Exam 4 Pyschology

What is stress?

Any event or environment stimulus (stressor) that we respond to because we perceive it as challenging or threatening.

What are the three aspects of stress?

Stressors: Stimuli in our lives that we perceive as challenges or threats (traffic, midterm, hurricane, etc)

Reactions: The physiological and behavioral changes associated with the stressors.

Cope: How we cope with the challenges or threats (whether successfully or unsuccessfully.)

What is the social adjustment scale?

Life events (both good and bad) can be perceived as stressful and require us to adjust to them. Major life event is given a numerical value. The scale shows positive and negative events.

What is the impact of Catastrophes and Traumas?

People are generally more likely to experience depression or anxiety. ex: PTSD. However, they don’t always affect physical and mental health negatively. ex: resilience, posttraumatic growth or benefit-finding

What is the impact of trauma?

What is antifragility (technically and practically?)

require stressors and challenges in order to learn, adapt, and grow. Systems that are antifragile become rigid, weak, and inefficient when nothing challenges them or pushes them to respond vigorously.

What can potentially happen to overprotected children?

Overprotected children become anxious adults. The rise in anxiety among college students correlates with a culture that teaches kids to fear discomfort. Instead of learning that they can survive stress, they’re taught that even small stressors are dangerous.

What is resilience?

adapting well to significant stressors.

What is internal locus of control and examples?

You believe that your actions influence outcomes. Success or failure depends on mostly what you do.

Ex: people who are high in trait conscientiousness, improved coping with stress, higher self-efficacy and confidence.

What is a external focus of control with examples?

You believe that your actions influence outcomes. Success or failure depends on mostly what you do.

Ex: people with a high external locus of control often show higher levels of neuroticism—anxiety, helplessness, and emotional reactivity. IF you believe you can’t control what happens to you, you’re more likely to feel stressed, overwhelmed, and pessimistic.

Externals- luck, chance, powerful other control outcomes

What are the conflict scenarios?

Avoidance-avoidance conflicts: the easiest conflict to resolve, and therefore the conflict that is accompanied by the least amount of perceived stress, is the approach-approach conflict, but which a person must choose between two likable, or positive, events.

Approach-avoidance conflicts: a person is faced with a desire or need that has both positive and negative qualities. The individual is drawn to the situation because of its positive features (approach), but is also repelled by and would rather not experience the negative aspects of the situation (avoidance).

How do we access stress?

1. Primary Appraisal: Our initial interpretation of an event. Can be irrelevant, positive, or stressful.

2. Secondary Appraisal: Once you appraise a situation or event as a threat or a challenge, you must evaluate what can be sone to cope with or manage the stressor.

What are the three stages of Selye’s General Adaption Syndrome?

Initial Alarm Reaction: consists of those bodily responses that are immediately triggered when we initially appraise an event as stressful. ex: car alarm goes off.

Resistance: the body continues its efforts to repair itself and store energy to cope with the stressor. The sympathetic nervous system and HPA axis continue to be activated. ex: less intense than alarm reaction

Exhaustion: wear and tear on the body begins. High levels of adrenaline and corticosteroids in the body over a prolonged period of time damage the heart and lessen the effectiveness of the immune system. ex: more vulnerable to heart disease

What are each personality typoids?

Type A: competitive, verbally aggressive, overcommitted to achieving, impatient, hostile attitude when frustrated, sense of time urgency, workaholic, easily angered.

Type B: easygoing, calm, relaxed, patient, trusting, good natured, lower need for achievement, supportive.

Type C: cautious, careful, detached, introspective, sensitive to criticism, serious, results oriented, suppressed emotion.

Type D: distressed, worrisome, isolated, irritated, sad, lonely, fear of rejection and disapproval, suppressed emotions

What is social psychology?

the study of how we think and behave in the vast array of social situations that we experience

How do we acquire attitudes through learning?

classical conditioning or operant conditioning

What is attitude-behavior consistency?

behaving in a manner that contradicts your attitude

What are the benefits and downfalls of attitude-behavior consistency?

benefits: social belonging and acceptance, avoiding conflict or judgement, learning and adapting, cognitive dissonance and growth

downfalls: state of unease, much like being anxious. It stems from the realization that we have behaved in a way that is contrary to our self-concept.

What is cognitive dissonance?

inconsistencies among attitudes or between attitudes and behavior cause and unpleasant physical state.

What are the two aspects of persuasion that we went over?

Central Route Persuasion: carefully and critically evaluate the logic of the persuasive arguments we encounter.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion: we do not attempt to critically evaluate the arguments and are instead persuaded by superficial aspects of the arguments such as the likability of the person making them or the attractiveness of the ad.

What are the various variables that impact our lives?

Communicator Variables: tend to be most persuaded when the communicator is attractive, appears to be creditable or have relevant knowledge, appears to be an expert

Message Variables: logic of the persuasive arguments has its greatest impact when we are processing on the central route, for it is here that we can truely appreciate the goodness of the argument. Superficial cues such as the ease of navigation on a website and the attractiveness of a print ad are more likely to be persuasive to people processing on the peripheral route.

Audience Variables: effective persuasion is heavily dependent on who is being persuaded. In general, all if us are easily persuaded on the peripheral rather than the central route to persuasion. However, individual differences among us can also influence whether we are persuaded. Variables like intelligence, self-esteem, mood can all affect our tendency to be persuaded.