Stress, Health, and Psychological Disorders

Comprehensive flashcards covering stress definitions, the physiological response to stress, coping mechanisms, major psychological disorders (including depression and schizophrenia), and various therapeutic treatment models.

Stress

A state brought on by any situation that threatens or appears to threaten a person’s sense of well-being, challenging the individual’s ability to cope.

Stressor

A situation or circumstance that triggers the stress response.

Acute stressor

A stressful situation or circumstance that happens in the short term and has a definite endpoint.

Chronic stressor

A stressful situation or circumstance that is more long term and often lacks a definite endpoint.

Frustration

An emotion people experience when thwarted in pursuit of a goal.

Pressure

An expectation or demand that someone act in a certain way, often coming from within.

Yerkes-Dodson law

A principle developed in $1908$ holding that task performance increases with arousal up to an optimal level, after which performance decreases.

Conflict

Discomfort brought about by two or more goals or impulses perceived to be incompatible.

Approach–approach conflict

A conflict occurring when a person must choose between two equally desirable options.

Avoidance–avoidance conflict

A conflict occurring when a person must choose between two equally undesirable options.

Approach–avoidance conflict

A conflict occurring when any available choice has both desirable and undesirable qualities.

Daily Hassles

Everyday annoyances, also known as micro-stressors, that contribute to higher stress levels and can impair immune system responses.

Social readjustment scale

A compiled list of $43$ events likely to change a person’s life and cause stress, measured in Life Change Units (LCUs).

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

An anxiety disorder response to a major traumatic event, characterized by lingering, persistent, frightening memories, anxiety, and depression.

Adrenal medulla

The inner layer of the adrenal glands which releases epinephrine and norepinephrine into the bloodstream during stress.

Epinephrine

A chemical, also known as adrenaline, released by the adrenal medulla to arouse the body for fight or flight.

Norepinephrine

A chemical, also known as noradrenaline, that acts as a neurotransmitter and hormone to arouse the body; it also influences immune functioning.

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

A three-stage response to stress identified by Hans Selye consisting of alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.

Alarm stage

The first stage of GAS where the organism becomes physically aroused as it prepares to face a challenge.

Resistance stage

The second stage of GAS where the body undergoes changes to stabilize itself and resistance to the stressor is elevated.

Exhaustion stage

The third stage of GAS where the body is depleted of energy and has little ability to resist, potentially leading to organ damage.

Primary appraisal

The first stage in Richard Lazarus's description of stress experience involving the determination of how severe a stressor is.

Secondary appraisal

The second stage in Richard Lazarus's description of stress experience involving an assessment of personal resources and ability to cope.

Type A personality

A personality type characterized by competitiveness, impatience, anger, and hostility, and linked to coronary heart disease.

Type B personality

A personality type that is less aggressive, more relaxed, and less hostile than Type A.

Hardy personality

A stress-resistant personality type where individuals welcome challenges, take control, and perceive stressors as growth opportunities.

Type C personality

A personality type characterized by difficulty in expressing or acknowledging negative feelings.

Type D (distressed) personality

A personality type characterized by negative affectivity, such as worry or gloominess, and social inhibition.

Coping

Efforts to manage, reduce, or tolerate stress.

Concentrative meditation

A technique where people actively concentrate on a mantra to calm and focus the mind.

Mantra

An object, word, phrase, or idea used during concentrative meditation to clear the mind.

Problem-focused coping

Coping strategies focused on dealing directly with the stressor by changing it in some way.

Emotion-focused coping

Coping strategies focused on changing one’s feelings about the stressor.

Cognitive reappraisal

Finding a way to reinterpret negative aspects of an uncontrollable situation to make them less upsetting.

Coronary heart disease

A condition involving blocking of the coronary arteries, including myocardial infarction (heart attack).

Psychoneuroimmunology

The area of study focusing on links between stress, the immune system, and health.

Lymphocytes

White blood cells that circulate the body to destroy foreign invaders and cancer cells.

Cortisol

A stress hormone that lowers immune system functioning during extended stress but stimulates cytokines during acute stress.

Cytokines

Proteins that play a key role in activating the immune system and can lead to chronic inflammation if produced ongoingly.

Distress

Stress caused by unpleasant situations or circumstances.

Eustress

The optimal level of stress needed to promote physical and psychological health.

Inoculation

Exposing oneself to low levels of stress in controlled situations to improve performance in future stressful situations.

Abnormal psychology

The scientific study of psychological disorders.

Deviance

Behavior, thoughts, and emotions that deviate from a society's ideas about proper functioning.

Dysfunction

Behavior that interferes with daily functioning, such as self-care, social interaction, or work.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5)

The leading classification system for psychological disorders in Canada, describing symptoms for over $200$ disorders.

Comorbidity

The condition in which a person’s symptoms qualify him or her for two or more diagnoses.

Diathesis-stress model

The idea that a person inherits a genetic predisposition for a disorder that remains undeveloped until triggered by a stressful life event.

Selective perception

A cognitive problem involving seeing only the negative features of an event.

Magnification

A cognitive distortion involving exaggerating the importance of undesirable events.

Overgeneralization

Drawing broad negative conclusions on the basis of a single insignificant event.

Family systems theory

A theory holding that each family has implicit rules, relationship structures, and communication patterns that shape individual behavior.

Developmental psychopathology

The study of how problem behaviors evolve as a function of genes and early experiences across life stages.

Equifinality

The idea that different children can start from different points and wind up at the same outcome.

Multifinality

The idea that children can start from the same point and wind up at any number of different outcomes.

Major depressive disorder

A disorder characterized by a depressed mood that is significantly disabling and not caused by drugs or medical conditions.

Cognitive triad

A pattern identified by Beck where individuals repeatedly interpret their experiences, themselves, and their futures negatively.

Automatic thoughts

Specific, unbidden, upsetting thoughts that suggest an individual is inadequate or their situation is hopeless.

Bipolar disorder

A mood disorder in which periods of mania alternate with periods of depression.

Mania

A persistent state of euphoria or frenzied energy characterized by poor judgment and constant excitement.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)

An anxiety disorder in which people feel excessive anxiety and worry under most circumstances.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)

A neurotransmitter that carries inhibitory messages to stop neurons from firing, helping to halt states of excitability.

Social anxiety disorder

An anxiety disorder involving severe and irrational fears of social or performance situations where embarrassment may occur.

Phobia

A persistent and unreasonable fear of a particular object, activity, or situation.

Panic disorder

An anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent and unpredictable short bouts of panic occurring without provocation.

Agoraphobia

A phobia making people avoid public places where escape might be difficult should panic symptoms develop.

Obsessions

Persistent thoughts, ideas, impulses, or images that seem to invade a person's consciousness.

Compulsions

Irrational, repetitive, and rigid behaviors or mental acts performed to prevent or reduce anxiety.

Schizophrenia

A mental disorder characterized by disorganized thoughts, hallucinations, and lack of contact with reality.

Delusions

Blatantly false beliefs firmly held despite evidence to the contrary, such as delusions of persecution.

Hallucinations

Imagined sights, sounds, or other sensory events experienced as if they were real.

Negative symptoms

Pathological deficits in schizophrenia, including poverty of speech, flat affect, and social withdrawal.

Catatonia

Extreme psychomotor symptoms of schizophrenia, including stupor, rigidity, and posturing.

Deinstitutionalization

The process of transferring individuals with mental disorders from long-stay hospitals to community-based services.

Psychotropic drugs

Medications that act primarily on the brain to lift mood, reduce tension, or correct distorted thinking.

Lithium

A salt and mood stabilizer commonly prescribed to treat bipolar disorder and prevent relapses.

Tardive dyskinesia

A severe side effect of typical antipsychotic drugs involving involuntary muscle movements.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

The use of electric shock to trigger a brain seizure to relieve severe depression that is non-responsive to other treatments.

Psychosurgery

Brain surgery used in hopes of relieving abnormal functioning, including practices like lobotomy.

Systematic desensitization

A behavioral treatment for phobias where clients learn deep-muscle relaxation and then confront a fear hierarchy.

Fear hierarchy

A list of objects or situations associated with a phobia, ranked from least to most feared.

Aversion therapy

Therapy designed to help clients acquire anxiety responses to stimuli they find too attractive.

Token economy

An operant conditioning program where participants receive tokens for desired behaviors that can be traded for rewards.

Rational-emotive behavioural therapy (REBT)

Albert Ellis's technique designed to change irrational assumptions that govern a client's emotions and behavior.

Client-centred therapy

Carl Rogers' humanistic therapy designed to provide unconditional positive regard, accurate empathy, and genuineness.

Gestalt therapy

A therapy aimed at self-recognition and acceptance through techniques like skillful frustration and role playing.

Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT)

A holistic update to CBT developed by Marsha Linehan that emphasizes mindfulness, acceptance, and change.