Unit 1 Topic 1 - Stress

Front 1

What is Stress?

Back 1

Stress is when the perceived demands of a situation are greater than a person’s ability to cope.

Front 2

What is a Stressor?

Back 2

Anything which causes a stress reaction in the body.

Front 3

What happens in the body when reacting to a stressor?

Back 3

The pupils dilate, mouth goes dry, blood pressure rises, sweating, and the breathing becomes faster as more oxygen is needed for muscles.

Front 4

What is the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)?

Back 4

The SRRS was devised by Holmes and Rahe and is a way of measuring long term stress.

Front 5

How does the SRRS measure stress?

Back 5

The SRRS is a questionnaire made up of 43 life events that were ranked from most stressful, such as the death of a spouse, to least stressful – such as going on holiday. Holmes and Rahe called the numbers that made up each score life change units (LCU). The higher the LCU number, the more stressful it is – for example death of a spouse has an LCU score of 100, and going on holiday has an LCU score of 13.

Front 6

What did Holmes and Rahe believe?

Back 6

Holmes and Rahe believed that an LCU score of over 300 meant an 80% chance of developing a serious physical illness in the next year as a result of the stress.

Front 7

What research has been carried out into the SRRS?

Back 7

Raheet al carried out an experiment into the SRRS using 2700 American sailors aboutto go on a tour of duty. They were given a military version of the SRRSquestionnaire to assess how many life events they had experienced in theprevious six months. Sick bay visits that appeared to be fake were notincluded.

Front 8

What did the research by Rahe into theSRRS find out?

Back 8

Raheet al found that as life changes scores increased, so did the frequency ofillness. There was a positive correlation of +0. 118 between life change scoresand illness scores.

Front 9

What are the advantages of the research into theSRRS?

Back 9

Rahe et al is that it had a large number ofparticipants (2700), this makes it easier to generalize from the results.

Anotheradvantage is that the research supports the idea by Holmes and Rahe’s that lifechanges (stress) is linked to physical illness.

Front 10

What are the disadvantages of theresearch into SRRS?

Back 10

Itonly used sailors, this means that the findings cannot be generalized to peoplewho are not sailors -especially, because sailors are trained to deal withstress.

Itbe could be argued that the study was not well designed because it usedquestionnaires testing recall of the past six months, it is possible thatparticipants may have forgotten things, repressed things or simply lied to makethemselves look better – which means the findings may be inaccurate.

Front 11

What are daily hassles?

Back 11

Dailyhassles refer to the stresses of everyday life, daily hassles include thingssuch as broken computer, missed bus, being stuck in traffic, arguments with ourfamilies or girl/boyfriends.

Front 12

What are daily uplifts?

Back 12

Upliftsrefer to everyday positive events. Uplifts include a smile from someone in thestreet, good grades on an essay or getting on with friends.

Front 13

How can daily hassles be used tomeasure stress?

Back 13

Hasslescan be used to measure stress by counting how many people have and seeing theimpact on their health. Although daily hassles and their emotional impact lastonly a short period of time- if hassles happen a lot then the combined effectwill cause health problems.

Front 14

What research has been carried out into dailyhassles?

Back 14

Delongiscompared daily uplifts to daily hassles.

Front 15

Whatdid the research by Delongis into daily hassles do?

Back 15

• 75married couples completed a large amount of questionnaires and were interviewedonce monthly, over a 6-month period, about their;

• social support.
  
• self-esteem.
  
• beliefs.
  
• values .
  
• commitments.
  
• life stress.
  
• health.
  
• psychological well-being.
  

Front 16

What happened between the interviews?

Back 16

Betweeneach of the six monthly interviews, participants completed the Hassles andUplifts Scale and the Daily Health record at the end of each day for a four dayperiod. This resulted in 20 daily assessments of stress and illness, inaddition to data obtained during the six interviews.

Front 17

What did the research by Delongis intodaily hassles find out?

Back 17

Delongis found a significantrelationship between daily stress and health problems such as flu, sore throat,headaches, and backaches.

Front 18

What else did the research by Delongis into daily hassles find out?

Back 18

Thestudy also found big individual differences were found in how daily stress wasassociated with health and mood across time. Participants with unsupportivesocial relationships and low self-esteem were more likely to experience anincrease in psychological and physiological problems both on and followingstressful days than were participants high in self-esteem and social support.

Front 19

What is the advantage of the research into dailyhassles by Delongis?

Back 19

Oneadvantage is that Participants could indicate the strength of a factor eitheras a hassle or uplift. This allowed for the fact that the same life event canbe experienced in different ways by different people or by the same person ondifferent occasions.

Front 20

What is a weakness of the researchinto daily hassles by Delongis?

Back 20

Aweakness of the research by Delongis is that it overlooks many chronic (longterm) sources of stress. These may well have had an effect on the overallresults, so it may not have just been the daily hassles that caused illness.

Front 21

What did Freidman and Rosenman want to test?

Back 21

Theywanted to test whether people with type A personality were more likely to get CHD.

Front 22

How did Freidman and Rosenman conduct their test?

Back 22

Theyused a structured interview on 3200 Californian male volunteers aged 39 to 59and categorized the men as either type A or type B. They followed them for 8.5years to find out about their health.

Front 23

What did Freidman and Rosenman find from their test?

Back 23

Bythe end of the study, 256 men in the sample had developed CHD, of which 70%were from the type A group – this was twice the rate of heart disease found inthe type B group.

Theyconcluded that type A personalities seem to be at a higher risk of gettingstress related illnesses – such as CHD.

Front 24

What is an advantage of the research by Frediman and Rosenman?

Back 24

It used a largenumber of people (3200), this makes it easier to generalise the results.

Front 25

What is the weakness of the researchby Freidman and Rosenman?

Back 25

a. The study by Friedman and Rosenman is weak because having only two personality types seems a bit simplistic – because people are more complicated than that. It is also simplistic to suggest that people are either type A or type B – it may be possible for a person to have characteristics of both type A and type B personality.