Problem 1: Stress:
SARAFINO – READING 1:
v Stress: “circumstances in which transactions lead a person to perceive a discrepancy between
the physical or psychological demands of a situation and the resources of his or her biological,
psychological or social system.” (real or just believed – stress can come from wrong
perception of discrepancies)
• Stress has two components:
o Physical (direct material / bodily challenge)
o Psychological (individual’s perception of situations in own life)
• Can be examined in three ways:
o Stressors à stimuli from the environment causing stress (e.g. demanding job,
death)
o Strain à focus on people’s responses to stressors – psychological (e.g. thought
pattern & emotions when you feel nervous) & physiological (e.g. heart racing)
§ Same stressor can lead to different strains
o Transactions à includes stressors & strains – relationship between person &
environment – stress is seen as a process – one can influence the impact of
stressors through strategies
v Cognitive appraisal (=assessment): assessment of: primary appraisal (whether a demand
threatens their physical / psychological well-being) & secondary appraisal (the resources
available for meeting the demand)
• Primary appraisal à assessing meaning of a situation for our well-being – “will I be okay
or in trouble?” – three judgements of situation:
o Irrelevant à e.g. happened before with no serious outcome
o Good (“benign-positive”) à e.g. negative circumstances but positive outcome
o Stressful à e.g. life-threatening situation – if assessed as stressful, further
appraisal of three implications:
§ Harm-loss = amount of damage that has already occurred
§ Threat = expectation of future harm (e.g. think of bills when in hospital)
§ Challenge = opportunity to achieve growth (e.g. job with higher work load
but learn/earn more)
à Empathy – appraisal can influence stress even if it does not directly affect us (but
others around us)
• Secondary appraisal à our assessment of the resources we have available for coping –
occurs especially when in stressful situation (try to determine whether our resources are
sufficient)
• What factors lead to stressful appraisals? – Two types of factors:
o Personal à intellectual, motivational, and personality characteristics (e.g. self
esteem – people with high self-esteem are more likely to believe they have the
resources needed – challenge > threat)
§ Perfectionism = tendency to see minor issues as major
o Situational à events with strong demands + imminent cause more stress (e.g. big
surgery tomorrow) – life transition, difficult timing, ambiguity, low desirability,
low controllability
• Dimensions of stress: stress increases with the stressors’ frequency, intensity, and duration
o Strong stressor = big physiological strain
o Chronic stress = stress that occurs often or lasts a long time – makes people more
vulnerable
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,v Biological aspect of stress: reactivity = physiological response to stressor/strain – measured by
comparing with “resting” level – genetics have an influence on this – stronger for people with
chronic stress
• Flight-or-flight response (Cannon, 1929) à our system gets ready to fight or flee – the
systematic nervous system stimulates many organs (e.g. heart) – good for answering to
danger quickly but can be bad if it lasts too long – stimulates adrenal glands of the
endocrine system (= secrete epinephrine = arousal)
• General Adaptation Syndrome (Selye) à what happens with long lasting high levels of
stress
1. Alarm reaction = similar to fight-or-flight response – function is to mobilize the
body’s resources –
o Fast acting (Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) – direct nerve connections –
activates many organs) – adrenal gland = releases epinephrine &
norepinephrine into bloodstream
o Slower (Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal axis (HPA) – triggers pituitary gland
to secrete ACTH = leads to adrenal gland releasing cortisol into bloodstream
2. Stage resistance = if stressor continues
o SNS weakens – HPA strengthens
o The body tries to adapt to the stressor – physiological arousal remains higher
than normal & body reloads with hormones from adrenal gland
o Organism shows fewer outer signs of stress BUT ability to resist future
stressors can weaken (= disease of adaptation – individuals become vulnerable
to health problems – e.g. asthma, high blood pressure…)
3. Stage of exhaustion = prolonged stress/physiological arousal can weaken the
immune system & lower body’s energy levels
o If stress continues disease, damage to internal organs, and death can occur
• Allostatic load = effect the continuous stressors have on the body (e.g. high blood
pressure)
o Can prevent body from adapting to future stressors
o Important factors to amount of stressors:
§ Amount of exposure (higher frequency, intensity, and time = greater response)
§ Magnitude of reactivity (difference in individuals – some show more intense
response to same stimuli)
§ Rate of recovery (how fast we return to normal after encountering with
stressor)
§ Resource restoration (how we reload on what we used during event – e.g.
sleep – sleep deprivation can lead to stress)
• Do all stressors produce the same physical reactions? = Many different stressors lead to
an increase in hormones by adrenal gland
o Selye believed the GAS is non specific to stressors (applies to all) BUT doesn’t
take into account psychosocial processes:
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, § Emotional response (higher level of hormones – epinephrine, norepinephrine,
cortisol)
§ Pattern of physiological arousal depends on: effort (involves person’s interest,
determination) & distress (involves anxiety, uncertainty, boredom…)
§ Cognitive appraisal
v Psychosocial aspects of stress:
• Cognition & stress: high levels of stress effect people’s memory & attention (e.g.
preoccupation with worrying about failure can interfere with memory)
o Stress can also impair cognitive functioning by distracting attention
• Emotions & stress: emotions tend to accompany stress & people tend to use these
emotions to evaluate their level of stress
o Cognitive appraisal can influence stress & emotional state
v Measuring stress:
• Physiological arousal à many of our body systems show a response to stress
o Can be measured with electrical/mechanical equipment
§ Measure blood pressure, heart rate, galvanic skin response (GSR) – can be
measure with a polygraph (can use miniature versions that we can put in
pocket)
o Can also be measured through biochemical analyses of blood, urine, or saliva –
asses levels of hormones secreted by adrenal glands
§ Corticosteroid = cortisol
§ Catecholamine = epinephrine and norepinephrine
à Physiological measures are usually direct & objective BUT can be expensive and may
appear stressful itself + can be affected by individual’s gender weight…
• Life events à self-report – ask people if they feel stressed – scales have been created to
measure stress levels numerically (e.g. list of life events)
o The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (Holmes & Rahe, 1967): list of more or less
stressful events that are all assigned with a number showing the amount of stress
they cause – people are asked to check every item that has happened to them on the
list (≈ in the last 24 months) – sum values of items to get total score
§ (+) Events in list represent a wide range of stressful events; numbered
carefully; can be done easily & quickly
§ (-) Can seem vague; events can have different meanings/impacts on individual;
severe stressors > chronic stress; desirable vs undesirable events
• Daily hassles à smaller events (e.g. misplace keys, giving speech…)
o Hassles Scale = list of more or less severe hassles – indicate which ones occurred
in the last month
o Uplifts Scale = list of items that bring peace
à Both scores related to health status – both correlations were weak, but hassle was
more strongly correlated to health than event.
• Chronic stressors in specific domains à current research often focuses on stressors in
specific domains
à All measures of stress link stress to increased risk of future health problems.
v Can stress be good for you? = Not all stress is unhealthy (good & bad stress) – optimal level
of arousal?
• Distress (bad stress) à harmful / damaging à more damaging then effort alone
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, o Episodic memory impairment (reduction of branching in hippocampus) &
decreased immune system (cortisol increase causes receptors in immune system to
inhibit reaction of new T and B cells)
o Can lead to depression, infertility, inhibits growth in children, loss of sex drive,
bigger amygdala (emotions)
o No new neurons are produced
• Eustress (good stress) à beneficial / constructive
o Can help mobilize energy to fight stressful events
o If brief/moderate = can improve attention & memory formation
o Can improve performance on simple tasks (opposite for complex ones)
o In short term = enhances immune system
- Cognitive appraisal = plays big role in which kind of stress we experience
- Stress appraisal = harm-loss, threat, challenge
v Very low levels of stress or arousal can lead to poor quality in the work we need to do.
o E.g. when taking a test, if we know it doesn’t count for our final grade there is a good
chance we will not do our best, might not even bother to answer every question.
v Very high levels of stress can lead to loosing control over our emotions / impairment of
cognitive functions and therefore also cause us to perform poorly.
o E.g. if a test is given by surprise and turns out to count for 80% of the final grade, stress
may take over the students and lead to grades that do not accurately represent their
capacities.
v If the level of stress is in between (neither too high nor too low), it can lead to a good
quality in the work we are asked to do.
o E.g. if a test is given by surprise but only counts towards 10% of the final grade,
students may be more likely to not stress as much and perform well.
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