Three ways that stress is conceptualised by psychologists

Three ways that stress is conceptualised by psychologists Researchers define stress as a physical, mental, or emotional response to events that cause bodily or mental tension. Therefore, stress is a disruptive condition that occurs in response to internal or external environments and affects the body or mind. Depending on the stressors and the types of events being dealt with, stress can manifest itself physically, emotionally or mentally. Physical stress occurs when the body starts to suffer resulting from stressful situation and symptoms show in a range of ways and vary in their seriousness. Emotional stress is a response by the mind when affected by things like anxiety, anger, depression, irritability, frustration or over-reaction to everyday problems. Psychological stress result when an individual is exposed to long-term stress and the symptoms may include withdrawal from society, phobias, compulsive behaviours, eating disorders and night terrors. The concept of stress has been viewed in different ways: An internal body response nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it. This is a state of psychological and physical tension produced when there is a mismatch between the perceived demands of a situation and an individuals perceived ability to cope. This leads to either adaptive or maladaptive state of tension. An external stimuli This is an event that triggers the stress response as it throws the body out of balance and forces it to respond. It can be a life event or a set of circumstances that arouses physiologic reactions that may increase an individuals vulnerability to illness. A transaction includes a set of cognitive, affective and adaptive (coping) responses that arise out of person environment transaction. People perceive threats to their well-being which they may be unable to meet. There are several ways in which the term stress is conceptualised by psychologists: The general adaptation syndrome (GAS) Hans Selye (1936, 1950) conducted a research on stress. He reported that the rats that he was experimenting on showed physiological changes that were directly related to the injections they received during the experiments, but what was actually being injected was less important than the fact that they were being injected. The rats were then exposed to harmful agents like cold, surgical injury, excessive exercise, severing the spinal cord or doses of drugs. A typical syndrome appeared and the same symptoms appeared in response to all of the stimuli including (over time), development of stomach ulcers. He argued that stress can be adaptive in the short term because it enables one to cope with environment demands (fight or flight) but long term stress can be damaging. This led him to make the statement that stress is the non-specific response of the body to any demand. Selye noticed that rats and hospital patients all seemed to show a similar pattern of bodily response which he called General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), because it represented the bodys attempt to cope in an adaptive way with stress. He argued that GAS consisted of three stages; alarm reaction, resistance and exhaustion. After alarm reaction, the individual adapts and returns to normal functioning but after prolonged stress exhaustion occurs which can lead to development of stress-related illnesses. Alarm reaction stage: This stage deals with acute stressors and involves part of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The activity in sympathetic adrenal medullary system (SAM) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis (HPA) increases. This is controlled by electrical impulses through nerves. Selye however emphasized the role of HPA in his account and argued that the alarm reaction develops 6-48 hours after stress and includes muscular tone loss, drop in body temperature and decrease in liver and spleen size. Resistance stage: In this stage the body adapts to the demands of the environment. As it proceeds however, the parasympathetic nervous system requires more careful use of body resources in order to cope. This stage is initially marked by an increase in the size of the adrenal glands and a decrease in some pituitary activity like the production of growth hormone. If the stress is not too much then the body returns to a near-normal state. Exhaustion stage: If the stress is prolonged, the physiological systems used in alarm reaction and resistance stage become ineffective and the initial symptoms like increased heart rate, and sweating re-appear. In extreme cases, the damaged adrenal cortex leads to failure of the parasympathetic system and collapse of the bodys immune system leading to likelihood of stress related diseases like high blood pressure, asthma and heart disease. Selyes research identified major components of stress response and he alerted medicine to the importance of stress and disease. Previous researchers had not properly appreciated the damaging effects of prolonged exposure to stress. There are limitations with this research however, as Selye did not pay much attention to SAM system, and he did not understand fully the relationship between HPA and SAM systems. He also exaggerated when he stated that stress always produces the same physiological pattern. Selye has been criticised for using animals to support his research on human responses to stress. He also assumed that people respond in a passive way to stress but Mason (1975) argued that there is an active process of psychological appraisal when people confront a stressor. Workplace stress Marmot et al.s (1997) study aimed to investigate the negative correlation between job control and stress-related illness in male and female civil servants. It was assumed that job control is negatively correlated with stress-related illnesses. 10,308 civil servants between 35 and 55 years were investigated over three years and job control was measured through self-report survey and independent assessment by personnel managers. Job control was assessed on two occasions, three years apart and records of stress related illnesses kept and then a correlational analysis carried out. It was found out that those with low jobs control were four times likely to die of heart attack than those with high job control. They were also more likely to suffer from other stress-related disorders. On both occasions that job control was measured, the findings were consistent and there was a considerable association even after other factors like job demands, social support employment grade and risk factors for coronary heart disease had been accounted for. As indicated by the number of stress-related illnesses, it shows that low job control is associated with high stress. As the job control decreases, the illness increases, that is, there is an opposite social gradient in stress-related illness (negatively correlated). This however does not fully support the job-strain model because it does not show that high demand is linked to illness and the jobs performed by those high and low in job control also differed in several ways other than simply control. The self-report method is vulnerable to investigator effects and participant reactivity bias and also weaknesses of the correlational method mean that there is no control over job control as a variable and this makes interpretation difficult as the cause and effect cannot be inferred. Personality factors, including Type A behaviour Friedman and Rosemans (1974) carried out a study to test if there was any association between Type A behaviour and Coronary heart disease (CHD). They wanted to test their observations as cardiologists that their patients displayed a common behaviour pattern consisting of impatience, competitiveness and hostility. Around 3200 healthy men of 39-59 years from California were selected and assessed over 8 Â ½ years. They were interviewed, observed and personality type and current health status assessed. There was a follow-up 8 years later when CHD was recorded and a correlation analysis was carried out. 257 participants of the original sample of 3200 had developed CHD during the 8 Â ½ years 70% of whom had been classified as type A, nearly twice as many as Type Bs. This remained the same even when other factors associated with heart disease like smoking, obesity and blood pressure were taken into account. This research shows that the Type A behaviour pattern is linked to CHD and they concluded that this pattern increases the individuals experience of stress which increases physiological reactivity hence high vulnerability to CHD. The high levels of stress hormones indicate that Type A person experience more stress than Type B. The evidence has successfully been applied for example Friedman, Tordoff and Ramirez (1986) reported on the Recurrent Coronary Prevention project which aimed to modify type A behaviour and so reduce CHD in participants who had experienced a heart attack. This study has a limitation however, in that it was an experimental study and so the cause and effect cannot be established; other studies have failed to show the link between Type A and CHD. It has also proved fairly difficult to repeat the findings of Friedman and Rosenman (1974). All the above three areas show that there is a direct link between stress and illness. Stress affects people through cognitive and behavioural which lead to physiology of stress in the body hence weakened immune system and likelihood of illnesses.