Transcript Stress: Its Meaning, Impact, and Sources

Stress: Its Meaning,
Impact, and Sources
Dr. Alan H. Teich
Chap 3
What is Stress?

Stress:
A
Stimulus
 A Response
 A Process
 A Perception
 “Nothing
is stressful unless you
perceived it to be so.”
Components of the definition of stress

Resources

Demands

Discrepancy

Transactions
Lazarus: Cognitive Appraisal


Primary Appraisal
Secondary Appraisal
Factors Affecting Appraisals

Personal factors
 Life

transitions
Situational factors
 Ambiguity


Predictability
Controllability
 Primary
 Secondary
Biopsychosocial Aspects of Stress

Biological
 SNS
Reactivity: fight or flight response
 General Adaptation Syndrome (Selye, 1956)
 Stages
• Alarm Reaction
• Stage of Resistance
• Stage of Exhaustion
General Adaptation Syndrome
The body’s resistance to stress can
last only so long before exhaustion sets in
Stress
resistance
Stressor
occurs
Phase 1
Alarm
reaction
(mobilize
resources)
Phase 2
Resistance
(cope with
stressor)
Phase 3
Exhaustion
(reserves
depleted)
Psychosocial Aspects of Stress





Cognitions
Emotions
Social Behaviors
Gender
Culture
Sources of Stress

Within the person


Health
Conflicts




Family

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
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Approach/approach
Avoidance/avoidance
Approach/avoidance
Children
Separation and Divorce
Illness, Disability, & Death
Job
Environment
Measuring Stress

Physiological Measures
 Polygraph
 Hormones

Life Events
 Holmes
& Rahe: Social Readjustment
Rating Scale

Daily Hassles
Good Stress - Bad Stress

Selye
 Distress
 Eustress

Moderate levels of Stress: “Optimal”
 Yerkes-Dodson
Inverted U function
Inverted U Function
Level
of
performance
Low stress
Moderate
Stress
(Optimal )
High stress