Biological Psychology - Stress

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Biological Psychology - Stress

• Stress as a bodily response
• The bodys response to stress
• Stress-related illness and the immune system
• Stress in everyday life
• Life changes and daily hassles
• Workplace stress
• Personality factors
• Emotion-focused and problem-focused approaches to
  coping with stress
• Psychological and physiological methods of stress
  management

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Definitions of Stress

• A response (e.g. physiological response) to
  something in the environment
• A stimulus (stressor) in the environment
• A lack of fit between perceived demands and
  perceived ability to cope with these demands
• this is the definition most often used by
  psychologists and called the transactional
  approach

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Topic 1 Stress as a Bodily Response

• The bodys response to stress
• Stress-related illness and the immune system

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Bodys Response to Stress

• Pituitary adrenal system
• Sympathomedullary pathway
• Activating the bodys stress-response
• General Adaptation Syndrome
• Gender differences in the stress response

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Hypothalamic-Pituitary- Adrenal System

• This system involves the adrenal cortex and is
  under the control of the hypothalamus and the
  pituitary gland
• Brain evaluates a situation as stressful
• Brain instructs hypothalamus to release
  corticotrophin releasing factor (CRF)
• CRF travels to pituitary gland
• Pituitary gland releases adrenocorticotrophic
  hormone (ACTH) which travels to the adrenal
  cortex and stimulates the release of hormones
  called corticosteroids into the bloodstream

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Hypothalamic-Pituitary- adrenal System
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Sympathetic adrenal-medullary Pathway

• The adrenal medulla is controlled by the
  autonomic nervous system (ANS), a network of
  nerve pathways running from centres in the lower
  parts of the brain (the brainstem) out to the
  organs of the body
• The ANS is controlled by brain structures such as
  the hypothalamus
• The ANS has two subdivisions
• the sympathetic, and
• the parasympathetic
• When the sympathetic subdivision is activated,
  heart rate and blood pressure increase fats and
  carbohydrates are mobilised activity in the
  digestive tract slows down a pattern known as
  sympathetic arousal
• When the parasympathetic subdivision is
  activated, heart rate and blood pressure return
  to normal and digestion speeds up a pattern of
  calm and bodily relaxation

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Sympathomedullary Pathway (cont.)

• When sympathetic branch of ANS is activated
• Adrenal medulla releases adrenaline and
  noradrenaline into the bloodstream
• These hormones stimulate heart rate and blood
  pressure
• In conclusion
• The hypothalamus activates both the
  pituitary-adrenal system and the
  sympathomedullary pathways to produce the stress
  response
• Cannon (1914) called this pattern of bodily
  arousal the flight or fight response

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General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)(Selye 1956)

• The GAS has three stages

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Gender Differences in the Stress Response

• Fight or Flight or Tend and Befriend?
• Taylor et al. (2000) claim
• High sympathetic nervous system activation and
  high cortisol responses are characteristic
  biological components of the male stress response
  
• Neurophysiological mechanisms within the female
  brain inhibit the fight and flight response, and
  instead promote attachment behaviour, called the
  tend and befriend response to stress

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Stress-related Illness and the Immune System

• The immune system
• Short-term stressors and the immune system
• Chronic stress and the immune system
• Age and gender differences in the effects of
  stress on the immune system

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Immune System

• The immune system is our main defence against
  infection by foreign agents
• Non-specific immunity phagocytes surround and
  ingest foreign particles wherever they encounter
  them
• Cell-based immunity lymphocytes called T cells
  seek out and destroy any cells recognised as
  foreign
• Antibody-based immunity another class of
  lymphocytes called B cells destroy invading
  agents while they are still in the bloodstream
  and before they enter the bodys tissues

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The Immune Response
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Some Effects of Stress on the Immune System

• Infection and diseases
• Stress causes physiological changes that tend to
  weaken our immune system. As a result, infections
  and illness occur more frequently and recovery
  takes longer.
• Indirect effects
• Stress causes the release of ACTH from the
  pituitary gland which signals the adrenal glands
  to release anti-inflammatory hormones. These
  inhibit immune cell functioning.
• Psoriasis and eczema
• Symptoms of inflammatory skin disorders such as
  psoriasis and eczema worsen with stress. Stress
  interferes with the immune system's ability to
  deal with the inflammation associated with these
  disorders.

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Short-term Stressors and the Immune System

• Well established that psychological stress can
  adversely affect many aspects of immune function
• e.g. examinations found to reduce T cell activity
  (Glaser and Kiecolt-Glaser 2005)

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Chronic Stress and the Immune System

• Conflict in interpersonal relationships
• Couples whose interactions are negative and
  hostile show less adaptive immunological
  responses after these interactions
• Interpersonal conflict can slow wound healing
• Death of a spouse
• The death of a close relative is also associated
  with immune system dysfunction
• Care giving
• Care giving, in particular caring for a spouse
  with dementia, is associated with immune system
  dysfunction

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Age and Gender Differences in the Effects of
Stress on the Immune System

• A telephone survey (National Consumer League,
  2003) of over 1000 adult Americans found that
• Women were significantly more likely to report
  problems and being stressed than men (84 vs.
  76)
• People under the age of 65 were more likely to
  report being stressed than older people (82 vs.
  70)

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Stress as a Bodily Response
Check Your Understanding

1. What is a stressor?
2. What is a stress-response?
3. Who did the earliest systematic studies of the
   stress-response?
4. Name the 3 stages in the General Adaptation
   Syndrome.
5. Describe the transactional model of stress.
6. Name the two parts of the adrenal glands.
7. Outline the two main pathways of the bodys
   stress-response.

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Stress as a Bodily Response
Check Your Understanding

• 8. What does the bodys immune system do?
• 9. What is immunosuppression?
• 10. How did Kiecolt-Glaser and colleagues measure
  activity of the immune system?
• 11. What general conclusions can be drawn from
  the work of Kiecolt-Glaser and colleagues?
• 12. How did Cohen and colleagues measure the
  stress levels of his participants and how did
  they test immune function?

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Topic 2 Stress in Everyday Life

• Life changes and daily hassles
• Workplace stress
• Personality factors
• Emotion-focused and problem-focused approaches to
  coping with stress
• Psychological and physiological methods of stress
  management

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Life Changes and Daily Hassles

• Life changes
• The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)
• Other research into life changes as a source of
  stress
• Daily hassles
• Research on daily hassles
• Why are daily hassles so stressful?

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Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)

• Developed by Holmes and Rahe (1967)
• Way of measuring the relationship between life
  changes (e.g. death of spouse, marriage, change
  in financial status) and wellbeing
• Positive (small but significant) correlation
  between Life Change Scores and illness scores
• Other studies have supported this finding

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Other Research into Life Changes as a Source of
Stress

• Stone et al. (1987) - married couples completed
  daily checklists of events over a 3 month period
• The number of undesirable events that they
  experienced increased 3 to 4 days prior to the
  onset of illness, and desirable events decreased
  during the same period
• Michael and Ben-Zur (2007) studied 130 people
• People who had been widowed experienced a drop in
  life satisfaction after their loss
• Divorced people experienced an increase in life
  satisfaction after their divorce

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The Life Changes Approach
Evaluation

• Individual differences
• The scale values for different events are
  arbitrary and will certainly vary from person to
  person
• Causality
• The relationship between SRRS score and health
  is correlational and so tells us nothing about
  causality
• Positive life events
• Some life events are positive - people getting
  married probably see it as a positive change
• Self-report
• Self-report of life events can be unreliable
• Dated and androcentric
• More recent studies use a scale that focuses more
  on contemporary issues

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Daily Hassles

• Minor events that arise in the course of a normal
  day. Adverse effects can be offset by
  corresponding daily uplifts
• Hassles Scale and Uplift Scale were devised by
  Kanner et al. (1981)

• Examples of uplifts
• Relating well to spouse/partner/lover
• Relating well to friends
• Completing a task
• Feeling healthy
• Getting enough sleep
• Eating out
• Visiting, phoning or writing to someone

• Examples of hassles
• Concerns about weight
• Health of a family member
• Rising price of certain goods
• Home maintenance
• Too many things to do
• Misplacing or losing items
• Physical appearance

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Research on Daily Hassles

• Scores on the Hassles Scale correlate with levels
  of depression, anxiety and health problems
  (Kanner et al. 1981)
• Gervais (2005) found that nurses, who were asked
  to keep diaries for a month, felt that uplifts
  usually counteracted the negative effects of
  their daily hassles, and also improved their
  performance and lowered stress levels
• DeLongis et al. (1982) compared Hassles scores
  with Life Events, and found that although both
  correlated significantly with health status, the
  association for Hassles scores was greater.
  Ruffin (1993) also found in an Australian study
  that daily hassles produced greater psychological
  and physical dysfunction than major negative life
  events
• A recent study of French first year psychology
  students (Bouteyre et al. 2007) has established a
  significant relationship between daily hassles
  and mental health of students during the initial
  transition period to university

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Research into Daily Hassles
Evaluation

• Causality - Most of the data on daily hassles is
  correlational. Therefore, we cannot draw causal
  conclusions about the relationship between daily
  hassles and stress-related problems
• However, correlations indicate that daily stress
  can potentially have adverse effects on our
  health and feelings of well-being
• Cultural differences Social support is an
  important protective factor against stress, and
  there are cultural variations in how it is used
• African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Hispanics
  were found to use the social support offered by
  significant others (e.g. parents and friends)
  more than did White Americans (Kim and McKenry
  1998)
• However, Sim (2000) found that Korean early
  adolescents reported having more daily hassles
  that contributed to maladjustment than they had
  social support from significant others

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Workplace Stress

• Sources of stress in the workplace
• Research on workplace stress

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Sources of Stress in the Workplace

• Physical environment
• Space, temperature, lighting and arrangement of
  an office can all affect the individual
• Work overload
• Long hours at work are often seen as a mark of
  esteem, to the cost of both the individual and
  social structures, such as the family
• Lack of control
• In many organisations, other people often
  determine workload and work patterns
• Role ambiguity
• This occurs when the requirements for a
  particular work role are unclear or poorly
  defined and is a major factor contributing to
  work-related stress

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Research on Workplace Stress

• Many studies carried out. For example
• Marmot et al. (1991) carried out a 3-year
  longitudinal study of 3,000 Whitehall civil
  servants. People with low job control were more
  likely to die of heart attacks than those with
  high job control
• Review of research (Van der Doef and Maes 1998)
  found that combination of high job demands and
  low control increases risk of heart disease

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Research on Workplace Stressors
Evaluation

• Extraneous variables - It is possible that
  variables, such as personality, were not
  controlled for. People with Type A personality
  may be attracted to stressful jobs and this is
  what causes their health problems.
• Job control - Having high levels of job control
  can be stressful for some people, e.g. increasing
  job control can be harmful for individuals who
  lack the capacity to handle it or when this
  control increases their self-blame when things go
  wrong.
• Individual differences - Research has shown that
  as other cultures take on the working practices
  of the West, a similar relationship between lack
  of control and stress-related illness is becoming
  evident. However, not all workers with low
  control and high demand jobs become ill.

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Personality Factors and Stress Type A Behaviour

• Characteristics of Type A behaviour
• Recent research on Type A behaviour
• Explaining the relationship between Type A
  behaviour and heart disease

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Characteristics of Type A Behaviour

• Time pressure
• Working against the clock
• Doing several things at once
• Irritation and impatience with others
• Unhappy doing nothing
• Competitive
• Always play to win at games and work
• Achievement measured as material productivity
• Anger
• Self-critical
• Hostile to outside world
• Anger often directed inwards

• Type B behaviour
• Opposite of Type A
• More relaxed
• Not time pressured, competitive or angry

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Research on Type A Behaviour

• Friedman and Rosenman (1974) Type A behaviour
  increases vulnerability to heart disease
• Williams et al. (2003) found that hostility and
  impatience were the aspects of Type A behaviour
  that were particularly unhealthy, putting
  individuals at increased risk of developing high
  blood pressure (a precursor to heart attacks and
  strokes)
• Kirkaldy et al. (2002) found that Type A
  behaviour plus an external locus of control were
  an unhealthy combination

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Explaining the Relationship Between Type A
Behaviour and Heart Disease

• Several explanations have been proposed for the
  link between Type A behaviour (or components of
  it such as hostility) and an increased risk of
  coronary heart disease
• Compared to Type Bs, Type A individuals respond
  more quickly and more strongly to stressful
  situations, both in their behaviour and in their
  physiological responses (e.g. increased heart
  rate and blood pressure)
• As a result, they experience more wear and tear
  on their cardiovascular system, making them more
  susceptible to heart disease than those with type
  B behaviour

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Evaluation of Type A Behaviour
Evaluation

• Lack of consistent research support
• The role of hostility
• Type A and hardiness
• Protective factors

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Personality Factors and Stress the Hardy
Personality

• Hardiness includes a range of personality
  factors that, if present, defend against the
  negative effects of stress (Kobasa and Maddi
  1977)
• These factors are
• Control belief that you have influence on what
  happens to you
• Commitment a sense of purpose and involvement in
  the world
• Challenge life changes viewed as challenges and
  opportunities rather than threats and stressors
• Research by Kobasa et al. (1985) found
• Hardiness, social support and regular exercise
  were all protective factors that acted additively
  to improve resistance to stress
• Hardiness seemed to have greatest impact

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Hardiness and the Hardy Personality
Evaluation

• Participants
• Much of Kobasas work has been carried out with
  male, white-collar workers, and so the findings
  may not be generalisable to other groups
• Components of personality
• Control, commitment and challenge have never been
  very clearly defined

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Emotion-focused and Problem-focused Coping

• Problem-focused coping
• Strategies that attempt to do something active to
  alleviate or eliminate the stressful situation
• Emotion-focused coping
• Strategies that attempt to regulate the emotional
  distress associated with stressful or potentially
  stressful events

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When is each coping strategy used?

• Problem-focused coping
• Typically used to deal with potentially
  controllable events whereas stressors perceived
  as less controllable might prompt more
  emotion-focused coping.
•  Emotion-focused coping
• Emotion-focused strategies also help people deal
  with stressful situations where there are few
  options to change the situation itself.
• In conclusion
• The predominant view among stress researchers is
  that emotion-focused coping strategies are less
  effective than problem-focused strategies.

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Research on Emotion and Problem-focused Coping

• Health outcomes
• Problem-focused coping positively correlated with
  good health outcomes
• Emotion-focused coping tends to be negatively
  correlated with overall good health outcomes
• Control and coping
• Problem-focused coping tends to be positively
  related to good mood
• Threat and coping
• When greatly threatened by a stressor we may need
  to use emotion-focused coping first

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Emotion and Problem-focused Coping
Evaluation

• Problems of measurement
• Ways of Coping Questionnaire has been
  criticised
• Is emotion-focussed coping always ineffective?
• Emotion-focused coping better in some
  circumstances
• Men, in particular, may benefit from using
  emotion-focused coping
• Do males and females use different strategies?
• Men tend to use problem-focused strategies and
  women tend more often to use emotion-focused
  strategies. Reasons

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Methods of Stress Management

• Physiological approaches
• The use of drugs and biofeedback to target
  directly the stress-response systems themselves
• Psychological approaches
• Cognitive and behavioural training to help people
  control specific stressors in their lives
• Techniques of relaxation and increasing hardiness
  to reduce the bodily arousal associated with
  stress

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Physiological Methods of Stress Management
Drugs

• Commonly used drugs to combat stress are the
• Benzodiazepines (BZs)
• Reduce brain arousal
• Beta-blockers
• Reduce activity of sympathetic nervous system

How benzodiazepines enhance the inhibitory role
of GABA at the synapse
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Advantages of Drugs as a Method of Stress
Management

• Speed and effectiveness
• Drugs can work quickly to reduce dangerous
  symptoms such as raised blood pressure
  (beta-blockers), or to reduce disabling levels of
  stress-related anxiety (BZs)
• Research support
• A meta-analysis of studies found that BZs were
  more effective than other drugs such as
  antidepressants. However, they do not seem to
  prevent onset of PTSD
• Availability
• Drugs can be prescribed immediately. In addition,
  the range of treatments available is increasing
  rapidly

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Weaknesses of Drugs as a Method of Stress
Management

• Dependency
• Long-term use of BZs can lead to psychological
  and physical dependency
• Tolerance
• Tolerance to the effects of BZs develops with
  regular use
• Side effects
• BZs can cause drowsiness and affect memory
• NICE report (2006)
• The National Institute for Clinical Excellence
  recommended that beta-blockers should not be used
  to treat high blood pressure, except in a few
  specific cases. Beta blockers are associated with
  an increased risk of diabetes and stroke

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Physiological Methods of Stress Management
Biofeedback

• Involves recording the activity of the
  physiological systems of the bodys
  stress-response, such as blood pressure or
  tension in the neck muscles Recording is usually
  made via electrodes on the skin leading to a
  monitor.
• People are encouraged to try various strategies
  to reduce the physiological readings, e.g. muscle
  relaxation or meditation, or even altering their
  posture.
• The aim is to find a strategy to reduce, for
  instance, blood pressure consistently, and then
  to transfer the strategy to the world outside the
  laboratory and to practise it regularly.

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Biofeedback as a Method of Stress Management
Evaluation

• Effectiveness
• Can be very successful for some individuals,
  especially children
• Role of relaxation
• Often found to be no more effective than muscle
  relaxation procedures without biofeedback
• Expense
• Expensive in terms of equipment and time. If
  relaxation is the important feature, then the
  cost of the equipment could be avoided and
  training time would be much reduced

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Psychological Methods of Stress Management
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

• According to the transactional model of stress,
  the trigger in stressful situations is the
  perceived gap between the demands being made on
  you and the coping responses you have available.
• The CognitiveBehavioural approaches to stress
  management aim to encourage the client to
  perceive and evaluate stressful situations
  accurately and to improve coping skills and
  techniques by training and practice.
• Stress inoculation is a cognitive-behavioural
  method to prepare individuals for future
  stressors and to promote resilience (Meichenbaum
  and Cameron 1983).

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Stress-Inoculation Training

• Conceptualisation The client is encouraged to
  relive stressful situations and to analyse
  various features. What was actually stressful
  about it? How did they attempt to cope? Why
  wasnt it successful? Eventually, clients reach a
  more realistic understanding of the demands being
  made on them.
• Skills training and practice Once the key
  elements of the stressful situations have been
  identified, clients can be taught specific and
  non-specific strategies for coping with them.
  Relaxation techniques help them to cope with the
  initial arousing effects of stress and training
  in particular skills then helps reduce the
  specific demands.
• Real-life application The final stage is for
  the client to go out into the real world and to
  put the training to the test. Contact with the
  therapist is maintained, and follow-up sessions
  and further training are provided if necessary.
  The reinforcement of successful coping then
  becomes self-sustaining.

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Stress Inoculation Training
Evaluation

• Targeting symptoms and causes
• Helpful at reducing gap between perceived demands
  and coping resources
• Effectiveness
• A powerful tool. But, few controlled studies done
  to check effectiveness
• Practicality
• Expensive in time, application and money
• Difficulties
• Changing cognitions and behaviours is difficult
  if they are based on well established habits

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Psychological Methods of Stress Management
Progressive Muscle Relaxation

• Effective relaxation has to be learnt. It is an
  active approach to reducing bodily arousal
• A standard procedure train clients consciously
  to clench and unclench muscles, to get them used
  to the sensations of tension and relaxation
• Whole-body relaxation begin with the muscles of
  the toes, tensing and then relaxing them, and
  then working up through the legs, body, arms,
  shoulders and head (facial muscles)
• During relaxation the stress response mechanisms
  are inactive the parasympathetic subdivision of
  the ANS is activated

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Progressive Muscle Relaxation as a Method of
Stress Management
Evaluation

• Effectiveness If practised regularly,
  relaxation techniques are effective in reducing
  stress.
• Practicality Techniques take time and space and
  full progressive relaxation may be
  inconvenient/impossible. However, training also
  involves cognitive strategies to help relaxation
  and relaxation of some muscle groups is usually
  possible.
• Targeting symptoms Long-lasting severe
  stressors need more than non-specific relaxation
  their source has to be identified and targeted,
  usually via cognitive and behavioural strategies.
  Relaxation can still remain as an important
  component of stress management, but long-term
  adjustment requires more focused intervention as
  well.

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Psychological Methods of Stress Management
Hardiness Training

• Kobasa proposed ways in which hardiness could be
  increased. The procedure has three aspects, the
  first two of which are quite similar to the first
  stage of stress-inoculation training
• Focusing Clients are trained and encouraged to
  spot signs of stress. This allows them to
  identify sources of stress.
• Reliving stressful encounters Clients analyze
  recent stressful situations and how they coped
  with them. This gives them insight into their
  current coping strategies.
• Self-improvement Central to hardiness is the
  belief that you can cope with lifes challenges.
  So an essential part of hardiness training is to
  begin with challenges the client can cope with
  before moving on to more complex problems.

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Hardiness Training
Evaluation

• Theoretical issues The relative importance of
  the three factors control, commitment,
  challenge is unclear, although there is
  evidence for the role of control and commitment
  in reducing responses to stressors. The
  importance of control in stress management cannot
  be exaggerated, and the concept of hardiness
  overlaps substantially with issues of personal
  control and may not be very different from it.
• Generalisability Kobasas studies usually
  involve white, middle-class businessmen, so the
  results cannot reliably be generalised to women
  or to different classes and cultures.
• Effectiveness and practicality There are few
  systematic studies of the effectiveness of
  hardiness training. It is lengthy and requires
  commitment and motivation. It also has the
  problem of trying to modify basic aspects of
  personality and learnt habits of coping.

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Stress in Everyday Life
Check Your Understanding

• What is the name of the rating scale devised by
  Holmes and Rahe in 1967 to investigate life
  stress? How many life events were on this scale
  and which was given the highest score of 100?
• 2. Outline two criticisms of the Holmes and
  Rahes scale and its use.
• 3. What term is used to describe incidents that
  we would not call major life events, but which
  nevertheless can be a source of stress?
• 4. Outline the procedures and findings of one
  study of stress in the workplace.
• 5. How did Johansson et al. (1978) measure levels
  of stress in their study of Swedish sawmill
  workers?
• 6. Describe two or more sources of stress in the
  workplace.
• 7. Describe the main characteristics of the Type
  A behaviour pattern.
• 8. Which characteristic of the Type A pattern
  seems to be especially important in increasing
  vulnerability to stress?

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Stress in Everyday Life
Check Your Understanding

• 9. Why might some people with Type A behaviour
  be less vulnerable to stress-related illness than
  others who also have Type A behaviour?
• Distinguish between emotion-focused and
  problem-focused coping.
• Give two advantages and two disadvantages of each
  type of coping.
• Describe the effects of two types of drug used to
  manage stress.
• Outline one strength and one weakness of using
  drugs to manage stress.
• Name and outline the three phases of
  stress-inoculation training.
• Outline one strength and one weakness of the
  stress inoculation approach.
• Name and outline one other psychological method
  of stress management

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