Understanding Stress and Stressors

Stress and Stressors

• Stress is a physiological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral response to real or perceived threats or challenges.
• Stressors are events or circumstances (or unrealistic thoughts), that trigger stress. Not all stressors are negative (e.g., sports competition), the impact depends on the circumstances.
• Walter Cannon described the "fight or flight" response, a physiological reaction to perceived danger.

Stress Scale

• The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale (43 items) is used to measure stress levels.
• Scoring from 11-150 indicates low to moderate risk of illness
• Scoring from 150-299 indicates moderate to high risk of illness
• Scoring from 300-600 indicates high or very high risk of illness

Sources of Stress: Routine Choices

• Choices about how to do something and when can be stressful.
• Apporach-Apporach: choosing between two desirable outcomes (e.g., short-term vs. long-term rewards).
• Approach-Avoidance: one outcome is desirable, the other is not.

Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

• Alarm: Initial shock phase, the body's first reaction to a stressful event, or "fight or flight."
• Resistance: Continued exposure leads to adaptation, body starts using energy reserves from the alarm reaction
• Exhaustion: Physiologic resources are depleted; adaptation is lost leading to exhaustion.

Criticism of Selye's GAS

• Underestimated the role of psychological factors (e.g., cognitive appraisal).
• Assumed uniform responses to stress, neglecting individual differences.
• Failed to consider the specificity of challenges.
• Assessed stress as just an outcome, ignoring the anticipation of stressful events.

Cognitive Appraisal

• Robert Lazarus suggests that our own interpretations of events affect our stress response.
• Stage 1: Evaluating the threat, if seen as real, then goes to stage 2
• Stage 2: Assessing available resources to cope with the threat. (Individual differences exist here).

Social Support

• Receiving help from others can be beneficial in dealing with stress.
• Social support lets individuals learn how others have coped with similar stressors, receive encouragement and incentives.
• Empirical evidence on the impact of social support is mixed. Brown et al. (2003) found mixed results on social contact and support affecting mortality

Coping with Stress & Coping Strategies

• Coping: different ways of dealing with stressors.
• Lazarus & Folkman (1984): Identified two types of coping: problem-focused (addressing the source of the stress) and emotion-focused (dealing with the emotional response to the stressor).
• Cognitive Reappraisal: re-evaluating a stressor to lessen its threat.
• Progressive Relaxation: Substituting incompatible responses (e.g., relaxing) for stress responses

Other Coping Strategies

• Disclosure interventions: writing about stressful experiences.
• Hypnosis: and Conditioning Interventions: both have mixed evidence on their effectiveness in coping with stress.
• Social Support: can be helpful
• Hardiness: Some individuals view stressors as challenges and have high control over their response.

Coping Strategies Effectiveness

• Numerous studies on coping strategies (relaxation, disclosure, hypnosis, conditioning) led to mixed results.