Chapter 5 - Health Psychology

When a student gets the flu, which reason they give would indicate an external locus of control?

"I got the flu because my neighbor gave it to me."

stress responses

(men) fight or flight; (women) tend and befriend

Exhaustion

Ongoing, extreme stressors eventually deplete the body's resources so we function at less than normal

Opal, who is an optimist, and Peter, who is a pessimist, have both been diagnosed with cancer. Based on research findings, which is most likely?

Opal is more likely than Peter to adjust her coping strategies for this situation.

Alarm

The body initially responses to a stressor with changes that lower resistance.

Homeostasis

The body systems maintain a stable and consistent (balanced) state.

Illness and Death

The body's resources are not replenished and/or additional stressors occur; the body suffers breakdowns.

A large-scale epidemiological survey study of more than 30,000 Americans (Moak & Agrawal, 2010) tested the stress-buffering hypothesis. What did the researchers find?

The hypothesis was disproved for adults feeling little life stress, supported for those feeling a lot of it.

In Hans Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), which of the following is exclusively associated with the resistance stage?

The individual undergoes a process of adaptation to the stressor.

Sources of Stress

cataclysmic events, life events, daily hassles

Dr. Don Bosch, Clinical Psychologist at the Headington Institute,

explains Allostasis and how chronic stress can lead to Allostatic Load. This video provides insights to recognizing Allostatic Load and the key resilience behaviors that help us restore stability in the midst of change.

Emotional Disclosure

express strong emotions by talking or writing about negative events that precipitated those emotions] -self-reflection and focusing on positive aspects of experience -effective in helping people with physical problems

General Adaptation Syndrome

how stress relates to physical illness

neuroendocrine

interaction between the nervous system and the hormones of the endocrine glands

Coping

is a learned process that requires effort

Life Events

major life events and minor life events

In a cataclysmic event such as the COVID-19 pandemic

many people experience a number of stressful life events

What are the chemicals that transmit communications among brain cells called?

neurotransmitters

Daily Hassles

part of everyday life

pituitary gland

product ACTH (a hormone that plays a role in the stress response and acts on the adrenal gland)

Lulu and her boyfriend break up; she views this as a stressful event. Lulu considers what choices she has to address this stress, whether she can succeed in using them, and whether they will reduce her stress. Lulu then realizes the breakup will enable her to meet and date new men; Lazarus would define this action as

reappraisal

adrenal gland

releases cortisol (a hormone that is related to the stress response)

Coping Measures

strategies that individuals use to manage the distressing problems and emotions in their lives Personal Resources - social support & personal control Personal Coping Strategies - problem focused & emotion focused

Lazarus (1984)

stress determined by the person's perception of the situation (stress is interactional)

Taylor et al. have argued that the traditional idea of the stress response is biased toward men and that women's responses are more accurately labeled as

tend-and-befriend

The autonomic nervous system serves mainly

the body's internal organs

The human nervous system has two major divisions

the central and peripheral nervous systems

Practicing Mindfullness

5- minute meditation you can do anywhere - give it a try. If it stresses you out, let it go. Don't do it. If 1 minute is all you - do one 1 minute. Mindfulness begins with 1 breath.

For managing stress, what is true about emotional disclosure and social support?

Both of these are more effective for people experiencing more stress than those experiencing less.

On 9/11/2001, Liesel was working in one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City and, while many of her coworkers died, Liesel narrowly escaped. Her sister Magda lived in California at the time and was undergoing a difficult divorce. Which sister was likely to experience more stress?

Both, as each event changed each life more than faraway events affecting others.

CBT Tool by Dr. Yi

CBT Thought Record

According to the stress theory of Lazarus, what is true about coping with stressors?

Coping is a process, constantly evolving according to outcome evaluation.

Among sources of stress, which would be most distinguished by the significance of change that requires personal adaptation or readjustment?

Experiencing victimization by a violent crime

What factors influence coping, and what strategies are effective?

Factors that influence coping include social sup-port, personal control, and personal hardiness. Social support, defined as the emotional quality of one's social contacts, is important to a person's ability to cope and to one's health. People with social support receive more encouragement and advice to seek medical care, and social support may pro-vide a buffer against the physical effects of stress. Second, people's beliefs that they have control over the events of their life seem to have a positive impact on health. Even a sense of control over small matters may improve health and prolong life. The factor of personal hardiness includes components of commitment, control, and interpreting events as challenges rather than as stressors.

What behavioral techniques are effective for stress management

Four types of interventions are available to health psychologists in helping people cope with stress. First, relaxation training can help people cope with a variety of stress problems. Second, cognitive behavioral therapy—including stress inoculation and cognitive behavioral stress management—is effective in reducing both stress and stress-related disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder. Third, emotional disclosure—including writing about traumatic events—can help people recover from traumatic experiences and experience better psychological and physical health. Fourth, mindfulness-based stress reduction interventions can help reduce stress, depression, and anxiety.

What theories explain stress?

Hans Selye and Richard Lazarus both proposed theories of stress. During his career, Selye defined stress first as a stimulus and then as a response. Whenever the body encounters a disruptive stim-ulus, it mobilizes itself in a generalized attempt to adapt to that stimulus. Selye called this mobilization the general adaptation syndrome. The GAS has three stages—alarm, resistance, and exhaustion—and the potential for trauma or illness exists at all three stages. Lazarus insisted that a person's per-ception of a situation is the most significant com-ponent of stress. To Lazarus, stress depends on one's appraisal of an event rather than on the event itself. Whether or not stress produces illness is closely tied to one's vulnerability as well as to one's perceived ability to cope with the situation.

Resistance

If the stressor continues, the body mobilizes to withstand the stress and return to normal.

Which of the following describes the major criticism of Selye's theory of stress?

It does not account for people's emotions and interpretations of stressors.

Teresa and Carlos have both been diagnosed with serious chronic illness. Teresa ruminates obsessively over past mistakes she made and whether they contributed to her getting sick; Carlos agonizes with worry about what will happen to him and his family in the future. A friend recommends mindfulness meditation to them both. Based on the research, how will this intervention likely affect them?

It is more likely to help Teresa and Carlos both with the physical and the psychological problems.

Research studies have found that people's health was more affected by their subjective experiences of environmental noise than by actual noise levels. These findings support which theory of stress more?

Lazarus's

Anna Kendrick

Letterman - she keeps speaking negatively about herself

Self-Report Measures

Life events scale; everyday hassles scale; predict stress related symptoms; over report some events and underreport others

Jacobson relaxation technique

Make the room quiet. Shut off your phone. If someone or something disturbs you, try again. Lower your stress levels.

sympathetic nervous system

Mobilizes body for action; active under stressful conditions Increases: heart rate, breathing, sweating Decreases: gastrointestinal activity

parasympathetic nervous system

Promotes relaxation; active under normal conditions Decreases: heart rate, breathing, sweating Increases: gastrointestinal activity

How has stress been measured?

Several methods exist for assessing stress, including physiological and biochemical measures and self-reports of stressful events. Most life events scales are patterned after Holmes and Rahe's Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Some of these instruments include only undesirable events, but the SRRS and other self-report inventories are based on the premise that any major change is stressful. Lazarus and his associates pioneered scales that measure daily hassles and uplifts. These scales, which generally have better validity than the SRRS, emphasize the severity of the event as perceived by the person.

What sources produce stress?

Sources of stress can be categorized as cataclysmic events, life events, and daily hassles. Cataclysmic events include sudden, unexpected events that pro-duce major demands for adaptation. Such events include natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes and intentional events such as terrorist attacks. Posttraumatic stress disorder is a possibility in the aftermath of such events.

Lazarus's View of Stress

Stress is determined by the person's perception of the situation

Rosario used to get great emotional support from her mother whenever she felt particularly stressed. Since her mother's death, Rosario feels less able to cope with prenatal stress in her current pregnancy than she did in her earlier ones. Which self-reporting stress measure that she takes will explicitly assess this component of stress?

The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)

Which of the following have researchers found from testing various stress inventories?

The SRRS and Hassles Scales correlate slightly, suggesting that serious life events and daily hassles cause different kinds of stress.

What is the physiology of stress?

The nervous system plays a central role in the physiology of stress. When a person perceives stress, the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system stimulates the adrenal medulla, producing catecholamines and arousing the person from a resting state. The perception of stress also prompts a second route of response through the pituitary gland, which releases adrenocorticotropic hormone. This hormone, in turn, affects the adrenal cortex, which produces glucocorticoids. These hormones prepare the body to resist stress.

Stressor

The stressor may be threatening or exhilarating.

Which of the following constitutes a disadvantage of using physiological assessments to measure stress?

Their administration mechanisms can confound the results.

Relaxation Training

Understand the problem in order to cope accordingly

stress is defined as

a stimulus, a response, an interaction

Cataclysmin Events

a sudden, unique, and powerful single life event requiring major adaptive responses from population groups sharing the experience.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

aims to develop beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, and skills to make positive changes in behavior -identify and clarify problems -stress less

Three Stages of Selve's general adaptation syndrome

alarm, resistance, exhaustion, and then consequences

Physiological Measures

blood pressure, heart rate, galvanic skin response, respiration rate; reliable, direct; may cause stress and be costly

allostasis

body's maintenance of an appropriate level of activation under changing circumstances

Among psychological interventions for managing stress, the most effective is

cognitive behavioral therapy

indicators of stress

cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine, adrenaline

oxytocin

cuddle hormone

Mindfullness

the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something -mindfullness-based stress reduction interventions -practicing mindfulness: lower blood pressure, better immune response, improvement in stress hormones

Stress arises when

the situation is threatening, challenging, or harmful