Stress and Coping

Stress

• a person’s biological and psychological reactions to adjustive demands
• a response to the demands for adjustment (usually in the environment)
  • may be internal or external

Types of Stress

• Eustress: positive situation
  • getting into the Dean’s List
• Distress: negative situation
  • failing on a major subject

Categories of Stressors

• Frustration: occurs when a person’s strivings toward a goal are blocked or by the absence of an appropriate goal
  • happens because you want something; goal is blocked or inappropriate
• Conflict: presence of 2 or more incompatible needs
  • Types of Conflict:
  • Approach-Avoidance Conflict
    • strong tendencies to approach and to avoid the same goal
  • Double Approach Conflict
    • choice between 2 or more desirable goals
  • Double Avoidance Conflict
    • choice between undesirable alternatives
• Pressure: a force that requires one to speed up, intensify effort, or change the direction of goal-oriented behavior
  • may be internal or external

What Makes Something Stressful?

Factors Predisposing an Individual to Stress

• Nature of Stressor: EXTERNAL
  • Importance: level of importance or how important it is to you
  • Duration: “How long does the stressor lasts?”
  • Cumulative Effect: stressors pile up; daily hassles
  • Multiplicity: stressors occur all at once
  • Imminence: imminent (very close); the closer the stressor is, the more impactful
  • Involvement: how involved you are = the amount of stress you feel
  • Degree of Control: high sense of control over the stressor = the less stressed you are
• Perception of Threat and Stress Tolerance: INTERNAL
  • Stress Tolerance: ability to withstand stress without becoming seriously impaired
  • something that you build up
  • better to be exposed to low level stress
  • “How tolerant am I of stress?”
  • If you perceive something as a threat, you are going to be stressed → fight or flight response
• External Resources and Social Support: EXTERNAL
  • Social Support: buffer for possible development of mental disorder

Coping Strategies

• Coping: efforts to deal with stress
• Levels of Coping with Stress
  • Biological: immunological defenses and damage-repair mechanisms
  • Psychological: learned coping patterns, defenses, social support
  • Sociocultural: group resources
• Basic Coping Strategies
  • Task-Oriented Coping: directed primarily at dealing with the requirements of the stressor
  • problem solving
  • “active way of coping”
  • addressing the problem head on
  • “Reducing Time Together"“: reducing but not completely cutting off
  • Defense-Oriented Coping: directed primarily at protecting the self from hurt and disorganization
  • psychological damage-repair mechanisms
  • ego-defense mechanisms
  • not directly dealing with it
  • emotional or psychological damage control
  • “passive way of coping”
  • “Ghosting”: possible that the person would continue to contact you
• Decompensation: process of lowering of adaptive functioning in biological and psychological levels
• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): a model proposed by Hans Selye that explains the course of biological and psychological decompensation under excessive stress
  • 3 Major Phases of GAS
  • Alarm Reaction: a person’s resources for coping with stress are alerted and mobilized
    • fight or flight response
    • Biological: obvious physiological signs
  • Resistance: maximum level of adaptation in the use of biological and psychological resources
  • Exhaustion: adaptive resources are depicted and the coping patterns for resistance began to fail
    • when all resources and adaptation are stopped or depicted and resistance starts to fail
    • you need to take a break and replenish yourself
• Burnout can happen if it’s prolonged (may manifest in resistance and/or exhaustion stage)

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