PSYCH 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Adrenocorticotropic Hormone, Clogging, Hans Selye
24 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
From Personality to Stress
Stress-reactivity:
Individual difference factor, a trait
•
Some may be more disposed to perceive events as hassles
•
Some people are more disposed to experience major stressful events
•
Three Examples:
Optimism:
The trait of "optimism" is associated with the following empirical findings:
High in optimism tend to be:
Less illness symptoms in college and beyond
1)
More active approach to stress and problem solving
2)
Higher levels of academic success and performance
3)
More likely to complete treatment programs for alcoholism
4)
More likely to recover well from heart surgery or heart
disease
5)
Strong immune systems
6)
Respond to stressors with smaller increase in blood pressure
7)
Less likely to have cardiac issues
8)
i.
a.
1.
Self-Efficacy (Albert Bandura)
Degree to which you believe you can control your future
a.
High in self-efficacy have more hope in themselves
b.
2.
Hardiness
Tend to believe that they are in control of themselves
a.
Believe that what they do will affect themselves
b.
"Hardiness is a trait of people who demonstrate:
Commitment (sense of purpose/involvement with work and family)
i.
Challenge (openness to new experiences and desire to embrace
them)
ii.
Control (belief that one has power to influence important future
outcomes-- high self-efficacy and low learned helplessness)
iii.
c.
Experience less stressful hasslesd.
Respond to threat and challenge with less physiological stresse.
3.
What is "stress"?
Hans Selye is the pioneer of stress psychology
Emphasized that:
Stressor is a stimulus event that produces stress response
What are our stressors?
External stressors: eg loss of job, relationship problems,
classes not going well
®
Internal stressors: eg chronic self criticism/depressive
thinking/social anxiety/hostility
®
□
§
○
•
Stress is the nonspecific response of the organism to any pressure or demand •
Selye's "General Adaption Syndrome" (GAS)
3 phase of physiological stress-response:
Alarm
First reaction when stressed is to FOCUS and your alarm turns
on
□
Sympathetic Nervous System□
Amygdala reacts □
Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) releases adrenaline via
Hypothalamus
□
HPA-Axis (Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal Axis)□
Look at diagram □
Hypothalamus sends signal (CFR signal) to your pituitary gland
and it releases (ACTH) to the adrenal gland and the adrenal
gland released a cascade of glucocorticoids which releases
cortisol into your bloodstream
□
§
Resistance
Your stress is too long□
§
Exhaustion
Which leads to exhaustion which leads to disease and death □
4 Consequences of Chronic Cortisol:
Decrease in immune functioning
®
Decrease the process of hippocampal neurogenesis
Happens in the hippocampus
Hippocampus related to memory
}
Can grow more neurons, which is a part of a
healthy system
}
◊
Memory can worsen and aging and can influence
health through influencing your brain and your
mind
◊
®
Increase your visceral (Abdominal) Fat
Makes you fatter
◊
®
Increases arterial plaque
Fat building up in the arteries
◊
Clogging of the arteries
Lead to heart attacks and strokes
}
◊
®
□
§
○
•
Stress is Objective and Subjective
Two Classes of "Objective" Stressors:
Major Life Events
Holmes and Rahe's developed the "Social Readjustment Rating
Scale" (SRRS) as an objective checklist of Major Life Events
i.
1.
Daily Hassles 2.
•
What is a Daily Hassle and how is it a stressor?
People with large numbers of hassles are more emotionally distressed
○
Major Stressful Life Events affect us through the daily hassles they
produce
○
•
Stress is an objective RESPONSE
Physiological and Psychological Stress-Responses (stress-reactions) develop in
relation to challenging events (stressors) experienced by individuals
•
Stress reactions often become chronic:
Physiological production of stress-hormones (eg adrenaline, cortisol)
○
Negative cognitive appraisals (perception of harm and threat)
○
Behavioral habits non-conductive to health (patterns of sleep, eating,
drug and alcohol use, physical activity, maladaptive recruitment or social
support)
Reflective of your personality
§
○
•
The Impact of Major Life Events Depends on Individual Differences
in:
Appraisal (thinking)
Primary: automatic, built in, maybe even genetic, basic rapid fire appraisal 1.
Secondary: thinking about what you just experienced, rethinking appraisal2.
1.
Coping (responding)
How do you react to the activation in your life?1.
How do you cope? 2.
Two coping strategies
Emotion Focused coping
Style of reaction where the person who has the style of
emotion focus coping tends to mentally get rid of the
unpleasant event, they try to avoid it, avoiding the things that
make you upset and trying not to feel them
1)
Tends to resolve in poor outcomes for people 2)
Avoiding the problem 3)
i.
Problem Solving coping
Measured thoughtful, breaking down of what's occurring,
secondary appraisal, relooking, and planning and developing
solutions to fix the problem
1)
Facing the problem 2)
ii.
3.
2.
All Events Represent Potential Stressors and are "appraised"
3 kinds of appraisal
Harm (a damaging event has occurred)1.
Threat (a potential future harm is appraised as approaching) 2.
Challenge (events appraised as opportunities rather than threats) 3.
•
Harm and threat appraisals INDUCE psychological stress •
Perception-->Appraisal-->Emotions/Coping
Coping, and negative emotions, and "stress-reactivity" depend heavily on:
The personality (cognitive-style and trait organization) of the
perceiver
§
The non-personality produced mental and behavioral habits of the
perceiver (stress-management styles and skills)
§
○
•
Stress Management
Stress is both a response and a process of adjustment •
We appraise all events, and in so-appraising we express core personality traits •
Personality traits that create vulnerability to stress-reactions (ex. Low self
efficacy, low optimism, high pessimism, high neuroticism) can be modulated*
with concentrated focus on behavioral and emotional health
Modulated: to play in tune
○
•
Psychotherapy and mediation target re-appraisal of our experiences, along with
developing new coping skills
Helps us look at things/behave differently
○
•
Can Happiness be Developed? SUKHA
Sukha- enduring happiness
Involves caring about others
○
•
People who are agreeable tend to have high trust in other people.
They are also the happiest people.
○
•
What does mindfulness do?
Generating a sense of calm recognition and looking at what's happening calmly •
The Target is: Afflictive Emotions and Personality
Craving1.
Hatred2.
Delusions of Independent Selfhood (ego) 3.
1/30/18 Personality and Stress
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
10:25 AM
From Personality to Stress
Stress-reactivity:
Individual difference factor, a trait•
Some may be more disposed to perceive events as hassles•
Some people are more disposed to experience major stressful events•
Three Examples:
Optimism:
The trait of "optimism" is associated with the following empirical findings:
High in optimism tend to be:
Less illness symptoms in college and beyond 1)
More active approach to stress and problem solving2)
Higher levels of academic success and performance3)
More likely to complete treatment programs for alcoholism 4)
More likely to recover well from heart surgery or heart
disease
5)
Strong immune systems 6)
Respond to stressors with smaller increase in blood pressure 7)
Less likely to have cardiac issues 8)
i.
a.
1.
Self-Efficacy (Albert Bandura)
Degree to which you believe you can control your futurea.
High in self-efficacy have more hope in themselvesb.
2.
Hardiness
Tend to believe that they are in control of themselvesa.
Believe that what they do will affect themselves b.
"Hardiness is a trait of people who demonstrate:
Commitment (sense of purpose/involvement with work and family)i.
Challenge (openness to new experiences and desire to embrace
them)
ii.
Control (belief that one has power to influence important future
outcomes-- high self-efficacy and low learned helplessness)
iii.
c.
Experience less stressful hassles
d.
Respond to threat and challenge with less physiological stress
e.
3.
What is "stress"?
Hans Selye is the pioneer of stress psychology
Emphasized that:
Stressor is a stimulus event that produces stress response
What are our stressors?
External stressors: eg loss of job, relationship problems,
classes not going well
®
Internal stressors: eg chronic self criticism/depressive
thinking/social anxiety/hostility
®
□
§
○
•
Stress is the nonspecific response of the organism to any pressure or demand
•
Selye's "General Adaption Syndrome" (GAS)
3 phase of physiological stress-response:
Alarm
First reaction when stressed is to FOCUS and your alarm turns
on
□
Sympathetic Nervous System
□
Amygdala reacts
□
Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) releases adrenaline via
Hypothalamus
□
HPA-Axis (Hypothalamic Pituitary Adrenal Axis)
□
Look at diagram
□
Hypothalamus sends signal (CFR signal) to your pituitary gland
and it releases (ACTH) to the adrenal gland and the adrenal
gland released a cascade of glucocorticoids which releases
cortisol into your bloodstream
□
§
Resistance
Your stress is too long
□
§
Exhaustion
Which leads to exhaustion which leads to disease and death
□
4 Consequences of Chronic Cortisol:
Decrease in immune functioning
®
Decrease the process of hippocampal neurogenesis
Happens in the hippocampus
Hippocampus related to memory
}
Can grow more neurons, which is a part of a
healthy system
}
◊
Memory can worsen and aging and can influence
health through influencing your brain and your
mind
◊
®
Increase your visceral (Abdominal) Fat
Makes you fatter
◊
®
Increases arterial plaque
Fat building up in the arteries
◊
Clogging of the arteries
Lead to heart attacks and strokes
}
◊
®
□
§
○
•
Stress is Objective and Subjective
Two Classes of "Objective" Stressors:
Major Life Events
Holmes and Rahe's developed the "Social Readjustment Rating
Scale" (SRRS) as an objective checklist of Major Life Events
i.
1.
Daily Hassles 2.
•
What is a Daily Hassle and how is it a stressor?
People with large numbers of hassles are more emotionally distressed
○
Major Stressful Life Events affect us through the daily hassles they
produce
○
•
Stress is an objective RESPONSE
Physiological and Psychological Stress-Responses (stress-reactions) develop in
relation to challenging events (stressors) experienced by individuals
•
Stress reactions often become chronic:
Physiological production of stress-hormones (eg adrenaline, cortisol)
○
Negative cognitive appraisals (perception of harm and threat)
○
Behavioral habits non-conductive to health (patterns of sleep, eating,
drug and alcohol use, physical activity, maladaptive recruitment or social
support)
Reflective of your personality
§
○
•
The Impact of Major Life Events Depends on Individual Differences
in:
Appraisal (thinking)
Primary: automatic, built in, maybe even genetic, basic rapid fire appraisal 1.
Secondary: thinking about what you just experienced, rethinking appraisal2.
1.
Coping (responding)
How do you react to the activation in your life?1.
How do you cope? 2.
Two coping strategies
Emotion Focused coping
Style of reaction where the person who has the style of
emotion focus coping tends to mentally get rid of the
unpleasant event, they try to avoid it, avoiding the things that
make you upset and trying not to feel them
1)
Tends to resolve in poor outcomes for people 2)
Avoiding the problem 3)
i.
Problem Solving coping
Measured thoughtful, breaking down of what's occurring,
secondary appraisal, relooking, and planning and developing
solutions to fix the problem
1)
Facing the problem 2)
ii.
3.
2.
All Events Represent Potential Stressors and are "appraised"
3 kinds of appraisal
Harm (a damaging event has occurred)1.
Threat (a potential future harm is appraised as approaching) 2.
Challenge (events appraised as opportunities rather than threats) 3.
•
Harm and threat appraisals INDUCE psychological stress •
Perception-->Appraisal-->Emotions/Coping
Coping, and negative emotions, and "stress-reactivity" depend heavily on:
The personality (cognitive-style and trait organization) of the
perceiver
§
The non-personality produced mental and behavioral habits of the
perceiver (stress-management styles and skills)
§
○
•
Stress Management
Stress is both a response and a process of adjustment •
We appraise all events, and in so-appraising we express core personality traits •
Personality traits that create vulnerability to stress-reactions (ex. Low self
efficacy, low optimism, high pessimism, high neuroticism) can be modulated*
with concentrated focus on behavioral and emotional health
Modulated: to play in tune
○
•
Psychotherapy and mediation target re-appraisal of our experiences, along with
developing new coping skills
Helps us look at things/behave differently
○
•
Can Happiness be Developed? SUKHA
Sukha- enduring happiness
Involves caring about others
○
•
People who are agreeable tend to have high trust in other people.
They are also the happiest people.
○
•
What does mindfulness do?
Generating a sense of calm recognition and looking at what's happening calmly •
The Target is: Afflictive Emotions and Personality
Craving1.
Hatred2.
Delusions of Independent Selfhood (ego) 3.
1/30/18 Personality and Stress
Tuesday, January 30, 2018 10:25 AM
