Stress, Coping, Adjustment, and Health

Flashcards on Stress, Coping, Adjustment, and Health. Includes definitions of stress, stress types, relevant models, personality types, and coping strategies.

Stress

The body's response to physical, mental, or emotional pressure; any interference that disturbs a person's mental or physical well-being.

Acute Stress

A short-term mental health condition.

Stress

The body's response to physical, mental, or emotional pressure; any interference that disturbs a person's mental or physical well-being.

Acute Stress

A short-term mental health condition.

Episodic Acute Stress

A condition where someone experiences acute stress frequently, making it difficult to return to a calm state.

Chronic Stress

A consistent sense of feeling pressured and overwhelmed for a long period of time.

Interactional Model

A model where objective events happen to a person, but personality factors determine the impact of events by influencing a person’s ability to cope.

Transactional Model

A model where personality can influence how a person appraises events, coping mechanisms, and the events themselves.

Health Behavior Model

A model where personality affects health indirectly through health-promoting or health-degrading behaviors.

Predisposition Model

A model where associations may exist between personality and illness because of a third variable causing them both.

Illness Behavior Model

A model where personality influences the degree to which a person perceives and pays attention to bodily sensations and interprets them as illness.

Flight-or-fight response

Increase of sympathetic nervous system activity in response to a stressor.

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

Alarm stage, resistance stage, and exhaustion stage.

Type A Personality

Competitive achievement motivation, time urgency, and hostility. An independent risk factor for developing cardiovascular disease.

Hostility

A strong predictor of cardiovascular disease, associated with systemic inflammation.

Disclosure

Arguing that not discussing traumatic, negative, or upsetting events can lead to problems; telling a secret can relieve stress and improve health.

Positive Reappraisal

Focusing on the good in what is happening during stress.

Problem-Focused Coping

Using thoughts and behaviors that manage or solve an underlying cause of stress.

Creating Positive Events

Creating a positive time-out from stress, leading to positive emotions.

Three Dimensions of Attribution

External vs. internal, unstable vs. stable, specific vs. global.

Optimists

People who make unstable, specific, and external explanations for bad events.

Pessimists

People who make stable, global, and internal explanations for bad events.

Dispositional Optimism

Expectation that good events will be plentiful and bad events will be rare in the future; predicts good health and health-promoting behaviors.