Introduction to Stress Management

Vocabulary flashcards covering core definitions, major researchers, physiological models, and historical findings in stress research based on Chapter 1.

Stress

The response of the body to any demand placed on it, which can stem from external or internal demands.

Psychological Schema

An individual's cognitive framework and personal judgment regarding whether a situation is stressful and whether they possess the ability to cope with it.

Coping Strategies

Individual mechanisms for managing stress, composed of internal modes of thinking and external protective factors such as family, friends, and social support.

Walter Cannon

A physiologist at Harvard Medical School who first described the body's physical response to stress and coined the term fight or flight response.

Fight or Flight Response

The body's automatic physiological preparation to either confront or run away from a perceived threat, marked by symptoms like increased heartbeat, perspiration, and muscle tension.

Hans Selye

An endocrinologist who published The Stress of Life in 1956, defined stress as a non-specific response of the body to any demand, and conceptualized the General Adaptation Syndrome.

Stressor

Any factor or stimulus that has the potential to create stress in an individual.

Stress Reactivity

Hans Selye's finding that the body responds in the exact same tri-phasic manner regardless of the specific source of stress.

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

A three-phase process of stress reactivity described by Hans Selye, consisting of alarm reaction, stage of resistance, and stage of exhaustion.

Alarm Reaction

The initial stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome in which the body identifies a stressful stimulus and displays initial physiological changes upon exposure.

Stage of Resistance

The second phase of the General Adaptation Syndrome during which the body attempts to fight and adapt to the stressor, raising its bodily resistance higher than normal.

Stage of Exhaustion

The third phase of the General Adaptation Syndrome occurring after long-continued stress depletes bodily energy, leading to illness or physical breakdown.

Eustress

Stress resulting from positive or good demands (such as a job promotion) that require adaptation.

Distress

Stress resulting from negative or bad demands (such as bereavement) that require adaptation.

Psychosomatic Disease

A physical illness or bodily disorder caused by stress within an individual.

Simons (1961)

A researcher who related human evolution to psychosomatic disease, noting that the brain uses primitive survival mechanisms to respond to modern symbolic stressors.

Symbolic Stressors

Non-survival threats (such as fear of embarrassment or public speaking) that trigger primitive fight or flight physiological responses in the human brain.

Holmes and Rahe (1967)

Researchers who established that the frequency and severity of significant life changes directly increase the likelihood of illness onset.

Daily Hassles

Routine everyday stressors identified by Lazarus, DeLongis, and others as significantly detrimental factors to health alongside major life changes.

Harald Wolff (1953)

A researcher who attributed the higher mortality rate in Japanese concentration camps (1 in 30) compared to German camps (1 in 100) to higher emotional stress caused by severe environmental disharmony.