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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)