Stress and Resilience Exam 1

The process we go through when evaluating a stressful encounter is called what?

Cognitive Appraisal Process

What can be activated in the instance of hurtful messages in families?

Cognitive Appraisal Response

What is the continuation of the family bond into the future?

Committed

Some people put on weight around their abdomen and are said to be apple shaped. Pear shaped people have fat deposits around their rear. Which shape suggests that someone may be exposed to high levels of stress?

Apple

What governs the functioning of the heart,lungs, stomach, blood vessels, and glands that operate automatically without conscious thought?

Autonomous Nervous System

____ is where families are organized into my interpersonal subsystems of two or more persons, and the interactions between and among them

Complex Relationships

Appraisals can be ____ and ____ or at a lower level of consciousness

Conscious; deliberate

The roles, patterns and norms are disrupted, leading to conflict and strained relations among family members, as well as an inability to work together to face adversity

Crisis

What is it considered when situations create a sense of sharpened insecurity or block the usual patterns of action?

Crisis

Cultures handle stressors differently - how they cope with it, if they seek resources

Cultural Aspect

True or false: Stress is a state of mind and it cannot be measured

False

A ____ is a self-defined group of intimates who create and maintain themselves through their own interactions and their interactions with others

Family

What model shows how families attempt to adjust to stressors or demands before they enter into a crisis and when they do fall into crisis how they adapt to their new situation?

Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response (FAAR)

Is the entire system affected or just part of it? Have parents (not getting along) been able to shield the children from the conflict?

Pervasive vs. Bonded

What is the term for "stress is our bodies reaction to some change or challenge in our environment"

Physiological definition

Was the stressor sudden (car accident) or known about for awhile (cancer diagnosis)?

Precipitate onset vs. Gradual onset

What is the term for determining if the stressful encounter is irrelevant, benign-positive, or stressful?

Primary Appraisal

What factor is it called when the family crises evolves over time, resulting in the accumulation, or pile up, of additional stressors and strains

The aA factor

What would it be considered in the hurricane Katrina took everything from families (house, cars, belongings)?

The aA factor

What factor is it called when the addition of new resources and capabilities resulting from the emergence out of a crisis situation or pile-up of demands?

The bB factor

What would it be considered when new resources were found due to the evacuation of hurricane Katrina (friend found a better job she wouldn't have looked for beforehand)?

The bB factor

What factors may reduce stress and promote longevity?

Caring for others, telomerase, social networks

What are considered continuous stressors which are ongoing problems that permeate our daily lives and where readjustments are required over a prolonged period of time?

Chronic

What does it mean to add family coping strategies designed to bring about changes in family structure in an effort to achieve positive adaptation?

The cC factor

What factor is it called when meaning-making activities have been expanded to include the total crisis situation?

The cC factor

In the ABC-X Model what does the X stand for?

The crisis

In the ABC-X Model what does the C stand for?

The definition the family makes of the event

What does the interaction between primary and secondary shape?

The degree of stress experienced and our emotional reaction

In the ABC-X Model what does the A stand for?

The event

In the ABC-X Model what does the B stand for?

The family's crisis-meeting resources

What is the event considered in the cognitive appraisal process?

The message

What is the appraisal considered in the cognitive appraisal process?

Threat to self-esteem, intentionally said

Short term or long term stressor

Transitory vs. Chronic

True or false: it is a myth that happy families should be stress free

True

Eustress vs. distress

Valance

What are the two dimensions of stressors?

Valance and Duration

What are the coping methods in cognitive appraisal process considered?

Venting/Lashing out

The family has its own unique characteristics that emerge from the interaction of its members is the definition for?

Wholeness

Involving everyone

Pervasive

Four major changes that were made to the ABC-X model

1. Adding family stress into the equation 2. Identifying four additional factors that influence family adaptation to crisis over time 3. Separating coping form the family resources factor 4. Fleshing out the adaptation factor

What are the three stages of physiological stress response?

1. Alarm Reaction 2. Resistance or Adaptation 3. Exhaustion

How many of Americans have moderate or high levels of stress on a regular basis?

51% moderate levels, 25% high levels

ABC-X Model Example

A. Katrina B. Resources - family evacuated to her brother's house C. Perception - Her family didn't look at it like a personal attack, but a natural event X. Is there a crisis? (usually when the time the family collapses)

What is the term for when you begin to realize you are okay and your body returns to normal?

Adaptation

What is the phase for when the family attempts to meet the demands of a stressor with its existing capabilities?

Adjustment

What is it considered when one is physically absent but still part of the family (divorce, missing in action) or physically present, but emotionally absent (drug/alcohol addiction)?

Ambiguous Loss

Just keeping it between the parents

Bonded

Job loss, unwanted pregnancy, poverty, homelessness, having one's child in foster care, mental illness, criminal prosecution are examples of?

Demoralizing events

___ is the type of stressor that involves sudden changes that occur in a short period of time requiring readjustments

Discrete/Acute

Associated with negative events...

Distress

What is known as "bad stress", this occurs when we experience a certain level of stress, frequent stress, or stress that lasts too long

Distress

Change brings ___ and ___

Disturbance and pressure

What model is used for what happens after the post-crisis period?

Double ABC-X Model

Discrete vs. continuous

Duration

External factor

Economic Aspect

What can the appraisal of the messages in the cognitive appraisal process determine?

Emotions experienced and coping strategies

___ is the concept that families are considered to be goal-oriented, and where goals can be accomplished in many different ways

Equifinality

Associated with positive events

Eustress

___ is known as "good stress" or "healthy stress" and enhances our ability to function during times of need; helps us feel safe, reach higher goals, and can leave us with a sense of excitement

Eustress

____ = healthy tension ____ = when fatigue sets in ____ = exhaustion Breakdown in health

Eustress; the hump; distress

How important is your place in society, or your rank in your hierarchy to your overall health?

Extremely important

Makes only minor changes - keeping family interaction relatively predictable

First-order change

The meaning we construct about an event or situation is often influenced by our:

Gender, age, race, ethnicity, and class

What are the three stages of physiological stress known as?

General Adaptation Syndrome

___ creates boundaries that delineate who is a member of a family and who is not

Group Identity

If the family is prone to something..illnesses, diseases, etc.

Heredity aspect

What is the chain of reactions 1.Threatening event 2. Fight or flight 3. Threat removed 4. Body slowed down 5. Body returned to normal called?

Human Stress Response

What are the emotions considered in the cognitive appraisal process?

Hurt and anger

Which part of the body initiate a person's response to stress?

Hypothalamus

Chronic stressors often results from?

Individual, environmental, occupational, relational, and sociological sources

Degree of severity for the stressor

Intense vs. Mild

Communication and family ____ are at the heart of how families appraise and react to stressors in the family life cycle

Interaction

What is the family systems characteristic where cause and effect associations are difficult to pinpoint because each action simultaneously triggers new behaviors and responds to a previous behavior? (what started what, he drinks a lot, she nags, which one caused which)

Interactive Complexity

What is a change in one part of the system affects the entire system?

Interdependence

___ is the meaning that the family influences one another's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

Interdependent

The structure of the family factor, the roles, the boundaries, rules

Internal aspect

Located internally in your family or externally (outside of the family)

Internal vs. External

What implies that the family members are interdependent and committed?

Intimacy

Three Characteristics of the Family

Intimacy, Sense of group identity, and interaction

What are some resilience traits seen in children who went on to become successful adults?

Making and keeping friends, sense of humor, problem-solving, internal locus of control, hope, faith and prayer

Natural disaster (hurricane) vs. man-made (9/11) disaster

Natural generation vs. Artificial generation

What is the concept that families permit interchanges with the surrounding environment to manage growth and change?

Openness

What do reactions to stress depend on?

Our appraisal of the stressor

What engages to help our bodies recover from the activation and maintain normal functioning?

Parasympathetic Nervous System

What is the characteristic where communication rules and rituals make life predictable and manageable for family members?

Patterns/Regularities

Is it reversible or is there a resolution?

Perceived solvable vs. perceived unsolvable

What is the term for "A particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his resources and endangering his well-being"?

Psychological definition

What is the way you view a stressful situation or look at a stressful situation negatively?

Psychological definition

Was the stressor something that was predicted (planning a wedding or pregnancy) or happened suddenly?

Random vs. Expectable

___ refers to one's ability to return to healthy functioning after being in a stressful situation

Resilience

When determining what coping option are available, if any, and the likelihood that we can take action, this process is known as?

Secondary Appraisal

What is the stage when you react instantaneously ("close calls"), and the body releases hormones and energy in order to prepare for action?

Stage 1. Alarm Reaction

What is the stage when you are recovering or restoring the energy after the alarm reaction?

Stage 2. Resistance or Adaptation

What is the stage when you body becomes fatigued and overwhelmed after a prolonged exposure to stress (shock, can results in long lasting health problems or even death)?

Stage 3. Exhaustion

Discrete stressors have an identifiable ___ and ___ or onset and offset

Start(onset); finish(offset)

What is activated when cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline are released, heart rate, breathing and perspiration increase, immune system suppresses, fats and sugars are released for energy, and blood flow is diverted from non-essential systems?

Stress Circuit--hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis (apart of the SNS)

What occurs when stressors happen at the same time and combine causing additional distress?

Stress Pile Up

The __ nervous system controls bodily functions over which we have less control such as blushing, sweating, and pupil dilation/

Sympathetic

What system engages during times of stress?

Sympathetic Nervous System

The ___ perspective helps to understand how stress that affects a single individual can influence the rest of the family unit and how the stress the family experiences differ from the stress the individual experiences, and how the family adjusts and adapts to the stressors it faces

Systems