Stress, Health, and

Human Flourishing
CH 10

Chapter Preview
What is stress?
How can we minimize the negative effects?
How can we increase human growth and
development in healthy ways?

Happiness

What is stress?
The process by which we appraise and cope with
environmental threats and challenges

Stressors
Stress Reactions
Emotional
Physiological
Behavioral

Stress: An Everyday Event

Major stressors vs. routine hassles
Cumulative nature of stress
Cognitive appraisals

Categories of Stress
Frustration: blocked goal

Conflict: incompatible
motivations

Approach-approach
Avoidance-avoidance
Approach-avoidance

Categories of Stress
Change: having to
adapt

Social Readjustment
Rating Scale
Life Change Units

Pressure
Perform/conform

Stress: Some Basic

Concepts
Stress reactionsFrom alarm to exhaustion
Cannon
Sympathetic nervous system
Flight-or-fight response
Selye
General adaptation syndrome (GAS)
Taylor
Tend-and-befriend

Overview of the Stress

Process

Responding to Stress Emotionally

Emotional Responses
Annoyance, anger, rage
Apprehension, anxiety,
fear
Dejection, sadness, grief
Positive emotions

Emotional response
and performance
The inverted-Uhypothesis

Responding to Stress
Physiologically
Physiological Responses
Fight-or-flight response
Selyes General Adaptation Syndrome
Alarm
Resistance
Exhaustion

APPhoto/Chile'sPresidency

APPhoto/LuisHidalgo

Selyes General Adaptation

Syndrome

Responding to Stress
Physiologically
Hormones
released from the
hypothalamus
trigger a cascade
of hormonal
responses

Responding to Stress Behaviorally

Behavioral Responses
Frustration-aggression
hypothesis
catharsis
defense mechanisms

Coping

Reappraisal
Confronting problems
Using humor
Expressing emotions
Managing hostility

Effects of Stress:
Behavioral and Psychological
Impaired task
performance

Burnout
Psychological
problems and
disorders

Positive effects

Stress Effects and Health

Psychoneuroimmunology:
Studies our
mind-body
interactions

Emotions
(psycho)

which controls
the stress
hormones that
influence your
disease-fighting
immune system.

This field is the

study of (ology)
those
interactions.

affect your brain

(neuro)

A Simplified View Of
Immune Responses
CNRI/ScienceSource

Fuse/Thinkstock

NIBSC/ScienceSource

LennartNilsson/Boehringer
IngelheimInternaAonalGmbH

EyeofScience/ScienceSource

Laurent/Yakou/ScienceSource

Stress And Colds

People with the highest life-stress scores were also most likely to
develop colds when exposed to an experimentally delivered virus
(Cohen et al., 1999).

The Relationship
Between Stress and Disease
Contagious diseases
vs. chronic diseases
Biopsychosocial model
Health psychology
Health promotion and
maintenance
Discovery of causation,
prevention, and
treatment

Effects of Stress: Physical

Psychosomatic diseases
Heart disease
Type A behavior - 3

elements
strong competitiveness
impatience and time
urgency
anger and hostility

Emotional reactions and

depression

Stress Can Have A Variety Of

Health - Related Consequences

Coping With Stress

People deal with stress in a variety of
ways.
Coping
Problem-focused coping
Emotion-focused coping

Coping Skills
Problem-focused coping
Taking direct action
Planning
Suppression of competing
activities
Restraint coping
Seeking social support

Emotion-focused coping
Focusing on and venting
emotions
Behavioral disengagement
Mental disengagement
Positive reappraisal
Denial
Acceptance
Turning to religion

Factors Moderating the Impact of

Stress
Locus of Control
Social Support
Personality Factors

Locus of Control

Animal 1 receives a shock but

can turn it off by turning the
barrel

Animal 2 receives same duration shock

as Animal 1 but can not turn the shock
off

Results: Animal 2 has higher CORT and more ulcers than Animal 1 even though
the animals were exposed to exactly the same duration of shocks. Only difference
was that Animal 1 could control the stressor whereas Animal 2 could not.

Social Support

Personality Factors
Optimism
Conscientiousness
Autonomic reactivity

Activity

Managing Stress Effects

Aerobic exercise
Relaxation and meditation
Faith communities and health

AEROBIC EXERCISE REDUCED

DEPRESSION
(From McCann & Holmes, 1984.)

OLJStudio/ShuIerstock

Does aerobic exercise

produce a change in
stress, depression,
anxiety, or other health
outcomes?

Relaxation and Meditation

DavidMadison/Jupiterimages

Recurrent Heart Attacks And

Life-Style Modification

The San Francisco Recurrent Coronary Prevention Project offered counseling

from a cardiologist to survivors of heart attacks. Those who were also guided in
modifying their Type A lifestyle suffered fewer repeat heart attacks. (From
Friedman & Ulmer, 1984.)

Mindfullness

Managing Stress Effects

Faith communities and health: Faith Factor
Religious involvement predicts health and longevity.

Happiness
Resilience
The short life of emotional ups and downs
Wealth and well-being
Why cant money buy more happiness?

Happiness
Resilience
Involves process of bouncing back in the face of
adversity or significant sources of stress

CourtesyofAnnaPuI

HUMAN RESILIENCE

Short life of Emotional Ups

and Downs

USING WEB SCIENCE TO TRACK HAPPY DAYS

The days with the

most positive moods

are Friday and
Saturday (Facebook)

A similar analysis of

emotion-related words
in 59 million Twitter
messages found
Friday to Sunday the
weeks happiest days.

Adam Kramer (personal correspondence,

2010) tracked positive and negative
emotion words in many exact number is
proprietary information) of status updates of
U.S. users of Facebook between
September 7, 2007, and November 17,
2010.

THE CHANGING MATERIALISM OF ENTERING COLLEGE STUDENTS

Yearly surveys of more than 200,000 entering U.S. college students
have, since 1970, revealed an increasing desire for wealth.
(From The American Freshman surveys, UCLA, 1966 to 2012.)

Does money buy happiness?

Economic growth in
wealthy countries has
provided no apparent
boost to morale or social
well - being.

Why Cant Money Buy

Happiness?
Happiness is relative
Relative to personal experience
Relative deprivation: Sense that people feel that they are
worse off than others with whom they compare
themselves

Relative to success of others

As people climb the ladder of success they mostly

compare themselves with local peers who are at or above

their current level.

Happiness
Predictors of happiness
Genes: Heredity accounts for about 50 percent of
happiness ratings differences.
Personal history: Emotions balance around level defined
by experiences.
Culture: Groups vary in the traits valued.

Is there a happiness set-point?

Pursuit of Happiness
Biological Factors
set point

Obstacles
hedonic treadmill

Happiness Activities & Goal Striving

altruism, physical activity, positive self-reflection
personally meaningful goals

How Happy are Americans?

Based on Pew Research Center Report, 2006