Chapter 13 Stress Response response to stress sweating shaking etc o Developed for a good reason and to be adaptive Physical danger blood runs to your legs and arms for flight or fight response Takes blood away from your digestive system so that it will conserve energy ST stress short term stress you aren t going to be in danger that long so you aren t stressed for that long i e outrunning a bear o Stress has become maladaptive Long term stress is more dangerous since your blood isn t getting to your digestive system all day Can be harmful i e heart attacks Stress not from event Ellis it s not the event that is stressful it s the anticipation and appraisal of the event o Anticipation What Most People s Logical Sequence is Anticipating Event you get stood up on the date Consequence I must be worthless no one likes me What Ellis thinks people should do Anticipating Event Belief Consequence o Rational Emotive Theory therapy based on logic work it through not jump to conclusions o Appraisal Illogical Thinking o Catastrophize take a small problem and blow it out of proportions I failed my paper so I m going to fail my class and have to drop out of college o Overgeneralize take one small bad characteristic and think of yourself as being overall bad Stress any circumstances that threaten or perceive to threaten one s wellbeing therefore taxing the system o Acute stressors a threatening event with a short duration and a clear endpoint o Chronic stressors a threatening event with a long duration and no readily apparent time limit i e when you lose your job and you don t known when you ll get another one o Predictable vs Unpredictable Predictable an expected stress i e city inhabitants of London know that they will get bombed every night less stressful Unpredictable a lot worse kind of stress since it is not expected i e country siders in London waiting for German s to bomb them o Controllable vs Uncontrollable Uncontrolled stress is worse i e not having the power to control a situation such as loud noises Controlled Stress less stressful ex a loud noise while taking a test but having the option to make the sound go away o Stress is cumulative a lot of minor stresses major diseases Major Types of Stress 1 Frustration a blocked goal i e traffic jam 2 Conflict two or more incompatible motivations or behavioral impulses Approach approach a choice between two attractive goals low stress Avoidance avoidance a choice between two unattractive goals high stress Approach avoidance a choice about a single goal and you keep going back and forth it has both attractive and unattractive aspects i e cookies taste good but are high in calories Vacillation the back and forth of decision 3 Change having to adapt to different living circumstances Social Readjustment Rating Scale SRRS looked at different types of change and put them on a scale to rate stress Death of Spouse 100 Divorce 73 Vacation 13 Christmas 12 Works because people who score highly have both psychological and physiological problems o But since the top of the list is all negative things it s probably not measuring change its measuring frustration Change itself is not inherently stressful it s the uncertainty 4 Pressure expectations and demand to behave in a certain way Perform whether or not you execute tasks efficiently effectively Conform going along with what everyone else is doing Responses to Stress o Physiological General Adaptation Syndrome Hans Selye a model of the body s stress response did an experiment with two sets of rabbits one injected with hormone and one with saline both exhibited stress probably because he held them up and tried to stick them with a needle Alarm when your body first recognizes that there is stress o Flight or Fight arousal Resistance physiological arousal plateaus Exhaustion body s resources are depleted can cause disease o Body turns on itself Immune Response body s defensive reaction to bacteria viruses and other foreign substances Stress can reduce immunity at the cellular level Neurogenesis the regeneration of neurons Stress can interfere with this Exercise can help increase regeneration o Personality Type A a strongly competitive impatient hostile person Weak correlation to heart problems Hostility component is what is correlated to the heart problems Type B relaxed patient easy going people o Emotional Yerkes Dodson Curve stress vs performance school work etc The more stressed the more performance to an extent o Too much stress and performance goes down o Psychosomatic disease a disease that beings in your head but spreads to your body Ulcers blood pressure Out dated since a lot of diseases have psychological sources Mind Body Connection meditation can have effects on your health eastern medicine predicted this better than western medicine Stress only moderately predicts health Behavioral Learned helplessness passive behavior from unavoidable aversive event Put a dog in a room half red half blue carpet puts current on one side or another so that dog goes to the non shocking side Run current through whole room so dog can t escape it Reverted back to original only half shocked but dog remained in the shock area since it thinks it cannot escape Internal Locus of Control stray dogs have this think you have the power over the environment stray dogs better at the experiment avoiding shocks If a goal is truly unattainable it is probably better to disengage American Idol Coping when you try to deal with the demands of stress Constructive Coping a good way to deal with stress o Confront problems directly by actions o Optimistic the tendency to expect good outcomes o Social support aid and emotional support from social network Social bonds do not equal social support o Conscientiousness being disciplined and dependable o Exercise good for stress do the exercise you like to do Aerobic running bicycling anaerobic weight lifting 20 30 mins 3 times a week o Reframe but do it at the right time Chapter 12 Personality the unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits o Consistency if you are outgoing now you ll be outgoing in 50 years If you are conscientious at work you ll be conscientious at home as well o Distinctiveness why everyone reacts differently to a given situation Cattell came up with a test that rated someone on 16 different factors 16PF Now has been narrowed down to five factors Big Five the Five Factor Model on a continuum o Extraversion outgoing sociable upbeat and tend to be happier o