Causes and sources of stress

Stress:  our emotional and physiological reactions to situations in which we feel in conflict or threatened beyond our capacity to cope or endure.

• Lazarus and Folkman (1984) described it as “a pattern of negative physiological states and psychological responses occurring in situations where people perceive threats to their well-being which they are unable to meet.” 

Physiological causes of stress and effects on health

The physiological response to stress is controlled by two body systems:

1. Automatic nervous system – composed by two antagonistic sub-systems, which acts rapidly to stimulate physiological changes such as breathing and heart rate and affecting the endocrine system.
2. Endocrine system – provides a slower response using hormones released in response to signals. In an emergency, the sympathetic branch of the automatic nervous system responds quickly and prepares for ‘fight or flight’ and adrenaline hormones are released. This is called the sympathetic adrenal medullary system.

Possible effects of stress:

• Cardiovascular problems – Elevated levels of adrenaline and cortisol (stress hormones) increase the heart rate and blood pressure in order to send the body into ‘fight or flight’ mode. This increases the chance of heart diseases or heart attacks occurring.
• Gastrointestinal problems – Stress can increase the levels of acids released in the stomach, which can lead to ulcers and digestive problems.

The GAS Model – General Adaption Syndrome 

SELYE (1947) began to explore the links between stress and illness by inducing rats with stress using stressors like heat and fatigue. He came up with three phases of stress that lead to illness if it persists:

1. Alarm reaction – The mechanisms for danger are activated. Respiration rate, heart rate and blood pressure increase.
2. Resistance stage – The person struggles to cope and the body attempts to return to its previous physiological state, which happens if no more stress is expressed. However, if the opposite occurs, the body is more vulnerable to stress and coping will get more difficult.
3. Exhaustion stage – If the stressor persists and the body is not able to go back to the previous stage, physical resources will become depleted leading to collapse. 

Lack of Control 

GEER AND MAISEL (1972) found that having control to terminate aversive stimuli reduces the stressful impact on the person. This study was conducted with 60 psychology undergraduates, who were randomly assigned to 3 conditions – group with control over the pictures, predictability group and a control group.

For more detailed information – Geer and Maisel (1972)

Wallston et al (1978) measures factors that individual’s believe determine their health outcomes and they are assessed by three dimensions:

1. Internal health locus of control – extent to which individuals feel able to be responsible for their own stress levels.
2. Powerful other’s control over health – refers to the belief that other important people play a role in the experience of stress.
3. Chance health locus of control – refers to the role of pure ‘luck’. Thus, the belief that whatever someone does, they cannot prevent getting stressed.

Daily Hassles 

LAZARUS (1981) developed the daily hassles scale, which lists 117 daily events to rate as uplift or hassle from 1 to 3. This was based from the idea that petty annoyances, frustrations and unpleasant surprises reduce the psychological well-being. Thus, the higher the score, the more stress is experienced, meaning that there is an increased chance of developing an illness.

Strengths:

• Subjective –  stress is a individual experience, therefore this measure makes it more valid and reliable for individual differences.
• Good for younger people – compared to the SRRS by Holmes and Rahe, this scale allows for stress to be measured in younger people more reliably as many of the life events are likely to happen to everyone.

Weaknesses:

• Self-report measure –  questionnaires are likely to be affected by social desirability bias as people may not want to reveal certain things about themselves. This would reduce the reliability of results.
• Correlation –  the measure only makes a link between the higher stress, the more likely an illness will be developed because different people may have lower or higher resistance to stress.

Work 

JOHANSSON ET AL (1978) found out that workers in the high-risk group had adrenaline twice as high on arrival at work than when they were at home and these continued to rise during the day. On the other hand, the workers in the low-risk group had adrenaline levels 1.5 times higher on arrival at work than when they were at home but these lowered throughout the day. Thus, the first group felt more stress and irritation.

For more detailed information – Johansson et al (1978)

Life Events 

HOLMES AND RAHE (1967) constructed the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) to measure the amount of stress a person experiences over a certain period of time – usually 1 year. There are 43 life events, which are given a score out of a 100, and patients need to tick which ones they have experienced during the period. Once all the scores have been added up, it is possible to understand whether a person is more likely to develop an illness:

• <150 life change units = 30% chance of illness
• 150-299 life change units = 50% chance of illness
• >300 life change units = 80% chance of illness

For more detailed information – Holmes and Rahe (1967)

Personality 

FRIEDMAN AND ROSENMAN (1974) suggested that there are two personality types:

• Type A – highly competitive, impatient, time pressured and goal-directed.
• Type B – relaxed, value the quality of life and non-competitive 

The researchers decided to study this after they observed their coronary patients tended to sit on the edge a of a seat and get up quickly to ask how much longer they had to wait. Thus, they believed there could be a connection between HEART CONDITIONS and TENSE, FRENETIC BEHAVIOUR.

In 1976, they conducted a longitudinal study for 8 and half year with 3154 health men aged between 39-59. They had to complete a questionnaire to determine their personality. It was found that:

• Twice the number of TYPE A personalities died of cardiovascular problems.
• +12% of TYPE A personalities had heart attacks, compared to +6% of TYPE B personalities.
• TYPE A personalities had higher blood pressure, cholesterol and were more likely to smoke.

Strengths:

• High control – their lifestyle and activities such as smoking were highly controlled, meaning that there was a lower chance that extraneous variables could have affected their heart attacks or deaths. This makes the study more valid.
• Longitudinal study – in-depth data could be collected and long-term effects of the personality types could be seen. This makes the study useful to society and reliable.

Weaknesses:

• Low external validity – the results of the study may not be applicable to women since gender bias may have affected the findings. Also, it was conducted in one area of the world, therefore it is difficult to generalize to the wider population due to cultural bias.
• Deterministic – the study suggests that cardiovascular problems are only due to personality types, however they are also known to be passed down from genes.