stress and coping

• Stress is defined as


  Any circumstance that threaten (or perceived as) the individual's well-being.
• Most stressful job


  BOMB DISPOSAL EXPERT
• Bars workers found their job to be more stressful than bomb disposal experts why

  Bomb disposal experts supported, job and risk control
• Stress is appraisal dependent and there are two types

  -Primary appraisal

  -Secondary appraisal
• Primary appraisal


  Evaluation of whether a stressor is perceived as a threat or a challenge.

  
  

  -Threat appraisal: Negative

  -Challenge appraisal: Positive
• Secondary appraisal


  Evaluation of whether the individual has the necessary skills and resources for dealing with the stressor.
• Appraisal is influenced by

  Familiarity
• Positive appraisals more likely when events are

  -Controllability

  -Predictable
• Four causes of stress

  -Frustration

  -Conflict

  -Change

  -Pressure
• Frustration


  Goal where pursuit disrupted
• Frustration occurs in two different ways

  -Loss

  -Failure
• Conflict


  Two or more incompatible motivations compete for expression.
• Types of conflict


  -The approach-approach

  -The avoidance-avoidance

  -The approach-avoidance
• The approach-approach conflict


  Choose between two positive competing alternatives
• The avoidance-avoidance conflict


  Choose between two really unattractive possibilities
• The approach-avoidance conflict


  NOT about a choice between two different behaviours.

  A choice about a goal or behaviour that has positive AND negative aspects to it.
• The most stressful type of conflict

  The avoidance-avoidance conflict
• Change


  Change regardless of positive or negative produces readjustment that could produce stress.
• Social Readjustment Rating Scale definition and number of items


  Measure used to assess change in people's life.

  It's got 42 items
• Social Readjustment Rating Scale: First 10 items

  1) Marriage

  2) Troubles with the boss

  3) Detention in jail or other institution

  4) Death of spouse

  5) Major change in sleeping habits

  6) Death of a close family member

  7) Major change in eating habits

  8) Foreclosure on a mortgage or loan

  9) Revision of personal habits

  10) Death of a close friend
• Pressure


  -People's expectations for behaviour

  -Pressure produces stress
• Causes of pressure


  -Job

  -Peer pressure

  -Self imposed pressure

  -Parents
• Responses to stress


  -Emotional

  -Physiological

  -Behavioural
• Emotional responses from stress

  Annoyance

  Anger

  Rage

  Apprehension

  Anxiety

  Fear

  Dejection

  Sadness

  Grief
• Why are emotional responses from stress useful

  -Can act as an alarm signal

  -Response to a threat
• Paradoxical problem of strong emotional responses from stress

  Can interfere

  
  

  -Attention

  -Memory

  -Judgment

  -Decision-making
• Physiological response to stress

  -Fight or flight

  -Autonomic Nervous System

  -Tachycardia

  -Hypertension

  -Increased respirations

  -Reduced digestion
• Tachycardia does what


  Circulates blood more quickly around the body
• Reduced digestion does what

  Blood diverted to muscles
• General Adaptation Syndrome


  -Model for an organism's response to stress.

  
  

  -Organism's reaction to stress nonspecific
• General Adaptation Syndrome's 3 stages

  -Alarm response

  -Resistance stage

  -Exhaustion stage
• Alarm response (first stage)

  -Initial physiological reaction.

  -Cortisol and adrenaline release
• Resistance stage


  -Stress hormones +++

  -LONG PERIOD

  -Body attempts to resist or cope with the stressor

  -Consequently blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension constantly elevated

  -Immunosuppressed
• Behavioural responses to stress are

  Efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress.
• Constructive coping


  Only truly adaptive form of coping
• Constructive coping involves what factors

  -Task orientated

  -Realistic appraisal

  -Inhibit emotions

  -Eat healthy

  -Sufficient sleep
• Task orientated


  Action focused

  
  

  Example: reading marking criteria and assignment instructions, attending tutorials and lectures.
• Inhibit Emotions


  Defensive coping
• Defensive coping example


  Example: Exam stress, use distraction to focus
• Types of performance impairment

  -Competing thoughts

  -Choking under pressure