Stress and Coping

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Stress and Coping

• Women have more of both

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Stress

• Negative emotional state occurring in response to
  events that are perceived as taxing or exceeding
  a persons resources to cope.
• Distress (negative stress).
• Eustress (positive stress).

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Holmes Rahe Stress Scale

• attempt to quantify stress
• Generally speaking, the higher your score, the
  more likely you are to get sick.
• gt150 you are likely to get physically or
  psychologically sick per H R

4
Social Readjustment Scale

• Death of spouse100, divorce73, jail63,
  personal illness 53,Marriage50, pregnancy40
  outstanding personal achievement28, begin or end
  school26, change in work hours20, change in
  residence20, change in schools19, vacation13,
  Christmas12, minor law violations11

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Negative life events

• Are more problematic than just change
• Have greatest effect on health
• Especially when unexpected uncontrollable

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Hassles Annoyances

• Hassles petty annoyances
• Uplifts satisfying, pleasant experiences
• Lazarus predicted
• ---hassles more impact
• ---uplifts buffer against stress

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Back to Lazarus

• Subjects recorded hassles uplifts, health and
  life events
• Hassles predicted health better than life events
• gthassles, poorer health
• Uplifts did not help

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Sheldon Cohen Colds

• In text p. 552 N400
• People given nasal spray w/ cold germs
• Of the people exposed to the cold virus, one
  factor determined whether they got it or not
• Level of stress

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Anxiety study by Arnetz

• Unemployed women vs. women with secure jobs
• Unemployed had white blood cells that were less
  reactive to infections
• Ultimate message stress weakens your immune
  system.

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Walter Cannons Flight or Fight

• Rapid change in internal physical reactions
• Prepare us to fight it or run from it
• Once threat is removed, bodily arousal dissipates
  after about 20-60 minutes

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General Adaptation Syndrome

• Hans Selye (Sell yea)
• Decided stress has effects on immune system
• 3 stages Alarm
• resistance
• exhaustion

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Women Stress

• Women rate events as more stressful than men
  (death, separations, arguments, threats to
  self-image, and finances)
• Routine marital arguments more stressful for her

13
More stressful events happen to women

• Rape, sexual harassment, spousal abuse, sex
  discrimination
• 99 of women had experienced a sexist even at
  least once
• gthalf said they had been picked on, hit, shoved
  or threatened due to being woman
• 40 said they lost a raise or promotion for same

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Caregiver Burden

• Women more likely to take care of dependent
  elderly
• Caregivers suffer depression and malnutrition
• Become housebound, isolated, lack social support

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Individual Factors that Influence Response to
Stress

• Personal control
• Personality-explanatory style negative emotions
• Social support

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Marriage

• Married people tend to be healthier
• Married Men live 8 years longer than bachelors,
  show better m.h.
• Women 4 years

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Personal Control

• Stress is worse when you have no control
• Rodin Langer study-nursing home
• High control group vs. low control
• High control group gt18 months were alert, active,
  sociable, healthier and alive

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Hostility in Men Women

• 25 year study
• Hostile men 5x as likely to have heart disease
• Hostile men 7x as likely to die as nonhostiles
• High hostility increases likelihood of dying from
  all natural causes

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Womens coping

• Probably different than mens
• Women react w/ tend (caring for) and befriend NOT
  fight or flight

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Women Tend and Befriend

• Women may not be as affected by the flight or
  fight
• Women instead tend to seek out social support
• Evolutionarily women appear to take cover and
  protect the young
• Hormone oxytocin-higher levels reduce cortisol
  responses to stress faster recovery

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Social support networks

• Perception of how closely connected you are to
  others
• how many groups one belongs to
• of close friends
• Relatives you feel close to

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Optimists in college

• Carver Scheier checked the optimism of h.s.
  seniors
• A year later, checked how they were doing in
  college
• Had much less stress and reported higher levels
  of well being.

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Optimists later on

• Rated for optimism before bypass surgery
• Optimists recovered faster
• 2,500 Finnish men
• Those who scored low in optimism were 2x as
  likely to die in the next 6 years

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Social support-Fluffy Fido

• presence of favorite dog was more effective than
  presence of friend in lowering reactions to
  stress
• Pet owners (guardians) report feeling less stress
• Are less likely to need doctors

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Pets continued

• Study of 93 heart attack patients
• Follow up study after discharge
• 6 of those with pets died
• 44 of those without pets died
• Controlled for existence of other social
  relationships

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Pet attachment helps because

• Pets provide unconditional support
• Particularly important among never married,
  widowed, divorced
• gt65 inversely related to depression

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Stress Health summary

• We get sick when we get stressed because our
  immune systems drop
• We stay well with a little help from our
• friends
• families
• pets
• own attitudes