FACTORS THAT LEAD TO STRESSFUL APPRAISALS:Dimensions of Stress

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Health Psychology PSY408

Lecture 14

FACTORS THAT LEAD TO STRESSFULAPPRAISALS

Appraisingevents as stressful depends on two types of factors--thosethat relate to the personand those

thatrelate to the situation. Let's begin by looking at how personal factors can affect appraisals of stress.

Personalfactors include intellectual, motivational,and personality characteristics. One example is self-

esteem: people who have highself-esteem are likely to believe they have the resources to meet demands that

require the strengths they possess. If they perceive an event as stressful, they mayinterpret it as a challenge

rather than a threat.

Anotherexample relates to motivation: the more important a threatenedgoal, the more stress the person is

likely to perceive. One other exampleinvolves the person's beliefsystem: as the psychologist AlbertEllis

has noted, many people have irrationalbeliefs that increase theirstress, for instance:Because I strongly

desire to have a safe, comfortable, andsatisfying life, the conditions under which I live absolutely must be

easy, convenient and gratifying (and it is awful and I can't bear it and can't be happy at allwhen they are

unsafeand frustrating)".

A person who has such a belief is likely to appraisealmost any sort of inconvenience as harmful or

threatening.

What is it about situations thatmake them stressful? First, eventsthat involve very strong demandsand are

imminenttend to be seen as stressful.Thus, patients who expect to undergo a physically uncomfortable or

painfulmedical procedure, such as surgery, tomorrow are likely to view their situation as being more

stressful than, say, expecting to have a blood pressure test nextweek.

Also,life transitions tend to be stressful.Life has many major eventsthat mark the passing fromone

condition or phase to another, and they produce substantial changesand new demands in ourlives. These

eventsare called transitions, and include starting day care or school,moving to a new community, entering a

career, getting married, becoming a parent, losing a spouse through divorce or death,and retiring from a

career.Becoming a parent, forinstance, can be stressful before and after the birth. Thestressors before

birthmay include the physiological burden of pregnancy on the mother's body andconcerns about the

baby'sand mother's health. Alter birth, the parents' stressors mayinvolve being tied down, having a less

orderlyand predictable lifestyle, and having sleep interruptedoften.

Thetiming of a life transitioncan affect the stress it produces.People expect some events,such as marriage

or retirement, to occur at certain times in the life span.

Deviationsfrom the expected timetable arcstressful. Why? For onething, events that happentoo early or

toolate often leave the personwithout the support of compatible peers, as a 40-year-old first-time mother

mightfind. Also, the person mayinterpret being off schedule as a failure, and this is stressful.People who

are"late" graduating college or advancing on the job may feel as if they have failed.

Ambiguity--alack of clarity in a situation--can have an effect on stress appraisals. But the effect seems to

depend on the type of ambiguity that exists.Role ambiguity occurs when the information about a person's

function or task is unclear or confusing. In the workplace, for instance, this is reflected in unclear guidelines,

standardsfor performance, andconsequences for job-related activities.Role ambiguity oftenincreases

people'sstress because they are uncertain about their actions and decisions.Harm ambiguity occurs when

the likelihood of harm or the availability of resources to meet situational demands is unclear. With harm

ambiguity, the effect of stress is variable anddepends heavily on the person's personality, beliefs, and

Health Psychology PSY408

generalexperience. One person who is seriously ill and hasunclear information about the chances of

recoverymay draw hope from this ambiguity; another person in the same situationmay believe people are

deliberately giving ambiguous informationbecause the prognosis is so poor.

Anotherfactor that influencesstress appraisals is the desirability of the situation. Some events aretypically

undesirable to a person in most or all respects--losing your house in a fire is an example.

Otherevents, such as selling a house, are usually viewed as desirable. But either selling a house or losing it

in a fire can be stressfulbecause each producesdemands that may tax or exceed the individual'sresources.

Stresscan involve a wide variety of bothdesirable and undesirablesituations, including the transitions we

saw earlier, as well as less momentouscircumstances, such as preparing to throw a party and getting a traffic

ticket.

In general, people are morelikely to appraise undesirableevents more stressful thandesirable ones.

One other aspect of the situationthat affects stressappraisal is its controllability--thatis, whether the

personhas the real or perceivedability to modify or terminate the stressor. People tend to appraise an

uncontrollable event as being more stressful than a controllable event, even if they don't actually do

anything to affect it.

There are at least two types of control, behavioral and cognitive. In the case of behavioral control, we can

affect the impact of the event by performingsome action. Suppose, forexample, you areexperiencing

intense pain from a headache. If youhave the ability to reduce the pain, you are less likely to be stressed by

the headache than if you do nothave this ability. In the case of cognitive control, we can affect the impact

of the event by using some mentalstrategy, such as by distracting ourattention from the stressor or

developing a plan to overcome a problem.

Dimensions of Stress

Psychologistswho study stress or perform therapy to help people manage it assumethat the amount of

stress a person experiences increaseswith stressor frequency, intensity,and duration. Evidence supports this

assumption.Research has shown thatstronger stressors producegreater physiological strain. Many people

experience chronic stress--that is, their stressorsoccur extremely often or last a long time. Being under

chronic stress makes people moresusceptible to catching cold when exposed to infection.

BiopsychosocialAspects of Stress

We'veseen that stressors canproduce strain in the person's biological, psychological, and socialsystems.

Let's examine biopsychosocial reactions to stress more closely.

Biological Aspects of Stress

Anyonewho has experienced a very frightening event, such as a near accident or otheremergency, knows

thatthere are physiological reactions to stress--for instance, ourheartbeat and breathing ratesincrease

immediately arid, a little later, our skeletalmuscles may tremble, especially in the arms and legs. Thebody is

arousedand motivated to defend itself. As we saw earlier, the sympathetic nervous systemand the

endocrine system cause this arousal to happen. After the emergencyhas passed, the arousalsubsides. The

physiological portion of the response to a stressor--orstrain--is called reactivity,which researchers

measure by comparison against a baseline, or resting, level of arousal. Peoplewho are under chronic stress

show heightened reactivity when a stressor occurs,and their arousal takesmore time to return to baseline

levels.

Manyyears ago the distinguished physiologist Walter Cannon (1929) provided a basic description of how

the body reacts to emergencies. He was interested in the physiological reaction people and animals make in

response to a perceived danger. This reaction hasbeen called the fight-or-flightresponse because it prepares

Health Psychology PSY408

the organism to attack the threat or to flee. In the fight-or-flight response, the perception of danger causes

the sympathetic nervous system to stimulate the adrenal glands of the endocrine system to secrete

epinephrine, which arouses the body. Cannon proposed that this arousalcould have both positiveand

negativeeffects: the fight- or-flightresponse is adaptive because it mobilizes the organism to respond

quickly to danger, but the state of high arousal can be harmful to health if it is prolonged.

GeneralAdaptation Syndrome

Whathappens to the body when highstress levels are prolonged? Hans Selye studied this issue by

subjectinglaboratory animals to a variety of stressors-- such as very high or low environmental

temperatures, X rays, insulin injections, andexercise--over a long period of time. He also observed people

whoexperienced stress from being ill. Through this research, he discovered that the fight-or-flightresponse

is only the first in a series of reactions the body makeswhen stress is long-lasting. Selyecalled this series of

physiological reactions the general adaptation syndrome(GAS). As the diagram shows, the GAS consists of

threestages:

1. Alarm Reaction.

Thefirst stage of the GAS is like the fight-or-flight response to an emergency-- its function is to mobilize

the body's resources. At the very beginning of the alarm reaction, arousal-- as measured by bloodpressure,

forexample--drops below normal for a moment, but then rapidly rises to above normal. This last-

increasingarousal results fromactivation of the hypothalamus--pituitary--adrenalaxis: the hypothalamus

triggers the pituitary gland to secreteACTH, which causes the adrenal glands to release epinephrine, nor-

epinephrine, and cortisol into the bloodstream. By the end of this stage in the GAS, the body is fully

mobilized to resist the stressor strongly.But the body cannot maintain this intensearousal for very long.

Someorganisms that haveexperienced a continuous and unrelieved alarm reaction to an extremelyintense

stressorhave died within hours or days.

2. Stage of Resistance.

If a strong stressor continues but is not severe enough to causedeath, the physiological reaction enters the

stage of resistance. In this stage, the bodytries to adapt to the stressor.Physiological arousaldeclines

somewhatbut remains higher than normal, and the body replenishes the hormones released by the adrenal

glands. Despite this continuous physiological arousal, the organism may show fewoutward signs of stress.

But the ability to resist newstressors may be impaired forlong periods of time. According to Selye, one

outcome of this impairment is that the organismbecomes increasingly vulnerable to health problems he

calleddiseases of adaptation. These health problems include ulcers, highblood pressure, asthma,and

illnessesthat result from impaired immune function.

3. Stage of Exhaustion.

Prolonged physiological arousal produced by severelong-term or repeated stress is costly. It weakens the

immunesystem and depletes the body's energy reserves untilresistance is very limited. At this point, the

stage of exhaustion begins. If the stresscontinues, disease anddamage to internal organsare likely, and

deathmay occur.

Twolines of evidence support the long-term effects the GASdescribes. First, people whoexperience

chronically high levels of stress showgreater reactivity to stressors they encounter: compared withother

people,individuals under chronic stress respond to a stressor with greaterincreases in blood pressureand

decrements in immune function.

Second, having to adapt repeatedly to intensestressors may take a high physiologic toll thataccumulates

over time in a process called allostatic load. Studies of chronic stress haveconfirmed that high levels of

allostatic load are related to poor health in children and the elderly.

Health Psychology PSY408

Do All Stressors Produce theSame Physical Reactions?

Manystudies have demonstratedthat stressors of varioustypes increase the secretion of hormones by the

adrenalglands. These stressors include cold temperatures, noise, pain, athletic competitions, failure, taking

examinations,flying in an airplane, and being in crowded situations.

Selye(1956) believed that the GAS is nonspecific with regard to the type of stressor. That is, the series of

physiological reactions the GAS describeswill occur regardless of whether the stress results from very cold

temperature,physical exercise, illness, or the death of a loved one.However, although variousstressors

increase the secretion of adrenal hormones, the notion of non-specificity does nottake important

psychosocialprocesses into account. There are at least two reasonswhy this is a problem.

One reason is that somestressors elicit a strongeremotional response thanothers do. This is important

because the amount of hormone released in reaction to a stressor that involves a strong emotionalresponse,

as a sudden increase in environmentaltemperature might produce,appears to be different from the amount

releasedwith a less emotionalstressor, such as a gradualincrease in temperature.

After conducting extensive studies of variousstressors and hormones, John Mason concluded that he and

hiscolleagues have not foundevidence that any singlehormone responds to allstimuli in absolutely

nonspecific fashion. For instance, somestressors led to increases in epinephrine, nor-epinephrine, and

cortisol, but other stressorsincreased only two of thesehormones. He also pointedout that research

conductedsince Selye first described the GAS has shown thatstressors are most likely to trigger the release

of large amounts of all three of these hormones ii the individual'sresponse includes a strongelement of

emotion.

Thesecond reason is thatcognitive appraisal processesappear to play a role in people's physiological

reaction to stressors. This role is suggested by the results of a study by Katherine Tennes and Maria Kreye

(1985).The researchers assessedelementary school children's cortisol levels in urine samplestaken on

regularschool days and on days when achievement tests were given. The expected increase in cortisol on

testdays was found, butnot for all children--their intelligence was an importantfactor. Intelligencetest

scoreswere obtained from schoolrecords.

Cortisollevels increased on testdays for children withabove-average intelligence, but notfor children with

low to average intelligence. The influence of intelligence suggests that the brighterchildren were more

concerned about academic achievement and, as a result, appraised the tests as more threatening than did the

other children.

To summarize, the basic structure of the GAS appears to be valid, but it incorrectly assumes thatall

stressorsproduce the same physiological reactionsand fails to include the role of psychosocial factors in

stress.

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