Stress and Stressors

11.1 The Relationship between Stress and Stressors

• Stress: the term used to describe the physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to events that are appraised as threatening or challenging

• Stressors: events that cause a stress reaction

• Distress: the effect of unpleasant and undesirable stressors

11.2 Environmental Stressors: Life’s Ups and Downs

• Eustress: the effect of positive events, or the optimal amount of stress that people need to promote health and well-being

• Catastrophe: an unpredictable, large-scale event that creates a tremendous need to adapt and adjust as well as overwhelming feelings of threat

• Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS): assessment that measures the amount of stress in a person’s life over a 1-year period resulting from major life events

• College Undergraduate Stress Scale (CUSS): assessment that measures the amount of stress in a college student’s life over a 1-year period resulting from major life events

• Hassles: the daily annoyances of everyday life

11.3 Psychological Stressors: What, Me Worry?

• Pressure: the psychological experience produced by urgent demands or expectations for a person’s behavior that come from an outside source

• Frustration: the psychological experience produced by the blocking of a desired goal or fulfillment of a perceived need

• Aggression: actions meant to harm or destroy; behavior intended to hurt or destroy another person

• Displaced Aggression: taking out one’s frustrations on some less threatening or more available target

• Escape or Withdrawl: leaving the presence of a stressor, either literally or by a psychological withdrawal into fantasy, drug abuse, or apathy

• Approach-Approach Conflict: conflict occurring when a person must choose between two desirable goals

• Avoidance-Avoidance Conflicts: conflict occurring when a person must choose between two undesirable goals

• Approach-Avoidance Conflicts: conflict occurring when a person must choose or not choose a goal that has both positive and negative aspects

• Double Approach-Avoidance: conflict in which the person must decide between two goals, with each goal possessing both positive and negative aspects

• Multiple Approach-Avoidance Conflicts: conflict in which the person must decide between more than two goals, with each goal possessing both positive and negative aspects

Physiological Factors: Stress and Health

11.4 The General Adaptation Syndrome

• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): the three stages of the body’s physiological reaction to stress, including alarm, resistance, and exhaustion

11.5 The Immune System and Stress

• Immune System: the system of cells, organs, and chemicals of the body that responds to attacks from diseases, infections, and injuries

• Psychoneuroimmunology: the study of the effects of psychological factors such as stress, emotions, thoughts, and behavior on the immune system

• Coronary Heart Disease (CHD): the buildup of a waxy substance called plaque in the arteries of the heart

• Type 2 Diabetes: disease typically occurring in middle adulthood when the body either becomes resistant to the effects of insulin or can no longer secrete enough insulin to maintain normal glucose levels

• Natural Killer (NK) Cell: immune-system cell responsible for suppressing viruses and destroying tumor cells

11.6 Health Psychology

• Health Psychology: area of psychology focusing on how physical activities, psychological traits, stress reactions, and social relationships affect overall health rate of illnesses

11.7 Cognitive Factors in Stress

• Primary Appraisal: the first step in assessing stress, which involves estimating the severity of a stressor and classifying it as either a threat or a challenge

• Secondary Appraisal: the second step in assessing a stressor, which involves estimating the resources available to the person for coping with the threat

11.8 Personality Factors in Stress

• Type A Personality: person who is ambitious, time conscious, extremely hardworking, and tends to have high levels of hostility and anger as well as being easily annoyed

• Type B Personality: person who is relaxed and laid-back, less driven and competitive than Type A, and slow to anger

• Type C Personality: pleasant but repressed person, who tends to internalize his or her anger and anxiety and who finds expressing emotions difficult

• Hardy Personality: a person who seems to thrive on stress but lacks the anger and hostility of the Type A personality

• Optimists: people who expect positive outcomes

11.9 Social and Cultural Factors in Stress: People Who Need People

• Burnout: negative changes in thoughts, emotions, and behavior as a result of prolonged stress or frustration, leading to feelings of exhaustion

• Acculturative Stress: stress resulting from the need to change and adapt a person’s ways to the majority culture

Coping with Stress

11.10 Coping Strategies

• Coping Strategies: actions that people take to master, tolerate, reduce, or minimize the effects of stressors

• Problem-Focused Coping: coping strategies that try to eliminate the source of stress or reduce its impact through direct actions

• Emotion-Focused Coping: coping strategies that change the impact of a stressor by changing the emotional reaction to the stressor

• Meditation: mental series of exercises meant to refocus attention and achieve a trancelike state of consciousness

• Concentrative Meditation: form of meditation in which a person focuses the mind on some repetitive or unchanging stimulus so that the mind can be cleared of disturbing thoughts and the body can experience relaxation

11.11 How Social Support Affects Coping

• Social-Support System: the network of family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and others who can offer support, comfort, or aid to a person in need

11.12 How Culture Affects Coping

• Different cultures have different coping mechanisms

11.13 How Religion Affects Coping

• People will also turn to religion for coping, like how most religions encourage healthier behavior and eating habits which can help make one feel better

11.7