Psychology Module 1: Understanding Stress and Its Characteristics

Characteristics of Stress

• Stress is subjective and may be self-created by an individual's pessimistic and maladaptive thought processes.
• People are not very objective in their appraisals of potentially stressful events.
• Stress can be an everyday event, and daily hassles like waiting in line, car trouble, or misplacing things can have significant negative effects on a person's mental and physical health.

Types of Stress

• Acute stress: Stressors that have a relatively short duration and a clear end point, e.g., waiting for the result of a test.
• Chronic stress: No specific duration or end point, e.g., ongoing financial difficulties.

Sources of Stress

• Daily hassles, which can have a cumulative effect on a person's mental and physical health.
• Major stressful events, such as divorce, can trigger a cascade of many minor stressors.

Cultural Influence on Stress

• Culture, including shared ideas, beliefs, and behaviors of a group, can influence an individual's experience of stress.
• Cultural background/norms can affect how an individual appraises an event, leading to differences in the experience of stress.
• E.g., Japanese and Korean students may experience greater exam stress than British students due to cultural differences in beliefs.

Consequences of Stress

• Stress can have an additive/cumulative effect, leading to serious negative consequences when an individual experiences multiple stressors frequently.
• Stress can have devastating consequences on physical and mental health, performance, productivity, and quality of personal and social life.
• The rise of stress levels can lead to a significant burden of disability within nations.

Stress Contagion and Spillover

• Stress spillover: Stress in one domain, such as the workplace, can spill over to create stress in another domain, such as family relationships.
• Positive spillover effect: Positive emotions experienced at work can lead to positive mood and interactions with family members at home.
• Stress contagion: One person's reaction to stress can affect the health of a significant other, such as a spouse's depression affecting one's well-being.

Test your knowledge of the concept of stress, its characteristics, types, and sources. This quiz covers the subjective nature of stress, how people perceive stressful events, and how our thought processes can contribute to stress.