Health & Stress Overheads Part 1 F24 PDF

Announcements Today: ◼ Health & Stress ◼ Applied Activity: Due 11:59 pm Weds., Nov. 27 ◼ Quiz 6 on Social Psyc ◼ Will close at 11:59 Wed. Dec. 1 ◼ Next week: ◼ Class on Monday, Dec. 2 ◼ Class on Wednesday, Dec. 4 *Monday classes make ◼ Class on Thursday, Dec. 5*...

Announcements Today: ◼ Health & Stress ◼ Applied Activity: Due 11:59 pm Weds., Nov. 27 ◼ Quiz 6 on Social Psyc ◼ Will close at 11:59 Wed. Dec. 1 ◼ Next week: ◼ Class on Monday, Dec. 2 ◼ Class on Wednesday, Dec. 4 *Monday classes make ◼ Class on Thursday, Dec. 5* up day (in lieu of Remembrance Day)  Health & Stress part 1 What causes the most stress for you, as a student? What are some of the things you do to manage stress in your life? Study Unit 10.1 What Is Health Psychology? ◼ Humans have always sought to understand what makes us sick and what it means to be healthy. ◼ Early explanations viewed health as stemming from external forces: Poor health was divine punishment Good health a result of being at harmony with the world Study Unit 10.1 What Is Health Psychology? (2) Today… ◼ Health psychology: An interdisciplinary field that investigates the links among behavior, cognition, and physical health. Has emerged in the last 50 years The study of health & stress… ◼ Health Psychology studies the relationship between psychological factors and the prevention and treatment of physical health problems. ◼ Psychological factors such as stress, behaviour patterns and attitudes can lead to or aggravate illness. ◼ People can cope with stress. ◼ Psychological forms of intervention can contribute to physical health. What are Stressors? ◼ stressful events: we call stressors ◼ stimuli that affect organisms in physically or psychologically injurious ways Stress is therefore really the … ◼ balance between the demands of the situation and the ◼ resources available to cope with those demands Study Unit 10.3 What Is Stress? ◼ Stress: A physiological response to an environmental event that is perceived as taxing or even exceeding one’s ability to adapt. Has physiological, environmental and subjective components. The challenge for researchers is isolating the elements that make a situation stressful. Study Unit 10.3 What Is Stress? We are most likely to experience stress when We feel uncertainty We feel a lack of control When there is a concern others will evaluate or treat us negatively Researches often induce stress by having participants give a speech in front of an audience. The study of health & stress… Two dominant approaches: ◼ The biomedical model ◼ Predominant view ◼ Focus is on illness rather than health ◼ Explains illness in terms of biological factors ◼ The biopsychosocial model ◼ Focus on health & illness ◼ Considers biological, psychological & social factors The study of health & stress… Biopsychosocial model of mental health. This is the view that mental health encompasses ◼ biological factors (i.e., genetics, disease,physiological effects of diet & exercise) ◼ psychological factors (i.e., thoughts, emotions, and behaviors) ◼ social factors (i.e., family, traditions, culture) Biopsychosocial model of mental health Why do we experience stress? Where does it come from? THEORIES OF STRESS Fight or flight response ◼ Discovered by Walter Cannon (1932) ◼ When any threat is perceived by an organism, the sympathetic nervous system and the endocrine glands prepare the body to: ◼ Fight the threat OR ◼ Flee from the threat Fight or flight response ◼ Afterwards, the parasympathetic nervous system brings the body’s systems back to normal levels General Adaptation Syndrome ◼ Hans Selye coined the term stress (1920s) ◼ Observed that rats exposed to a variety of stressors developed many of the same physical symptoms ◼ concluded that ◼ stress is nonspecific ◼ stress affects health General Adaptation Syndrome ◼ Applied his findings to human organisms ◼ General adaptation syndrome: A broad- based physiological response to a physical threat that unfolds in three stages: o Alarm o Resistance o Exhaustion General Adaptation Syndrome GAS Stages Alarm Stage (first stage) Heart rate, blood pressure, blood-sugar levels increase. Gives person energy to cope with stressful situation. Resistance Stage (second stage) Intense physiological efforts to resist or adapt to stressor. Exhaustion Stage (final stage) Occurring if organism fails in its efforts to resist stressor. 12- 19 Copyright © 2014 Pearson Canada Inc. GAS: The Missing Factor ◼ Selye believed that the intensity of the stressor determines the degree of one’s physical reaction to it ◼ Critics argued he was missing something: ◼ The psychological component ◼ i.e., how the persona perceives and evaluates the stressor So what was the missing link??? Appraisal The missing link… Appraisal ◼ people must appraise (or perceive) a situation as stressful in order for it to be stressful Perceived stress: A subjective evaluation of stress in response to events, depending on appraisal. Stress appraisal theory: Appraisals of an event and our role in it shape our emotional experience of it Appraisal Led to Lazarus’s work on the role of cognitive appraisal ◼ Richard Lazarus (1993) ◼ we have to negotiate between the demands of the environment and personal beliefs and behaviors Lazarus & Folkman’s Psychological Theory of Stress ◼ It is not the stressor itself that causes stress, but one’s perception of the stressor ◼ There are two levels of appraisal: ◼ Primary appraisal ◼ evaluating the meaning and potential threat level of the stressful event ◼ Secondary appraisal ◼ Evaluating the resources one has to cope with the stressful event ◼ If the degree of threat is greater than one’s ability to cope… Lazarus & Folkman’s Psychological Theory of Stress ◼ If the degree of threat is greater than one’s ability to cope… STRESS RESPONSE L&F’s Psychological Theory of Stress Appraisal: Stress Lies in the Eye of the Beholder Primary and secondary appraisal of stress