Psychology: Stress, Health & coping

• stress


  The anxious or threatening feeling that comes when we interpret or appraise a situation as being more than or psychological resources can adequately handle.
• primary appraisal


  Our initial, subjective evaluation of a situation, in which we balance the demands of a potentially stressful situation against our ability to meet the demands.
• harm/loss appraisal


  An appraisal of a situation that means that you have already sustained some damage or injury.
• threat appraisal


  An appraisal of a situation that means that the harm/loss has not yet taken place but you know it will happen in the near future.
• challenge appraisal


  An appraisal of a situation that means that you have the potential for gain or growth but you also need to mobilize your physical energy and psychological resources to meet the challenging situation.
• galvanic skin response


  A measure of how much a person's hand sweats due to physiological arousal and not to normal temperature changes.
• fight-flight response


  A response that: directs great energy to the muscles and brain; can be triggered by either physical stimuli that threaten our survival or psychological situations that are novel, threatening, or challenging; and involves numerous physiological responses that arouse and prepare the body for action.
• psychosomatic symptoms


  Real and sometimes painful physical symptoms, such as headaches, muscle pains, stomach problems, and increased susceptibility to colds and flum that are caused by increased physiological arousal that results from psychological factors, such as worry, stress, and anxiety.
• general adaptation syndrome (GAS)

  The body's reaction to stressful situations during which it goes through a series of three stages - alarm, resistance, and exhaustion - that gradually increase the chances of developing psychosomatic symptoms.
• alarm stage


  The initial reaction to stress, marked by activation of the fight-flight response that causes physiological arousal.
• resistance stage


  The body's reaction to continued stress during which most of the physiological response return to normal but the body uses up great stores of energy.
• exhausation stage


  The body's reaction to long-term continuous stress, marked by actual breakdown in internal organs or weakening of the infection-fighting immune system.
• mind-body connection


  The idea of how your thoughts, beliefs, and emotions can produce physiological changes that may either be benificial of detrimental to your health and well-being.
• immune system


  The body's defense and surveillance network of cells and chemicals that fight off bacteria, viruses, and other foreign or toxic substances.
• psychoneuroimmunology


  The study of the relationship among three factors: the centeral nervous system, the endocrine system, and pshcyological factors.
• hassles


  Small, irritating, frustrating events that we face daily and that we usually appraise or interpret as stressful experiences.
• uplifts


  Small, pleasurable, happy, and satisfying experiences that we have in our daily lives.
• major life events


  Potentially disturbing, troubling, or disruptive situations, both positive and negative, that we appraise as having a significant impact on our lives.
• frustration


  The awful feeling that results when your attempts to reach some goal are blocked.
• burnout


  The state of being physically overwhelmed and exhausted, finding a task unrewarding and becoming cynical or detached, and developing a strong sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment in a particular task.
• posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)


  A disabling condition that results from personally experiencing an event that envolves actual or threatened death of serious injury or from witnessing such an event of hearing of such an event happening to a family member or close friend. Psychological symptoms include recurring and disturbing memories, terrible nightmares, and intense fear and anxiety.
• conflict


  The feeling you experience when you must choose between two or more incompatible possibilities or options.
• approach-approach conflict


  Conflict involving choosing between two situations that both have pleasurable consequences.
• avoidance-avoidance conflict


  Conflict involving choosing between two situations that both have disagreeable consequences.
• approach-avoidance conflict


  Conflict involving a single situation that has both pleasurabel and disagreeable consequences.
• anxiety


  An unpleasant state characterized by feelings of uneasiness and apprehension as well as increased physiological arousal, such as increased heart rate and blood pressure. According to Freud, it arises when there is an unconscious struggle between the id and superego.
• conditioned emotional response


  An emotional response, such as fear or anxiety, classically conditioned to a previously neutral stimulus.
• observational learning


  A form of cognitive learning that results from watching the model and does not require the observer to perform any observable behavior or receive a reinforcer.
• hardiness


  A combination of three personality traits - control, commitment, and challenge - that protect or buffer us from the potentially harmful effects of stressful situations and ruduce our chances of developing psychosomatic illnesses.
• locus of control


  A continuum where one end is the belief that you are basically in control of life's events and that what you do influences the situation, and at the other end is the belief that chance and luck mostly determine what happends and that you do not have much influence.
• optimism


  A relatively stable personality trait that leads to believing and expecting that good things will happen.
• pessimism


  A relatively stable personality trait that leads to believing and expecting that bad things will happen.
• Type A behavior


  A combination of personality traits that include an overly competitive and aggressive drive to achieve, a hostile attitude when frustrated, a habitual sense of time urgency, a rapid and explosive pattern of speaking, and being a workaholic.
• Type B behavior


  A combination of personality traits that include being easygoing, calm, relaxed, and patient.
• secondary appraisal


  The making of a decsion for how to deal with a potentially stressful situation by using coping patterns.
• problem-focused coping


  A coping strategy based on trying to decrease stress by solving the problem through seeking information, changing our own behavior, or taking whatever action is needed to resolve the difficulty.
• emotion-focused coping


  A coping strategy based on doing things primarily to deal with our emotional distress, such as seeking support and sympathy or avoiding and denying the situation.
• experiment


  A method for identifying cause-and-effect relationships by folloeing a set of guidelines that describe how to control, manipulate, and measure variables, while at the same time minimizing the possibility of error and bias.
• case study


  A more in-depth analysis of the thought, feelings, beliefs, or behaviors of individuals without much ability to control or maniulate situational variables.
• autonomic nervous system


  Section of the nervous system controlling the sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions.