1. Chapter 13—Stress, Health, and Coping
PSYC 2301 INTRO TO PSYC
Chapter 13—Stress, Health, and Coping

2. What is Stress
Stress-a negative emotional state occurring in response to events that are perceived as taxing or exceeding a person’s resources or ability to cope
Stressor-events or situations that produce stress

3. Health Psychology
Focus on stress and how psychological factors influence health, illness, and treatment
Biopsychosocial model-health and illness are determined by the complex interaction of biological, psychological, and social factors

4. Sources of Stress Life events and change
Holmes and Rahe-Social Readjustment Rating Scale
People who had more than 150 life change units within a year had an increased rate of physical or psychological illness

5. Life Events Approach Problems Scores are not very good predictors
Not take into account a person’s subjective appraisal of an event, response to that event, or ability to cope with the event
Assumes that change in itself, whether good or bad, produces stress

6. Daily Hassles
Ordinary irritations in daily life
Cumulative

7. Conflict Feeling pulled between two opposing desires, motive, or goals
3 basic types of conflicts
approach-approach
avoidance-avoidance
approach-avoidance

8. Social and Cultural Factors
When people live in an environment that is inherently stressful, they often experience ongoing, or chronic, stress. People in the lowest social economic levels of society tend to have highest levels of psychological distress, illness, and death
Stress can also result when people encounter different cultural values

9. Physical Effects on Stress
Stress can indirectly affect a person’s health by prompting behaviors that jeopardize physical well-being
Stress can directly affect physical health by altering body functions, leading to symptoms, illness, or disease

10. Stress and the Endocrine System
Hypothalamus
Sympathetic nervous System
Adrenal medulla
Secretion of catecholamines
Increases respiration
Increases heart rate
Increases blood pressure
Increases blood flow to the muscles
Digestion is inhibited
Pupils dilate
Acute Stress
Hypothalamus
Pituitary
ACTH release
Secretion of corticosteroids:
Increases release of stored energy
Reduces inflammation
Reduces immune system response
Prolonged Stress

11. General Adaptation Syndrome
Alarm stage-intense arousal occurs as the body mobilizes internal physical resources to meet the demands of the stress-producing event.
Resistance stage-the body actively tries to resist or adjust to the continuing stressful situation
Exhaustion stage-symptoms of the alarm stage reappear, only now irreversibly.

12. Stress and the Immune System
Stress can diminish the effectiveness of the immune system. The most important elements of the immune system are lymphocytes--the specialized white blood cells that fight bacteria, viruses, and other foreign invaders.

13. Ader and Cohen Conditioning the immune system
Challenged the prevailing scientific view that the immune system operated independently of the brain and psychological processes
Triggered interest in other possible influences on the immune system, including the effects of stress and emotional states

14. Psychoneuroimmunology
The scientific study of the interconnections among psychological processes, the nervous and endocrine systems, and the immune system.
The central nervous system and the immune system are directly linked
The surfaces of lymphocytes contain receptor sites for neurotransmitters and hormones, including catecholamines and cortisol
Lymphocytes themselves produce neurotransmitters and hormones

15. Stressors That Can Influence the Immune System
Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and husband, immunologist Ronald Glaser, found that even commonplace events can adversely affect the immune system

16. Factors That Influence the Response to Stress
Psychological factors
Personal Control
Explanatory Style: Optimism vs. Pessimism
Chronic Negative Emotions
Type A Behavior and Hostility

17. Factors That Influence the Response to Stress
Social Factors
Social support benefits health
Relationships with others also can be a significant source of stress
Gender differences in the effects of social support

18. Coping
The ways we try to change circumstances, or interpretations of circumstances, to make them less threatening.
Problem-Focused
Emotion-Focused

19. Coping: How People Deal with Stress
Problem-Focused
Confrontive Coping
Planful problem solving

20. Coping: How People Deal with Stress
Emotion-Focused
Escape-avoidance
Seeking social support
Distancing
Denial
Positive reappraisal

21. Culture and Coping Strategies
Individualistic
Emphasize personal autonomy and personal responsibility in dealing with problems; favor problem-focused strategies
Collectivistic
Emphasis is placed on controlling personal reactions to a stressful situation; favor emotion-focused strategies