Study guide major psychology tomorrow:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well being and not merely the absence of
disease.

Biopsychological model: Is a dynamic model suggesting the health and illness result from a combination
of biological factors (like viruses), physiological factors (coping Strategies for stress), and social factors
(like employment or social support).

Stress is a state of physiological and psychological arousal when the demands of a situation threaten to
exceed an individual's resources to deal with the threat.

Type of stressors:

Acute stress: Most common form - comes from demands and pressures of day to day life -demands can
be perceived or actual

Episode acute stress: a lifestyle choice which courses when we regularly take on too much and can
manage our time or meet all of our commitments (from ceaseless worry).

Chronic stress: wears people down day after day, year after year- a response to something an individual
cannot change - may stem from traumatic early childhood experience.

Biological- physiological

The feelings that we experience when we are stressed are due to the physiological changes in our
bodies that occur in response to a stressor.

When there is a threat from our environment, our body immediately begins to prepare itself for
either fighting the threat or running away from it which is called the fight or flight response.

Essentially the goal of the fight or flight response is to get us ready to deal with a stressor,
supposed to be a “short term response”.

The body does this before we are even consciously aware of the threat.

The response is triggered by the hypothalamus which activates the sympathetic nervous system
and the adrenal-cortical system.

The sympathetic nervous system "speeds up" the body's systems and increases a sense of
alertness.
At the same time, the hypothalamus activates the adrenal-cortical system. The adrenal glands
release epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline) into the bloodstream. As a
result, over 30 hormones are released into the bloodstream, including cortisol. Glucose is
released into the blood to provide energy quickly and efficiently.

Physiological reactions:
❖ increase in heart rate and blood pressure,
❖ Pupils dilate (take in sunlight)
❖ increased circulation to the major muscle groups,
❖ increased breathing rate,
❖ suppression of the digestive, reproductive, and the immune system to allow more energy
for emergency functions ect.

how stress is related to health problems- aware that long-term stress causes an increase in
cortisol, which can lead to depression or memory problems. Cortisol also affects the immune
system, thereby making the individual more susceptible to infection, because of a decrease in the
number of T-cells.

Hans Selye (1956) took our understanding of the effects of stress on our physiological systems a step
further with his General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) model.

Three stages of the General Adaptation Syndrome model (GAS):

★ alarm stage- hypothalamus responds to the stressor by activating the fight or flight response.
★ resistance stage- adrenal cortex continues to release glucocorticoids to help the body react to the
stressor until the stress is resolved or the body can no longer resist. Because one of the results of
the activation of the sympathetic nervous system is the suppression of the immune system, the
body is not able to fight off colds and flu during this time.
★ The negative outcome is the Exhaustion stage- body's ability to cope with the stressor is depleted
and the body is not able to maintain normal function. Immune system is depleted. Positive
outcome is the recovery stage. This happens when the stressor is gone or coping has been
successful. Homeostasis of the physiological systems is restored.

Study Kiecolt-Glazer et al.

Aim: analyzed blood samples from volunteer medical students one month before and after students had
completed the first two examinations.

Procedure: participants were given Social Readjustment Rating Scale to account for life changes that
occurred within the last year that would raise their level of stress. Results divided them into two groups:
high and low stress groups. Levels of loneliness measured and split into high and low.
Natural Killer cell (NK)- lymphocytes which provide rapid responses to viral-infected cells (low level
activity indicates poorly functioning immune system). activity was measured in the students' blood
sample.

Results: a significant decrease of NK activity between the 1st and 2nd blood test- (given during the stress
of examinations).
❖ "high stress" group is more likely to have lower levels of NK than those in the "low stress" group.
❖ Previous stress (pre-exam) influenced the immune system's ability to cope with the stress of
examinations.
❖ P. "high loneliness" group had lower levels of NK than those in the "low loneliness" group.
➢ confirms the role of social support as protective factor for better health

Link: Supports the GAM proposed by Selye. As our body copes with stressors, it eventually becomes
"exhausted." In this stage, we are most likely to become ill.

CT:

Used biological markers and not observations to determine effects of stress.

- Yet, cause and effect is hard to establish
- Natural experiment: controls difficult
- Ex; some people may have better coping mechanisms
+ Naturalistic= high ecological validity
+ Seems to reflect personal experience (students) in regard to illness during and after exams
- Link to cognitive factors (coping) and recovery stage is not clear (model may be
oversimplification)

The neg. effects of stress on memory: sustained increased levels of cortisol leads to hippocampal
cell death leads to impaired memory
- Veterins with PTSD and child abuse victems show hippocampal atrophy.

Newcomer et al.

Aim: to test whether high levels of the stress hormone cortisol interfere with verbal declarative
memory.

Participants employees or students at the Washington University Medical Center. Were asked to
listen and recall parts of a prose paragraph to test verbal declarative memory. to investigate a
possible link between cortisol and memory the researchers designed an experiment with three
experimental conditions:
★ condition 1 (high level of cortisol) where the participants were given a tablet containing
160 mg of cortisol on each day of the four-day experiment. This dose of cortisol is similar
to what is seen in people experiencing major stress events.
 ★ Condition 2 ( low level of cortisol), participants were given a tablet containing 40 mg of
cortisol per day. This dose is similar to the amount of cortisol circulating in the blood
stream of people undergoing a minor stress event.
★ Lastly, condition three (placebo group /control group) where participants were given a
placebo tablet which looked like the other tables but with no active ingredient. The
experiment was done under a double-blind control.

Results: high cortisol levels impaired performance in the memory task since the participants who
received the highest level of cortisol also showed the worst performance in verbal declarative
memory. Effect was not permanent, the performance of p. The high cortisol condition returned to
normal the day after they stripped taking the hormone tablet.

Cortisol interferes with the transfer of short-term memory to long-term memory that takes place
in the hippocampus. This makes sense as there are several cortisol receptor sites on the
hippocampus.

Evaluation:
+ study was experimental, the researchers could establish a clear cause and effect
relationship between the IV and the DV.
- experiment ran over several days and the participants were not in the lab the whole time,
so the researchers did not have full control over extraneous variables.
In spite of this, there was a clear relationship between the amount of cortisol ingested and the
performance on the memory test.

Conclusion:
Robert Sapolsky's he argues that the problem of modern day stress is that our fight or flight
responses are activated too often for situations that do not threaten our lives. For humans, this
theory alone does not explain stress, because our long-term stress is due to the perception of the
triggers. But regardless, the effects on our body are the same. Write a thesis statement
Cognitive effects on stressors:
Stress is most often seen as a biological problem. It is true that the “stress response” is a
biological response to environmental triggers.

Cognitive appraisal= one's personal interpretation of a situation. How an individual views a

situation in terms of expecting either a positive or negative outcome.

The transactional model defines stress as arising from the appraisal that a stressor in the
environment will threaten one’s well-being.
1. Primary appraisal: when a situation is perceived as being either beneficial irrelevant or
stressful.
2. Secondary appraisal: when the individual considers “what can be done about this?”
Cognitive appraisal then leads to the stress response- or lack thereof.
Case study: spiesman
Aim: to investigate if it was possible to manipulate the participants emotional reaction to an
unpleasant film on genital mutilation (stressor)

Procedure: (participants: college students)

- All watched film about tribal initiation ceremony
- Trauma condition: soundtrack emphasized pain and mutilation
- Denial condition: soundtrack emphasized willing and happy
- Intellectualization coordination: anthropological interpretation
- Measures of arousal and stress (eg. heart rate, galvanic skin condition) during viewing =
self reported survey

Results: participants in denial and intellectualization experienced less than trauma conditions in
terms of stress. Manipulation of cognitions had a significant impact on physiological stress
responses

Conclusion: stress was non intrinsic to film but rather on appraisal suppons lazarus’ theory= not
the event but the interpretation or appraisal that elicits emotional stress.

Evaluation:
+ Lavatory with high control of variables
Cause-effect relationship between appraisal and stress reaction
- Issues with artificiality
- Unethical deception and no protection from harm
Optimism vs. pessimism:
- Individuals with an optimistic outlook on life are cognitively more likely to recall
positive strategies for resolving stressful situations and see that they have the ability to
change the situation if they want
- Optimists do tend to live healthier lifestyles that include more physical activity and a
healthier diet.

Supporting research- Jobin et al

Aim: to investigate the role of optimism on stress and health

Procedure: participants reported the level of stress- they perceived in their daily lives. Also took
a test to measure their levels of optimism and pessimism. Then cortisol levels were measured
(over a two year period of ISS adults)

Results:
- Pessimists tend to have higher baseline stress levels than optimists
- On days where participants experienced higher than average stress, pessimists cortisol
(ct) levels were elevated and sustained for a longer period of time than optimists.

Sociocultural effects on stress:

Stressor is any adverse experience (physiological, psychological or social) that causes a stress
response

Holmes and Rane observed that major life changes often precede illness
- Social (readjustment rating scale )
- Created the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) is a self-assessment tool
for measuring the total stress you're experiencing
- Through their experiment, they were able to work out the relative "weights" of
different types of stress.
- Social stressors
- Stress-cortisor-impact on health

Cortisol: produced and secreted from adrenal cortex in response to stress.

Chronic stress can lead to prolonged cortisol secretion leading to: damaged immune system,

long-term effects including impaired learning and memory, high amounts of cortisol results in
atrophy of the hippocampus.
Cortisol does a number of critical things in relation to stress: It liberates energy from muscles
(adrenaline does this from fat cells), allowing for a long-term increase in energy (so you can keep
running and hiding from that tiger).

Along with norepinephrine, it helps lay down intense memories for the threat Directs energy to
be stored around the gut, where it can be quickly liberated by adrenaline for fast energy. It
shapes the brain in ways that lowers the threshold for threat perception.

Poverty is a stressor. Poverty increases levels of Cortisol which is produced and secreted from
adrenal cortex in response to stress.

One study support poverty as a stressors effects on health is Evans and Kim (2007):

Aim: argue that poverty exposes people to risk factors that lead to a higher vulnerability to stress
and, therefore, poorer health.

Procedure: Their vulnerability theory was tested by evaluating the health of 207
thirteen-year-olds living in poverty in the US. Qualitative data was also gathered regarding their
exposure to risk factors such as domestic violence, crime in their neighborhood or lack of quality
housing.

Results: The researchers found that the greater the number of years spent living in poverty, the
greater the number of health issues. Most significantly, children who had lived in poverty for an
extended period of time had higher overnight levels of cortisol and showed early signs of poor
cardiovascular health.

CT:
- No account for the poorest societies, we see the trend that those at the top have better
health than those below
- Among the wealthiest quarter of countries, no reaction between a country's wealth and
the peoples health (living in a wealthy country doesn’t guarantee health)
- People in Greece (half of the income of Americans) have a larger life expectancy.

Environmental life events and health- Brown and horns theory

Sociocultural approach looks at the role that environmental factors play in our mental health.
This includes not only stressors in our environment but also the resources in our community that
are available to help us cope with these stressors.
Critical thinking:
+ semi-structured interviews to get an in-depth understanding of the participants' situation
as they see it themselves increased credibility of the results.
+ The sample size of the original study was relatively large, making the results potentially
more reliable .
- However, only females were interviewed so the results may not be generalized to men,
but the relationship between stressful events and onset of depression might be applicable
to men as well.
- Vulnerability models are unable to explain why some people develop depression when
exposed to environmental stressors, but they do help us to potentially prevent the disorder
by providing more protective factors for individuals who may be at risk for the disorder.
As with the other approaches, it is difficult to argue social stressors are the cause of
depression. It is only with the interaction of biological factors that the stressors appear to
lead to the disorder.

It appears that when we look at social aspects of stress, it is impossible to separate those factors
from biological and cognitive aspects of stress. Wilkinson (2001) has argued that it is the level of
income inequality that is the most predictive of one’s health – rather than simply one’s
socio-economic status.

Prevalence rates:

Introduction:
One health problem is stress (define) -types
- Prevalence rates are the frequency of a health problem within a given population

Two ways to report prevalence:

- Point prevalence reports the proportion of a population that has a health problem at a specific
point in time
- Lifetime prevalence is the proportion of a population that at some point in their life has ever had
the problem
Prevalence rates charge over time and may differ between populations. This is the case with stress

1st paragraph:
- Stress in America survey: annual since 2007 by APA
- On a sample of adults to measure experiences with, perceptions of and attitude of stress.
Results: 70% (2014) experienced regular physical and psychological symptoms of stress (suggests stress
is widespread
Half reported in last 5 years increase stress and trouble sleeping (characteristic symptom of stress)
- Work and money are top two sources of stress
Critical thinking:
- work : karoshi “dealth by work” hundreds of Japan cases - working long shifts and collapsing due
to a stroke or heart attack.
- Collectivist cultural norms (fitting into the group of your organization and business)
- On other hand, a certain amount of stress (eustress) may be good for motivation and performance
bh of part lapants report high levels of stress reported it had a positive impact on an aspect of
their life (NPR,2014)

2nd paragraph> Evans and Kim (2007)

Poverty exposes people to risk factors that lead to a higher vulnerability to stress, therefore poorer health
(demonstrates point prevalence)

Their Vulnerability theory: tested on 207 13 year olds living in poverty in the US
- Qualitative data was also gathered regarding their exposure to risk factors such as domestic
violence, crime in their neighborhood or lack of quality housing.
- results : greater the # years living in poverty increased health issues. Most significantly, children
who had lived in poverty for an extended period of time had higher overnight levels of cortisol
and showed early signs of poor cardiovascular health.

Research methods:

Introduction: one health problem is stress (define-types)

- Identify two research methods: lab experiment and case study
- Strengths and limitations of these will be discussed

First paragraph:
One research method used to study stress is lab experiment (is an experiment conducted under highly
controlled conditions (not necessarily a laboratory), where accurate measurements are possible.) 2
characteristics.

Example of case study: Newcomer et al. (1999).

Aim: investigate whether high levels of the stress hormone cortisol interfere with verbal declarative
memory.

Participants employees or students at the Washington University Medical Center. Were asked to
listen and recall parts of a prose paragraph to test verbal declarative memory. to investigate a
possible link between cortisol and memory the researchers designed an experiment with three
experimental conditions:
 ★ condition 1 (high level of cortisol) where the participants were given a tablet containing
160 mg of cortisol on each day of the four-day experiment. This dose of cortisol is similar
to what is seen in people experiencing major stress events.
★ Condition 2 ( low level of cortisol), participants were given a tablet containing 40 mg of
cortisol per day. This dose is similar to the amount of cortisol circulating in the blood
stream of people undergoing a minor stress event.
★ Lastly, condition three (placebo group /control group) where participants were given a
placebo tablet which looked like the other tables but with no active ingredient.

The experiment was done under a double-blind control.

Results: high cortisol levels impaired performance in the memory task since the participants who
received the highest level of cortisol also showed the worst performance in verbal declarative
memory. Effect was not permanent, the performance of p. The high cortisol condition returned to
normal the day after they stripped taking the hormone tablet.

Cortisol interferes with the transfer of short-term memory to long-term memory that takes place
in the hippocampus. This makes sense as there are several cortisol receptor sites on the
hippocampus.

According to the researchers, these results demonstrate a clear link between levels of cortisol and
remembering. It appears that high levels of cortisol interfered with the recall of the prose passage. There
was no statistical difference between the low dose and placebo groups on any day of testing and the
researchers claimed that paragraph performance increased over time for the placebo and low dose groups
because of practice effects or procedural learning.

Focus more on how lab was used

Evaluation:
+ study was experimental, the researchers could establish a clear cause and effect
relationship between the IV and the DV.
- the experiment ran over several days and the participants were not in the lab the whole
time, so the researchers did not have full control over extraneous variables.
In spite of this, there was a clear relationship between the amount of cortisol ingested and the
performance on the memory test.

Second paragraph:
One research method used to study stress is case study: A final research method used in health
psychology is a case study. A case study is a more holistic approach to studying an individual or a group
– and it is longitudinal. It is carried out in a naturalistic setting so has high ecological validity – but since
it is longitudinal and naturalistic, it is not only low in internal validity, it is difficult to replicate. Since
replication is difficult, it is important that such studies have high sample sizes.

Aim; To investigate how depression could be linked to social factors and stressful life events in a sample
of women from London (diathesis-stress model).

Procedure: In London, 458 women were surveyed on their life and depressive episodes. surveyed on their
daily life and depressive episodes-researchers focused on important biographical details -> particular life
events / difficulties faced by the women. These events were later rated in severity by independent
researchers

Results: In the previous year, 37 women (8% all of the women) had been depressed. Of these, 33 (90%)
had experienced an adverse life event or serious difficulty. Working-class women with children were four
times more likely to develop depression than middle-class women with children. The researchers found
that vulnerability factors such as lack of social support, more than three children under 14 years at home,
unemployment and early maternal loss, in combination with acute or ongoing serious social stressors,
were likely to provoke depressive episodes.

Evaluation: Gender biased, semi-structured interview was useful to gather in-depth information.
+ one of the first that investigated social factors and life stressors associated with the etiology of
depression
+ semi-structured interviews->increases credibility of results
+ sample size large -> results more reliable
-only females, may not be generalized to men
-self-reporting -> impossible to accurately determine the actual extent of depression
-correlational, no cause and effect

A case study uses method triangulation, which leads to a higher level of credibility. If the different
research methods lead to the same conclusions, then there is a higher level of credibility.

Focus on how the research methods used can develop a greater understanding of stress

Ethical considerations: As with all research in psychology, researchers must follow ethical
standards.

Health psychologists who study stress have a particularly difficult problem – how does one study
stress without violating “undue stress or harm?”.

One health problem is stress (define stess and discuss types)

Ethical considerations in research are a set of principles that guide your research designs and
practices.

In order to determine cause and effect relationships, experimenters must manipulate the level of
stress, but ethical considerations must be followed.

In addition, informed consent must be obtained. In some cases, deception by omission is used to
minimize demand characteristics. But in some cases one may question whether the participant
really understands the potential implications of consenting to the study.

First paragraph: Speisman

The researcher wanted to see how cognitive appraisal of a situation would affect one’s stress response –
specifically, heart rate and galvanic skin response.

The participants were told that they would watch a documentary while their physiological responses were
measured. They did not realize, however, that they would be watching a traditional circumcision
ceremony of a young boy.

In one condition, they heard the original noise of the documentary, including the boy’s screaming and
crying. In another condition, there was a dry intellectual explanation of the ceremony. In the final
condition, the narration was very positive about how the boy was happy to finally be a man.

The study showed that participants had a much lower physiological response to the second and third
condition. Cognition appears to be a mediating factor in stress.

However, there are two concerns.

★ First, the researchers used deception. They did not tell the participants the true aim of the study
in order to control for demand characteristics. Although it was true that they could withdraw at
any point, it is also possible that since they were connected to equipment for measuring GSR and
heart-rate, they did not feel that they could freely do so.
★ Secondly, there is a concern about the level of stress. The standard is that a participant should not
feel more stress than they would feel in daily life. The level of stress here could be considered
quite high. But without a higher level of stress, it would not be possible to effectively measure the
role of cognition in mediating stress.

Second Paragraph: Newcomer et al (1999),

Aim: to test whether high levels of the stress hormone cortisol interfere with verbal declarative
memory.
Participants employees or students at the Washington University Medical Center. Were asked to
listen and recall parts of a prose paragraph to test verbal declarative memory. to investigate a
possible link between cortisol and memory the researchers designed an experiment with three
experimental conditions:
★ condition 1 (high level of cortisol) where the participants were given a tablet containing
160 mg of cortisol on each day of the four-day experiment. This dose of cortisol is similar
to what is seen in people experiencing major stress events.
★ Condition 2 ( low level of cortisol), participants were given a tablet containing 40 mg of
cortisol per day. This dose is similar to the amount of cortisol circulating in the blood
stream of people undergoing a minor stress event.
★ Lastly, condition three (placebo group /control group) where participants were given a
placebo tablet which looked like the other tables but with no active ingredient. The
experiment was done under a double-blind control.

Results: high cortisol levels impaired performance in the memory task since the participants who
received the highest level of cortisol also showed the worst performance in verbal declarative
memory. Effect was not permanent, the performance of p. The high cortisol condition returned to
normal the day after they stripped taking the hormone tablet.