wide individual differences in the way people cope with stress. -High job demands and role ambiguity may be perceived as stressful to one person, but not to another.

Life changes and daily hassles (evaluation of life changes approach) -Lazarus -Major life changes -Delongis et al -Correlation between daily hassles and next day health

-Lazarus et al suggests that as major life changes are more rare in daily life, it is minor changes of life that are the most significant source of stress. -Delongis et al studied 75 married couples, finding no significant relationships between life events and health. -Found a positive correlation of +59 between hassles and next day health problems.

Is emotion-focused coping always maladaptive? -Lazarus -Unhelpful -Recovery period -Life changes

-Lazarus suggests that emotion-focused coping may be unhelpful when experiencing serious symptoms of ill-health. However, during the recovery period this may be a useful way of coping. -If this type of coping continues for too long, it may distract the person from making necessary life changes.

Validity (life changes approach) -Memory for events -Retrospective reports -Brown

-Life changes approach relies on people's memories for events that have happened. -There have been concerns that retrospective reports may not be particularly accurate. -Brown suggests that people who are unwell may feel the need to provide an explanation for their illness, and therefore are more likely to report stressful events.

Evaluation Problems of measurement -Stone et al -Relationships -Health problems

-Many items in the ways of coping measure are more appropriate to some types of stressor than others. -Most of the scale was relevant to relationship stressors but approximately three quarters were inappropriate for health problems.

Research on hardy personality (Lifton) -University students -Completing their degree -Low hardiness

-Measured hardiness in students at 5 US universities to see if it was related to the likelihood of completing their degree. -Students scoring low hardiness were disproportionately represented among the drop-outs.

Evaluation of research into workplace stress Stress and coronary heart disease -Kivimaki -CHD -Russek -GPs -Dermatologists

-Meta-analysis of 14 studies looking at the relative risk of CHD in association with work stress. -Found that employees with high levels of job strain were 50% more likely to develop CHD. -Russek studied the incidence of CHD in medical professionals. Heart disease was greatest among GPs and lowest among dermatologists.

Evaluation of Type A personality (Myrtek) -CHD -Hostility

-Meta-analysis of 35 studies on topic, finding an association between CHD and a component of Type A personality- hostility.

What does research tell us? (daily hassles) -Correlation -Casual conclusions -Adverse effects on health

-Most of the collected data is correlational; meaning we cannot draw casual conclusions about daily hassles and well-being. -However, they do indicate that daily hassles within our lives can potentially have adverse effects on our health.

Problems of measurement -Self-support questionnaires -Survey -Low reliability

-Most research has relied on data provided by self-support questionnaires. -Recent efforts have led to the development of the personal views survey. -Some studies show low reliability for the challenge component of hardiness.

Validity (workplace stress) -Questionnaires -Dewe -Importance distortion

-Most studies have used questionnaires to gather results. -Dewe suggests that traditional questionnaires may distort the importance of some items that may no longer be of importance.

Spurious relationships -Correlational data -Anxiety -Brown

-Most studies of the relationship between life changes and illness have produced correlational data. -It is possible that an observed relationship may result from a third variable- anxiety. -Brown suggests that people with high levels of stress would be more likely to report negative events; thus more prone to illness.

BZs and serotonin -Arousing -Reducing anxiety

-Neurotransmitter that has an arousing effect. -BZs reduce serotonin activity, reducing anxiety.

GABA -Neurotransmitter -Quietening effect -Chloride ions -Relaxed

-Neurotransmitter, body's natural form of anxiety relief. -When released, it has a quietening effect on the rest of the brain, it does this by reacting to the GABA receptors on the outside of receiving neurons. -When GABA locks onto such neurons, it opens a channel which increases the flow of chloride ions to the neuron. Chloride ions make it harder for the neurotransmitter to be stimulated by other ions, making the person more relaxed.

Role conflict -Work and family life -Absenteeism -Mental and physical health -Depressive symptoms

-Occurs when experiences at work interfere with family life. -Employee who continually take work home, or is often absent due to childcare issues may experience role conflict. -Conflict between work and family is associated with higher levels of absenteeism and poorer mental and physical health. -A study showed that role conflict was directly associated with emotional exhaustion and depressive symptoms.

Explaining daily hassles- The accumulation effect -irritations, frustrations... -Anxiety and depression -More significant stress than major life events.

-A number of studies have reported that daily hassles provide a more significant source of stress for most people than major life events. -Accumulation of minor daily stressors creates persistent irritations which then result in more serious stress reactions (anxiety)

Daily uplifts -Gervais -Nurses -Decrease in job performance

-Asked nurses to keep diaries for a month, recording all their daily hassles and uplifts in work. -At the end of the month, daily hassles were found to increase job strain and decrease job performance. -Nurses felt that some of the uplifts they experienced counteracted the negative effects of their daily hassles.

Workplace Stress -Working environment -Deadlines -Stressful bodily reactions

-Aspects of our working environment, such as work overload or impending deadlines, that we experience as stressful and which cause a stressful reaction in our bodies.

Control -Higher grade civil servants -Cardiovascular disease -Low-grade -Job control

-At the end of his study, it was found that participants in higher grades of the civil service had developed the fewest cardiovascular problems and those in the lowest group had the most. -In the higher group, higher levels of job control were displayed whereas lower levels were displayed in the low groups.

Real-world applications -Beta-blockers (reduce anxiety) -2000 musicians -27%

-Beta-blockers have significantly reduced symptoms of anxiety that can hinder some musicians playing. -Studied over 2000 musicians and found that 27% reported taking beta-blockers; music critics found their music to sound better.

The amplification effect -Chronic stress -Vulnerability -Divorce -Squabbling -Minor stressors -Major life change

-Chronic stress due to major life changes may make people more vulnerable to daily hassles. -A husband trying to come to terms with a recent divorce may find the relatively minor squabbling of his children to be greatly irritating. -Presence of associated minor stressors may amplify the existence of stress. -Presence of major life change may deplete a person's resources, rendering them unable to cope with minor stressors.

Examination stress -Folkman and Lazarus -Exams -Both -Emotion based 2nd

-Coping resources used by students in the run up to examinations. -Both problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies were used. -Problem-focused strategies were used during the exam while emotion-focused strategies were used while waiting for results.

Daily hassles versus life changes - Accepted as significant source of stress -Ruffin- psychological dysfunction -Flett et al-social support

-Daily hassles are now broadly accepted as comparable to life changes as a significant source of stress. -Ruffin found that daily hassles were linked to greater psychological and physical dysfunction than major negative life events. -Flett et al found that major life changing events may differ from daily events in the extent to which a person would receive and/or seek social support.

Individual differences (coping with stress) -Gender differences -Socialization -Role-constraint

-Evidence of gender differences. -Socialization theory: women are taught to express emotions more openly, thus using more emotion-focused coping. -Role-constraint theory: differences in coping are a product of the roles that males and females tend to occupy

Evaluation of the Type A personality (Ragland and Brand) -Follow up study -214 men -CHD risk factors -Mortality

-Follow up study of WCGS 22 years later. -Found that 214 of the men had died of CHD. -Confirmed the importance of CHD risk factors, finding little relationship between Type A behaviours and mortality.

Real-world applications (hardiness) -Soldier ability

-Has been used to explain why some soldiers remain healthy under war-related stress. -The higher the hardiness level, the greater the ability of the soldiers.

Evaluation of life changes approach Jones et al Problems Research

-Has generated many research studies. -Many adaptations of the SRRS -Despite the apparent success of the approach, it does have its problems.

Real-world applications (life changes approach) -Heikkinen et al -Financial problems

-Heikkinen et al examined life events during the last 3 months preceding suicide. -Found differences in life events across age groups: family discord, loss. -In younger victims, the most common causes involved financial problems and unemployment.

Real-world applications (daily hassles and road rage) -Wide range of daily hassles -Gulian -Stress levels on commute home

-Individuals experience a wide range of daily hassles during the course of a day; these accumulate, with the consequence that new stressors appear before existing issues have been resolved. -Gulian et al found that participants who had a stressful day at work reported higher levels of stress on their commute home.

Workload and control -Marmot -Job-strain model -Civil service -High grade employees -Cardiovascular disease

-Investigated the job-strain model of work place stress; this model proposes that the workplace creates stress and illness in two ways: 1) high work-load and 2) low job control. -In the civil service, higher grade employees would experience high work load while low-grade civil servants would experience low job control. -7372 civil servants working in London were checked for signs of cardiovascular disease (reassessed 5 years after).

Michael and Ben-Zur -130 men and women -divorced and widowed

-Studied 130 men and women, half of which had been divorced while the other half were widowed. -Those in the divorced category had higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of stress. -Those in the widowed category had higher life satisfaction before their bereavement.

Individual differences (daily hassles) -Miller -Pets -Males -Females

-Studied 250 people over the age of 50 and their relationship with their pets. -Found that pets appear to serve different roles for male and female pet owners. -Females (pets were associated with uplifts). Males (pets were associated with hassles)

Research on the hardy personality (Kosaba) -American business operatives -High illness -Another factor -Resilience

-Studied around 800 American business operatives, assessing stress using Holmes and Rahe's SRRS scale. -150 were classified as highly stressed; some had high illness, while others had lower illness. -Something else was modifying the effects of stress. -Hardy personality type increases resilience.

Workload -Marmot -No link -Johansson -Repetitive jobs -High risk group -Higher illness rates -Low risk group

-Study found no link between high workload and stress-related illness, concluding that job demand was not a significant factor in stress. -Johansson looked at the effects of performing repetitive jobs that require continuous attention and responsibility. -The high risk group have a repetitive job with an unrelenting pace. This group were found to have higher illness rates and higher levels of stress hormones. -The low-risk group had less monotonous jobs and more flexibility.

Research -Health outcomes -Gilbar -Breast cancer patients -Problem focused coping.

-Study of nursing students found that problem-focused coping was positively correlated with overall health outcomes. Negative was associated with poor health outcomes. -Gilbar examined associations among coping strategies and psychological distress among patients with breast cancer. Problem focused coping was beneficial in allaying distress.

Beta-blockers -Raised blood pressure -Noradrenaline -Blocking receptors

-Sympathetic arousal; raised blood pressure- cardiovascular disease. -How do they work?- reduce the activity of adrenaline and noradrenaline. -What do they achieve?- by blocking receptors, it is harder to stimulate cells. Reduce arousal because sympathetic arousal may have a negative effect on performance.

Measuring hassles and uplifts -Hassles and uplifts scale -Evaluating positive and negative events -Delongis et al

-The HSUP scale measures respondent's attitudes towards daily situations. -HSUP provides a way to measure both positive and negative events that occur in each person's daily life.

The evolution of work and stressors -Work environment -Knowledge -Psychological research

-The changing nature of the work environment, means that our current knowledge of workplace stressors rapidly becomes out of date. -Psychological research may inevitably lack behind actual work practices.

Workplace stress and mental health -Work -Mental health -Combination of problems -Warr -'Vitamins' -Physical health

-Work is generally good for mental health. -High levels of stress at work combined with other problems can make depression more likely to occur. -Warr used the analogy of 'vitamins' to explain how certain features contribute to the mental health of the worker. -Low levels of vitamins may lead to poor physical health.