Chapter 14: Stress, Lifestyle, and Health

Vocabulary flashcards covering stressors, physiological models of stress, appraisal, coping mechanisms, personality factors, and health psychology concepts from Chapter 14.

Traumatic Events

Stressors involving exposure to actual or threatened death or serious injury.

Life Changes

Events that require individuals to make changes in their lives and take time to adjust to.

Background Stressors (Daily Hassles)

Minor irritations that people face repeatedly in their day-to-day lives.

Uplifts

Minor positive events that make an individual feel good.

Job Strain

A work condition characterized by excessive job demands and workload combined with little discretion or control.

Job Burnout

A state of emotional exhaustion and cynicism about one's job, consisting of three dimensions: exhaustion, depersonalization, and a sense of diminished personal accomplishment.

Primary Appraisal

The initial evaluation of whether a stressor represents a challenge (potential for gain or growth) or a threat (potential harm, loss, or negative consequences).

Secondary Appraisal

The cognitive evaluation of available coping options and their potential effectiveness in managing a stressor.

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

A three-stage physiological response pattern to prolonged stress consisting of alarm and mobilization, resistance, and exhaustion.

Alarm and Mobilization

The first stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), during which an individual becomes aware of the presence of a stressor.

Resistance

The second stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), involving physiological adaptation to actively fight and cope with the stressor.

Exhaustion

The third stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), in which the body's resources are depleted and negative physiological consequences appear.

Fight-or-Flight Response

A physiological reaction to stressors identified by Walter Cannon, characterized by increased blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, and sweating, produced by the sympathetic nervous system and the endocrine system.

HPA Axis

A physiological system composed of the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal glands that regulates many stress reactions by releasing hormones.

Cortisol

A primary stress hormone released by the adrenal glands that boosts energy to prepare the body to take action.

Psychophysiological Disorders

Actual medical problems and physical diseases that are brought about or worsened by an interaction of psychological, emotional, and physical difficulties.

Psychoneuroimmunology

The field of study focused on how psychological factors, such as stress, influence the immune system and immune functioning.

Immunosuppression

A decrease in the effectiveness of the immune system, frequently caused by stress.

Lymphocytes

White blood cells that play a vital role in the body's immune response.

Negative Affectivity

A dispositional tendency to experience negative emotional states, including anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness.

Type A

A behavior pattern characterized by extreme competitiveness, impatience, rushed behavior, and hostility, found by Friedman and Rosenman to correlate with a significantly higher risk of heart disease.

Type B

A behavior pattern characterized by a relaxed, calm, and laid-back approach to life.

Coping

Mental and behavioral efforts directed at managing stress-related problems, as conceptualized by Lazarus and Folkman.

Problem-Focused Coping

A coping mechanism that targets managing or altering the stressor itself through steps like identifying the problem, considering solutions, and choosing one; most effective for controllable stressors.

Emotion-Focused Coping

A coping mechanism that targets reducing the negative emotions associated with stress through avoiding, minimizing, distancing, or positive reappraisal; more effective for uncontrollable stressors.

Reappraisal

An emotion-focused coping technique that involves construing or framing a stressor differently without changing its actual objective threat.

Hardiness

A personality characteristic linked to lower rates of stress-related illness, consisting of three core components: commitment, challenge, and control.

Social Support

A mutual network of caring, interested others that helps buffer against the negative effects of stress.

Perceived Control

An individual's beliefs regarding their capacity to influence and shape life outcomes, which Albert Bandura identified as a major governor of stress intensity and chronicity.

Biofeedback

A stress-reduction technique in which electronic equipment measures involuntary neuromuscular and autonomic activity to provide real-time feedback, enabling voluntary control over these functions.

Relaxation Response

A stress reduction technique that integrates elements of both relaxation and meditation.

Reactance

A negative emotional and cognitive reaction triggered by a perceived restriction of one's personal freedom, often resulting in medical noncompliance.

Creative Nonadherence

The practice of altering a prescribed medical treatment regimen based on one's own medical judgment, beliefs, or personal experience.

Learned Helplessness

A state in which individuals conclude that unpleasant or aversive stimuli cannot be controlled, leading them to give up and stop attempting to alter aversive circumstances.

Hopelessness Theory

The reformulated attributional model of learned helplessness developed by Abramson, Seligman, and Teasdale, proposing that internal, stable, and global attributions for negative events make people especially prone to depression.