Gen. Psych Ch. 11
Type B behavior pattern
A cluster of behaviors characterized by a patient, cooperative, noncompetitive, and nonaggressive manner.
Type A behavior pattern
A cluster of behaviors involving hostility, competitiveness, time urgency, and feeling driven.
emotional insulation
A defense mechanism used to cope with stress is _____ _____ in which a person stops experiencing any emotions at all and thereby remains unaffected and unmoved by both positive and negative experiences.
social support
A mutual network of caring, interested others.
stress
A person's response to events that are threatening or challenging.
hardiness
A personality characteristic that is associated with a lower rate of stress-related illness and consists of three components: commitment, challenge, and control.
posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
A phenomenon in which victims of major catastrophes or strong personal stressors feel long-lasting effects that may include re-experiencing the event in vivid flashbacks or dreams.
learned helplessness
A state in which people conclude that unpleasant or aversive stimuli cannot be controlled—a view of the world that becomes so ingrained that they cease trying to remedy the aversive circumstances even if they actually can exert some influence on the situation.
general adaptation syndrome (GAS)
A theory developed by Selye that suggests that a person's response to a stressor consists of three stages: alarm and mobilization, resistance, and exhaustion.
background stressors ("daily hassles")
Everyday annoyances, such as being stuck in traffic, that cause minor irritations and may have long-term ill effects if they continue or are compounded by other stressful events.
control
Hardiness is marked by a sense of ___—the perception that people can influence the events in their lives.
Challenge
Hardy people believe that change rather than stability is the standard condition of life. To them, the anticipation of change serves as an incentive rather than a threat to their security.
exhaustion
If resistance is inadequate, people enter the last stage of the GAS: _____ During this stage, a person's ability to fight the stressor declines to the point where negative consequences of stress appear: physical illness and psychological symptoms in the form of an inability to concentrate, heightened irritability, or, in severe cases, disorientation and a loss of touch with reality.
avoidant coping
In ____-____ a person may use wishful thinking to reduce stress or use more direct escape routes, such as drug use, alcohol use, and overeating.
emotion-focused coping
In ______ -_______ _______ people try to manage their emotions in the face of stress by seeking to change the way they feel about or perceive a problem.
personal stressors
Major life events, such as the death of a family member, that have immediate negative consequences that generally fade with time.
psychophysiological disorders
Medical problems influenced by an interaction of psychological, emotional, and physical difficulties.
coping style
Most of us characteristically cope with stress by employing a ____ ____ that represents our general tendency to deal with stress in a specific way.
positive illusions
People with high self-esteem hold ____ ____ or moderately inflated views of themselves as good, competent, and desirable
subjective well-being
People's sense of their happiness and satisfaction with their lives.
preventive
Positively framed messages are best for motivating ____ behavior.
cataclysmic events
Strong stressors that occur suddenly and typically affect many people at once (e.g., natural disasters).
health psychology
The branch of psychology that investigates the psychological factors related to wellness and illness, including the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of medical problems.
coping
The efforts to control, reduce, or learn to tolerate the threats that lead to stress.
alarm and mobilization
The first stage_____occurs when people become aware of the presence of a stressor. On a biological level, the sympathetic nervous system becomes energized, which helps a person cope initially with the stressor.
psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)
The study of the relationship among psychological factors, the immune system, and the brain.
Positively framed messages
____ ____ ____suggest that a change in behavior will lead to a gain and thus emphasize the benefits of carrying out a healthrelated behavior.
Type-D behavior
____-__ —for "distressed"— _____is linked to coronary heart disease. In this view, insecurity, anxiety, and the negative outlook Type Ds display puts them at risk for repeated heart attacks
negatively framed messages
_____ _____ ____highlight what you can lose by not performing a behavior.
defense mechanisms
_____ _____ are unconscious strategies that people use to reduce anxiety by concealing the source from themselves and others. These permit people to avoid stress by acting as if the stress were not even there.
Problem-focused coping
_______-______ _______attempts to modify the stressful problem or source of stress. Problem-focused strategies lead to changes in behavior or to the development of a plan of action to deal with stress.
Commitment
____is a tendency to throw ourselves into whatever we are doing with a sense that our activities are important and meaningful.
Resilience
____is the ability to withstand, overcome, and actually thrive after profound adversity
stressors
circumstances and events that produce threats to our well-being.
resistance
if the stressor persists, people move into the second response stage: _____ During this stage, the body is actively fighting the stressor on a biological level. During resistance, people use a variety of means to cope with the stressor—sometimes successfully but at a cost of some degree of physical or psychological well-being.
set point
people have a general ____ ____ for happiness, a marker that establishes the tone for one's life.
lymphocytes
specialized white blood cells that fight disease at an extraordinary rate—some 10 million every few seconds.
uplifts
the minor positive events that make us feel good
