2.  A negative emotional state in response to events that we perceive as taxing our resources or our ability to cope  Stressors—events that are perceived as harmful, threatening, or challenging

3.  Lifestyle Diseases: Diseases related to health-damaging personal habits  Behavioral Risk Factors: Behaviors that increase the chances of disease, injury, or premature death

5.  Teaches stress reduction, self-protection, decision making, self-control, and social skills

7.  Sharing drug needles and syringes  Anal sex, with or without a condom  Unprotected sex (without a condom) with an infected partner  Sex with someone you know who has several partners  Vaginal or oral sex with an intravenous drug user  Having many sex partners

8.  Not having sex  Not injecting drugs  Using a condom  Sex with one mutually faithful, uninfected partner  Not engaging in sex while intoxicated  Reducing the number of sex partners

9. Pull between two opposing desires or goals  Approach-approach conflict  choice between 2 appealing outcomes  easy to resolve, low stress  Avoidance-avoidance conflict  choice between 2 unappealing outcomes  more stressful than approach-approach  Approach-avoidance conflict  one goal with appealing & unappealing aspects  most stressful type of conflict  often see vacillation

11.  Feelings of tension, uneasiness, apprehension, worry, and vulnerability  We are motivated to avoid experiencing anxiety

12.  Defense Mechanisms: Habitual and unconscious (in most cases) psychological processes designed to reduce anxiety

13.  Work by avoiding, denying, or distorting sources of threat or anxiety  If used short term, can help us get through everyday situations  If used long term, we may end up not living in reality  Protect idealized self-image so we can live with ourselves

14.  Denial: Most primitive; denying reality; usually occurs with death and illness  Repression: When painful memories, anxieties, and so on are held out of our awareness  Reaction Formation: Impulses are repressed and the opposite behavior is exaggerated

15.  Projection: When one’s own feelings, shortcomings, or unacceptable traits and impulses are seen in others; exaggerating negative traits in others lowers anxiety  Rationalization: Justifying personal actions by giving “rational” but false reasons for them

16.  Acquired (learned) inability to overcome obstacles and avoid aversive stimuli; learned passivity and inaction to aversive stimuli  Occurs when events appear to be uncontrollable  May feel helpless if failure is attributed to lasting, general factors

17.  State of feeling despondent defined by feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness  One of the most common mental problems in the world  Some symptoms: Loss of appetite or sex drive, decreased activity, sleeping too much

18.  Social conditions that promote stress  poverty, racism, crime  low SES tend to have highest levels of stress  Culture clashes lead to stress  company owned by different culture  refugees, immigrants suffer  acculturative stress

19.  Indirect effects—promote behaviors that jeopardize physical well being such as use of drugs, lack of sleep, poor concentration  Direct effects—promote changes in body functions, leading to illness such as headaches and other physical symptoms

20.  Psychological Factors  Perception of control  Explanatory style  Chronic negative emotions  Hostility  Social Factors  Outside resources  Friends and family  Positive relationships

21.  Sense of control decreases stress, anxiety, & depression  Perceptions of control must be realistic to be adaptive

22.  Personality type associated with superior stress resistance  Sense of personal commitment to self and family  Feel they have control over their lives  See life as a series of challenges, not threats

23.  Personality type associated with poor health; person tends to be chronically depressed, anxious, and hostile

24.  Type A  time urgency  intense ambition and competitiveness  general hostility  associated with heart disease  Type B  more easygoing  not associated with heart disease

25.  Optimism  use external, unstable, & specific explanations for negative events  predicts better health outcomes  Pessimism  use internal, stable, & global explanations for negative events  predicts worse health outcomes

26.  Coronary heart disease is North America’s leading cause of death  Habitually grouchy people tend to have poorer health outcomes  Chronic negative emotions have negative effect on immune system

27.  Time urgency & competitiveness not associated with poor health outcomes  Negative emotions, anger, aggressive reactivity  High levels of hostility increase chance of all disease (e.g., cancer)

28.  Behavioral and cognitive responses used to deal with stressors  Involves efforts to change circumstances or our interpretation of them to make them more favorable and less threatening

29.  Problem-focused coping  managing or changing the stressor  use if problem seems alterable  confrontive coping  planful problem solving  Emotion-focused coping  try to feel better about situation  use if problem out of our control

30.  Escape-avoidance—try to escape stressor  Distancing—minimize impact of stressor  Denial—refuse to acknowledge problem exists

31.  Wishful thinking—imagining stressor is magically gone  Seeking social support—turn to friends, support people  Positive reappraisal—minimize negative, emphasize positive  Downward comparison—compare self to those less fortunate

32. Social support—resources provided by others in times of need  Emotional—expressions of concern, empathy, positive regard  Tangible—direct assistance such as lending money, providing meals  Informational—such as making good suggestions, advice, good referrals

33.  Improves ability to cope with stress & benefits health  person modifies appraisal of stressor’s significance to be less threatening  helps to decrease intensity of physical reactions to stress  make person less likely to experience negative emotions  Pets as social support  especially for elderly and people who live alone  Gender and social support

34.  Meditation can lower blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen consumption  Can it help with stress-related disease?