PSYC1101 - Chapter 11, 4th Edition PowerPoint

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Copyright ©2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc.
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Psychology, Fourth Edition
Saundra K. Ciccarelli • J. Noland White
Chapter 11
stress and health

Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2008 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Psychology, Third Edition
Learning Objective Menu
11.1 How do psychologists define stress?
11.2 What kinds of external events can cause stress?
11.3 What are some psychological factors in stress?
11.4 How does stress affect the physical functioning of the body and its
immune system?
11.5 How do cognitive factors and personality differences affect the
experience of stress?
11.6 What social factors influence stress reactions?
11.7 What are some ways in which people cope with stress reactions?
11.8 How is coping with stress affected by culture and religion?
11.9 What are some ways to become a more optimistic thinker?

Stress
• Stress: physical, emotional, cognitive, and
behavioral responses to events that are
appraised as threatening or challenging
• Stressors: events that cause a stress
reaction
LO 11.1 How Do Psychologists Define Stress?

Stress
• Distress: the effect of unpleasant and
undesirable stressors
• Eustress: the effect of positive events, or
the optimal amount of stress that people
need to promote health and well-being
LO 11.1 How Do Psychologists Define Stress?

Causes of Stress
• Catastrophe: an unpredictable, large-scale
event that creates a tremendous need to
adapt and adjust as well as overwhelming
feelings of threat
LO 11.2 Kinds of Events that Cause Stress

Causes of Stress
• Major life changes: cause stress by
requiring adjustment
– Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS):
measures the amount of stress resulting from
major life events in a person’s life over a one-
year period
– College Undergraduate Stress Scale (CUSS):
measures the amount of stress resulting from
major life events in a college student’s life
over a one-year period

Table 11.1
(continued)
Sample Items
From the Social
Readjustment
Rating Scale
(SRRS)

Causes of Stress
• Hassles: the daily annoyances of
everyday life

Everyday Sources of Stress
• Pressure: the psychological experience
produced by urgent demands or
expectations for a person’s behavior that
come from an outside source
• Uncontrollability: the degree of control that
the person has over a particular event or
situation
– the less control a person has, the greater the
degree of stress
LO 11.3 Psychological Factors in Stress

• Frustration: the psychological experience
produced by the blocking of a desired goal
or fulfillment of a perceived need
• Possible reactions to frustration
– aggression: actions meant to harm or destroy
– displaced aggression: taking out one’s
frustrations on some less threatening or more
available target
 a form of displacement

• Possible reactions to frustrations (cont’d):
– escape or withdrawal: leaving the presence of
a stressor
 either literally or by a psychological withdrawal into
fantasy, drug abuse, or apathy

Conflict
• Conflict: psychological experience of being
pulled toward or drawn to two or more
desires or goals, only one of which may be
attained
• Approach–approach conflict: a person
must choose between two desirable goals

Conflict
• Avoidance–avoidance conflict: a person
must choose between two undesirable
goals
• Approach–avoidance conflict: a person
must choose or not choose a goal that has
both positive and negative aspects
– double approach–avoidance conflict: a person
must decide between two goals, each
possessing both positive and negative aspects

Bodily Reactions to Stress
• Autonomic nervous system:
– sympathetic system: responds to stressful
events
– parasympathetic system: restores the body to
normal functioning after stress has ceased
LO 11.4 The Relationship between Stress and the Immune System

Bodily Reactions to Stress
• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): the
three stages of the body’s physiological
adaptation to stress
1. alarm
2. resistance
3. exhaustion

Figure 11.1 General Adaptation Syndrome
The diagram at the top shows some of the physical reactions to stress in each of the three stages of the general
adaptation syndrome. The graph at the bottom shows the relationship of each of the three stages to the individual’s
ability to resist a stressor. In the alarm stage, resistance drops at first as the sympathetic system quickly activates. But
resistance then rapidly increases as the body mobilizes its defense systems. In the resistance stage, the body is
working at a much increased level of resistance, using resources until the stress ends or the resources run out. In the
exhaustion stage, the body is no longer able to resist as resources have been depleted, and at this point disease and
even death are possible.

Figure 11.1 (continued) General Adaptation Syndrome
The diagram at the top shows some of the physical reactions to stress in each of the three stages of the general
adaptation syndrome. The graph at the bottom shows the relationship of each of the three stages to the individual’s
ability to resist a stressor. In the alarm stage, resistance drops at first as the sympathetic system quickly activates. But
resistance then rapidly increases as the body mobilizes its defense systems. In the resistance stage, the body is
working at a much increased level of resistance, using resources until the stress ends or the resources run out. In the
exhaustion stage, the body is no longer able to resist as resources have been depleted, and at this point disease and
even death are possible.

Stress and the Immune System
• Immune system: cells, organs, and
chemicals of the body that respond to
attacks from diseases, infections, and
injuries
– negatively affected by stress
• Psychoneuroimmunology: the study of the
effects of psychological factors on the
immune system

Stress and the Immune System
• Heart disease: stress puts people at higher
risk for coronary heart disease (CHD)
• Diabetes: type 2 diabetes is associated with
excessive weight gain
– occurs when pancreas insulin levels become
less efficient as the body size increases
• Cancer: stress increases malfunction of
natural killer (NK) cell
– NK cell: responsible for suppressing viruses
and destroying tumor cells

Figure 11.2 Stress Duration and Illness
In this graph, the risk of getting a cold virus increases greatly as the months of exposure to a stressor increase.
Although a stress reaction can be useful in its early phase, prolonged stress has a negative impact on the immune
system, leaving the body vulnerable to illnesses such as a cold. Source: Cohen et al. (1998).

Figure 11.3 Stress and Coronary Heart Disease
The blue box on the left represents various sources of stress (Type A personality refers to someone who is ambitious,
always working, and usually hostile). In addition to the physical reactions that accompany the stress reaction, an
individual under stress may be more likely to engage in unhealthy behavior such as overeating, drinking alcohol or
taking other kinds of drugs, avoiding exercise, and acting out in anger or frustration. This kind of behavior also
contributes to an increased risk of coronary heart disease.

Cognitive Factors of Stress
• Cognitive appraisal approach (Lazarus):
how people think about a stressor
determines, at least in part, how stressful
that stressor will become
LO 11.5 The Relationship between Stress and Cognitive and Personality Factors

Cognitive Factors of Stress
• Cognitive appraisal approach
– primary appraisal: involves estimating the
severity of a stressor and classifying it as
either a threat or a challenge
– secondary appraisal: involves estimating the
resources available to the person for coping
with the stressor

Figure 11.4 Responses to a Stressor
Lazarus’s Cognitive Appraisal Approach. According to this approach, there are two steps in cognitively determining the degree
of stress created by a potential stressor. Primary appraisal involves determining if the potential stressor is a threat. If it is
perceived as a threat, secondary appraisal occurs in addition to the bodily and emotional reactions. Secondary appraisal
involves determining the resources one has to deal with the stress, such as time, money, physical ability, and so on.
Inadequate resources lead to increased feelings of stress and the possibility of developing new resources to deal with the
stress.

Stress and Personality
• Type A personality:
– ambitious
– time conscious
– extremely hardworking
– tends to have high levels of hostility and anger
– easily annoyed
• Type B personality
– relaxed and laid-back
– less driven and competitive than Type A
– slow to anger

• Type C personality
– pleasant but repressed person
– tends to internalize anger and anxiety
– finds expressing emotions difficult
– higher cancer rates

• Hardy personality
– seems to thrive on stress but lacks the anger
and hostility of the Type A personality
– deep sense of commitment to values
– sense of control over their lives
– view problems as challenges to be met and
answered

Figure 11.5 Personality and Coronary Heart Disease
The two bars on the left represent men with Type A personalities. Notice that within the Type A men, there are more
than twice as many who suffer from coronary heart disease as those who are healthy. The two bars on the right
represent men with Type B personalities. Far more Type B personalities are healthy than are Type A personalities, and
there are far fewer Type B personalities with coronary heart disease when compared to Type A personalities.
Source: Miller et al. (1991, 1996).

• Explanatory styles
– optimists: expect positive outcomes
– pessimists: expect negative outcomes
– optimists less likely to
 develop learned helplessness
 ignore their health
 become depressed

Stress and Social Factors
• Social factors increasing the effects of
stress include:
– poverty
– stresses on the job or in the workplace
– entering a majority culture that is different
from one’s culture of origin
• Burnout: negative changes in thoughts,
emotions, and behavior as a result of
prolonged stress or frustration
LO 11.6 Social Factors and Stress Reactions

• Acculturative stress: results from the need
to change and adapt to the majority culture
– four methods of acculturation:
1. integration: maintaining a sense of original culture
while forming positive relationship with majority
culture
2. assimilation: giving up original cultural identity and
adopting majority culture
3. separation: rejecting the majority culture’s ways
4. marginalization: maintaining no ties with original or
majority cultures

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

Ways to Deal with Stress
• Coping strategies: actions that people can
take to master, tolerate, reduce, or
minimize the effects of stressors
– problem-focused coping: one tries to eliminate
the source of a stress or reduce its impact
through direct actions
– emotion-focused coping: one changes the
impact of a stressor by changing the
emotional reaction to the stressor
LO 11.7 Coping with Stress

Meditation
• Meditation: mental exercises meant to
refocus attention and achieve a trancelike
state of consciousness and relaxation
• Concentrative meditation: 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
LO 11.7 Coping with Stress

Cultural Influences on Stress
• Different cultures perceive stressors
differently
• Coping strategies will also vary from
culture to culture
LO 11.8 How Culture and Religion Help People Cope with Stress

Religiosity and Stress
• People with religious beliefs also have
been found to cope better with stressful
events
LO 11.8 How Culture and Religion Help People Cope with Stress

Become More Optimistic
1. When a bad mood strikes, stop and think
about what just went through your head.
2. When you’ve recognized the negative
statements, treat them as if they came
from someone else—someone who is
trying to make your life miserable. Think
about the damage the statement is doing
to you.
3. Argue with those thoughts.
LO 11.9 Becoming More a More Optimistic Thinker

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