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UNIT 3 STRESS
Structure NOTES
3.0 Introduction
3.1 Objectives
3.2 Stress: Definition
3.2.1 Three Faces of Stress
3.2.2 Causes of Stress
3.3 High-Risk Behaviour and Health Stress Models
3.4 Symptoms and Warning Signs of Stress
3.4.1 Coping Sources
3.4.2 Stress Coping Strategies
3.5 Answers to Check Your Progress Questions
3.6 Summary
3.7 Key Words
3.8 Self Assessment Questions and Exercises
3.9 Further Readings
3.0 INTRODUCTION
Stress can be defined as the way human body reacts to any external stimuli.
Any change that occurs around us is reacted to by the human body through
a physical, mental or emotional response. Therefore, stress, which can be
caused by any change in one’s environment, their thoughts or within their
body, has been medically described as a normal occurrence. Positive stress
occurs when something good happens to someone. On the other hand, the
stress can become detrimental when these changes do not produce the
desired effects of relaxation in one’s body. Some of the most common
symptoms of stress include headaches, indigestion, problems in sleeping,
and muscle tension.
This unit discusses the relationship between stress and physical ailments.
It also analyzes various stress coping mechanisms.
3.1 OBJECTIVES
After going through this unit, you will be able to:
- Define stress
- Analyze the relationship between the three faces of stress and physical illness
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- Examine the causes and origins of stress
- Discuss the three health stress models
- Discuss the two types of stress coping strategies
3.2 STRESS: DEFINITION
Stress is an aspect of our daily lives that can either help us learn and
develop, or
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This section describes the three faces of stress, their interconnectedness and
their associations with physical illness.
- Negative Affect (NA)
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Negative Affect (NA) is an overall experience of negative emotions such as anger, fear and
anxiety, and is also largely hereditary. It can be a brief condition, a longlasting memory or
a stable characteristic. Sometimes, however, negative effectsNOTES
are characterised as a stable characteristic, which is best measured through
the Positive and Negative Affect Scales. NA is reliably related to a physical
disease, but may depend on additional circumstances such as symptom
reporting. For instance, people with negative characteristics tend to be
more susceptible to their symptoms.
- Neuroticism
This is another type of stress associated with the reporting of symptoms. It
is a strongly heritable trait; genetics account for between 40 per cent and
60 per cent of the variation in neurotic expression. Highly neurotic people
appear to experience higher levels of depression, guilt, jealousy and
anxiety than others. Similar to NA, neuroticism is associated with poor
health outcomes. It has been observed that individuals with high
neuroticism report two to three times as many symptoms as those with low
trait scores.
- Perceived Stress
Perceived stress occurs when an individual judges that the situational
demand exceeds his or her resources. This type of stress arise when the
environment is perceived to be dangerous, hazardous or a danger to
physical or psychological functions. Similar to negative effects, perceived
stress has been described as a highly inherited trait as well as a state-level
stress outcome. Besides its concept, perceived stress often reliably
predicts disease vulnerability, with adverse health and performance
outcomes at the workplace.
3.2.2 Causes of Stress
Stressors are defined as the conditions and pressure that trigger stress.
Stressors, such as an exhausting work schedule or a rocky relationship, are
generally believed to be negative. It can be stressful to do something that
places high demands on us or forces us to adapt. This entails positive
activities such as marrying, buying a home, going to university or getting
a promotion. However, not all stress is triggered by external variables. For
instance, when we worry unnecessarily about anything that might or might
not happen, or have unreasonable, negative thoughts about life, stress may
also be self-generated. What causes stress is based on our understanding
of it. Something that is upsetting to us might not faze anyone else; they
may even enjoy it. For instance, examination can be stressful for some but
few can enjoy facing the challenge of exams. For some people the journey
may be exhausting and frustrating, while others may find the trip enjoyable
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NOTES
Significant life changes, relationship problems, issues related to
job and education, financial issues, being too busy, and children and family
are the common external causes of stress.
Common Internal Causes of Stress
Common internal causes of stress include chronic worry, pessimism,
negative selftalk, unrealistic expectations, perfectionism, rigid thinking
and lack of flexibility.
Origins of Stress
Stress has a variety of origins that can be defined by the severity of the
occurrence of the event.
Cataclysmic Events: Cataclysmic events include natural disasters like
floods and earthquakes and intentional violence such as terrorist attacks.
Life Events: Life events are events that bring about changes in people’s
lives that need adaptation. Life events can be either positive or negative.
Negative life events such as divorce, death of family members, or
victimisation of crime may lead to serious and long-lasting stress.
Daily Hassles: Daily hassle is a frequent every day event that induces
recurrent, persistent distress. Some problems emerge from the physical
world; others arise from the psychosocial environment. In urban
environments, tension from pollution, noise, crowding and violence
combine with commuting issues create a condition called urban press.
These sources of stress can also be individually considered. The presence
of community stressors, like crowding, noise and violent threats, is typical
in poor communities, creating an atmosphere of poverty. Regular
disruptions in the psychosocial environment arise within the framework of
everyday social circumstances, including society, work place and family
life. Racism and sexism place stress on the goals of these forms of
discrimination. Jobs with high expectations and little autonomy generate
stress inside the workplace, and inadequate support further adds to stress.
Relationships with partners and parents create reasons for tension and stress
within the family. Moreover, for many individuals, the tension between
family and job demands is a source of stress.
Check Your Progress
- Define stress.
- What are stressors?
- What are the three faces of stress?
- What are some common internal causes of stress?
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3.3 HIGH-RISK BEHAVIOUR AND HEALTH STRESS
MODELS
Let us discuss high-risk behaviour that could lead to stress. NOTES
High-Risk Behaviour
It is a common belief that traumatic and unpleasant experiences in life play
an important role in the development of many psychological and physical
issues. Researchers have suggested different approaches to describe how
stress can lead to adverse health outcomes in the lives of people, including
teenagers. The issue of risk and the avoidance of human risk behaviour is
one of the key problems in the psychology of health. Risk is understood as
the probability of negative health consequences arising from particular
behavioural practises. Risk behaviour patterns can be basic to a lot of
diseases. Examples of health-risk habits include smoking, alcohol and
substance usage, uncontrollable sexual activity and occasionally
professional overwork, high physical and psychic loads contributing to
somatic and mental illnesses.
Theoretical principles that describe risk behaviour processes are
primarily based on a social–cognitive approach. As per this approach,
behaviour is a derivative of two interdependent and inter-conditioned
factors i.e., external and internal. Internal factors include age-related and
personality traits; unique character of biological, emotional and cognitive
processes; values and attitudes; and subjective evaluation of different risk
behaviours. The stressful situation is objectively an external factor of
personal behaviour.
All individuals can be put on the spectrum of two types of poles:
Risky and cautious. Risky people try to manipulate others, to strive for
leadership and have a high degree of aspiration. Extremely cautious people
prefer to obey; they are more conservative and indecisive. The other
individual trait of risk behaviour is the belief (attitude) in the personal
future. These views are divided into optimistic and pessimistic in everyday
life. People with positive thoughts about their future use more protection
and health-care interventions than people with pessimistic attitudes. These
characteristics, such as impulsivity, success motivation and poor self-
control, are often referred to as psychological risk associations. Health
Stress Models
The different health stress models are discussed below:
- The Stress Exposure Model
This model describes stress as the cause of ill-adaptation and negative health
consequences by suggesting that the preponderance of traumatic life events
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the history
and timing of
stressful
events, as
well as the
increased
probability
that such
events will
occur, are the
critical
variables in
this model
that predict
negative
health
outcomes.
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- The Diathesis–Stress Model
NOTES
Fig 3.2: The Diathesis Stress Model.
Source: Graber and Sontag Diathesis-Stress Model.
This model suggests that drastic changes or traumatic events conflict
with past psychopathological weaknesses and lead to increased problems
and bad outcomes in the midst of stressors (Graber and Sontag, 2009). This
model shows that people with some adverse prior vulnerabilities, such as
deficient social regulation skills, depressogenic cognitive forms or genetic
markers, are likely to be disproportionately or even exclusively affected
by traumatic life events (Hankin and Abramson, 2001).
Fig 3.3: Diathesis
Stress model on the Onset
of Mental Disorders.
(Source:https://
adevelopingthoughtonthoughtdevelopment.wordpress.com/2018/04/13/the-nature-
ofnature-nurture-its-not-my-fault/).
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Stress alone is inadequate to describe individual variations in people’s
health accurately. Even with the same stressor(s), the stress processes of
individuals and the impacts of this stress vary considerably, contributing to
various health outcomes. One’s specific response depends on individual and
environmental vulnerabilities as well as available coping tools that
influence the coping process and the stress– health relationship
(Compas et al., 1987, Compas and Reeslund, 2009, Grant et al., 2003).
Social support can be characterised as the feeling or knowledge
that one is loved and cared for by others, respected and valued as
part of a shared stress assistance and obligations. Research has shown
that during stressful times,
NOTES
social support can reduce the risk of psychological problems like
depression or anxiety and encourage psychological adjustment to a wide
variety of chronically stressful conditions (Taylor and Stanton, 2007).
Social support can affect the response to stress in a variety of ways. In one
instance, a social support network may encourage a stressed person to gain
trust in their ability to manage stressful situations; thus when experiencing
stress in the future, this individual may see the stressor as less threatening
than an individual who has less coping tools. Resilience is described as
achieving a reasonably good outcome despite the experience of
circumstances known to pose significant psychopathological risks (Luthar
et al., 2000). Resilience is not necessarily a lack of risk but the existence
of protective factors or mechanisms that cause adverse results. This
defence can result from individual factors, environmental factors or
interplay. The theoretically modifiable existence of resilience factors is
related much of interest in resilience research. Studies found that resilience
is an important predictor of mental well-being and an effective psychiatric
stress buffer (Friborg et al., 2006, Hjemdal et al., 2006). Self-esteem
includes the collection of thoughts and emotions of a person about his or
her own value and significance (Rosenberg, 2015), referring to one’s
global or general self-worth. Decades of theory and research have
underscored the value of self-esteem by showing its positive role in
psychological health and well-being. In addition, many view low self-
esteem as a significant factor in the symptoms of depression (Orth et al.,
2009, Sowislo and Orth, 2013). Especially when faced with stressful
events, people with low self-esteem are seen to have less coping resources
and are thus more vulnerable to psychological symptoms, while those with
high self-esteem are buffered against this effect. According to Orth et al.
(2009), ‘following stressful events, protective factors such as high self-
esteem may prevent the outcome of depressive symptoms by decreasing
the negative impact of depressogenic thoughts on the affective, cognitive,
behavioural and physiological symptoms of depression’. However, prior
studies that tested the moderating impact of self-esteem yielded
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contradictory results, highlighting the urgent need for more research on this
issue (Orth et al., 2009, Abela et al., 2006).
Sense of Coherence (SOC) is a framework created by Aaron
Antonovsky (1987) that denotes the propensity of individuals to see their
world as comprehensible, manageable and meaningful (Antonovsky, 1987).
The possession of internal resources, such as confidence and self-efficacy,
has been attributed to a powerful SOC. In addition, a high SOC is associated
with good perceived health (Eriksson and Lindström, 2006, Honkinen et al.,
- and strongly adversely associated with psychological symptoms
(Buddeberg-Fischer et al., 2001, Skirka, 2000). Researchers have established
SOC’s moderating role in negative health outcomes in stressful
circumstances. For individuals with a high SOC, a general trust in the
availability of resources is presumed to fulfil the requirements of stressful
circumstances and will therefore treat a stressor as a challenge rather than a
hazard. This trust increases the possibility of optimistic
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Conceptual Model of Stress and Coping Mechanisms via (a) Mediation and (b)
Moderation Pathways.
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(iii) Restraint Coping: This implies waiting until a suitable
opportunity arrives, holding back and not acting unnecessarily and
prematurely. Individuals who use this approach keep doing something
before the right time comes and do not engage in behaviours without
giving a second thought. This is an
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(v) Mental Disengagement: One of the dysfunctional coping
which comes
under emotion focussed coping is mental disengagement. This
includes using
NOTES alternative activities to take one’s mind off a problem (a tendency
opposite to suppression of competing activities), day dreaming, escaping
through sleep or escape by immersion in television.
(vi) Behavioural Disengagement: Behavioural
disengagement is the second ineffective way of coping in certain
cases. This comes with emotion-centred coping. In behavioural
disengagement, even giving up the attempt to accomplish
goals with which the stressor interferes decreases one’s ability
to cope with the stressor.
vii. Alcohol Disengagement: Some people may use alcohol as a means
to forget their stress factor, decreasing their effort to deal with a
stressor. People who use alcohol and narcotics are particularly
interested in using this technique.
(viii) Behavioural Disengagement: It is another dysfunctional coping
mechanism, which falls under emotion-focussed coping. In
behavioural disengagement, one reduces their effort to deal with the
stressor even giving up the attempt to attain goals with in which the
stressor is interfering.
Fig 3.5: Stress Coping Mechanism.
Source: [Sontag et al., 2008].
Stress Coping Strategies
Various stress management techniques are discussed below:
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- Meditation: A few minutes of practise a day will help to relieve
anxiety. As per psychologist Robbie Maller Hartman, ‘Research suggests
that daily meditation may alter the brain’s neural pathways, making you
more resilient to stress.’
The technique for mediation is stated below.
‘Sit up straight with both feet on the floor. Close your eyes. Focus attention
on reciting out loud or silently a positive mantra such as “I feel at peace” or
“I love myself.” Place one hand on your belly to synch the mantra with your
breathing.
