Stress

Topic 2

What is stress?• In pairs:

• Define stress (in your own words)• Think about what causes stress –

examples?• How can researchers measure stress?• Can stress be reduced/managed? How?

Stress• Stress is a state of physiological or

psychological strain caused by unpleasant stimulus.

• Stress can be defined as being; a pattern of negative physiological states and psychological responses occurring in situations where people perceive threats to their well being which they may be unable to meet. (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984)

• Stress has 3 main elements; the stressor or stimulus, the perception the person feels that they are under threat and the effects such as the behaviours experienced.

1. Causes of stress

• Stress in the workplace (social)

• Hassles and life events (social)

• Lack of control (cognitive and individual approaches)

2. Methods of measuring stress

• Physiological measures

• Self-report

• Combined approach

3. Techniques for measuring stress

• Cognitive

• Behavioural

• Social

Stress experience

• Stressor• stimuli that requires a person to make an adjustment

• External • e.g. Natural disasters

• Life events • e.g. Work, divorce, death

• Daily hassles • e.g. Missing the bus, being late, not being able to find a

parking space

• Internal • e.g. Being able to cope with thoughts and feelings

• Control • E.g. whether people feel that they are in control of

situation

• Stress: mismatch between demands of the situation and our ability to cope with them

Stress response • https://youtu.be/DOWwPP6HFzQ

• How do you feel?

• What is happening in your body?

Stress response• How did you feel before you

assessments this week?

• Demands vs. ability to cope?

• Distinguish between biological and psychological responses.

• Biological – respond physically to stress by producing more adrenaline , nor adrenaline and corticosteroids

• Increased heart rate, blood pressure

• Increased respiration• Closing down of functions not

immediately vital (digestion)

Problems in society • Why is stress a problem?• Why is it important to understand and explain stress?

• Over a long period of time this stress response causes the immune system to break down

• Immune system (colds, coughs etc.)• Heart disease• High blood pressure - stroke• Days off work + lack of concentration at work

(accidents)• Anxiety, depression and other psychological

problems

Johansson

Stress in the workplace.

Background:• Stress is a biological response to an external

stimulus.

• What are stressors?

• What it is the body’s response to stress?

• What do modern production methods require?

• (time stresses – deadlines, working with machines with little interaction, repetitive work)

• What has this lead to?

Aim:• To measure the physiological and

psychological stress response in two categories of employees.

Methodology:• A quasi-experiment where workers were

defined as being either at ‘high-risk’ of stress, or in a control group.

• An independent measures design as participants were already working in one of the two categories.

Participants:• 24 workers at a Swedish sawmill.• A ‘high-risk’ group of 14 finishers whose

job it was to finish off the wood in the last stage of processing the timber.

• Their work was machine-paced, isolated, repetitive and highly skilled.

• Their productivity determined the wage rates for the rest of the sawmill.

• A control group of 10 cleaners whose work was varied, self-paced and more sociable.

Procedure:• Levels of stress-related hormones were measured

using urine samples on work and rest days.

• Self-report questionnaires were also given to assess mood, alertness and caffeine and nicotine consumption.

• Body temperature was measured at the time of the urine sample.

• Self-rating scales were given, rating words such as ‘well-being’, ‘sleepiness’ and ‘irritation’.

• Records were kept of stress-related illnesses and absenteeism.

Findings:• The high-risk group of finishers secreted

more stress-related hormones on work days than rest days and a higher level than the low-risk cleaners.

• The high-risk group showed significantly higher levels of stress-related illnesses such as headaches and had more absenteeism than the low-risk group.

• In the self-report, the high-risk group felt more rushed and irritated and rated their well-being as lower than the control group.

Findings

Conclusions:• A combination of work stressors such as

machine pacing, repetitiveness and a high level of responsibility, lead to chronic physiological arousal, leading to stress-related illnesses and absenteeism.

• Reducing work stressors can reduce illness and absenteeism.

Issues:• Ecological validity

• In their own environment doing their own ‘usual’ job

• Independent measures design• Participant variables may case bias

• Had a control group• Results found are statistically significant

and not due to chance

Debates:• Individual vs Situational

• The situation makes the individual stressed

• Usefulness• How to reduce illness and absenteeism

• Psychology as science• Objective measures obtained through biological procedures

• Free will vs Determinism• Job determines your levels of stress

• Reductionism vs Holism• Your job determines how stressed you are• Biological- biology causes it

• Nature vs Nurture• The body’s physical reactions to stress.

Kanner

Daily hassles and uplifts- comparison of two methods of

stress management

• In pairs – explain the difference between • Life events• Daily hassles• Uplifts

• Examples?

Background:• Life event scales were devised to

demonstrate how major life events such as divorce and severe illness can be used to calculate levels of stress and consequently to predict illness.

LifeEvents

HasslesDaily hassles – ‘ irritating, frustrating, distressing demands that to some degree characterise everyday transactions with the environment’ Kanner (1981)

UpliftsUplifts

Getting enough sleep 1 2 3

Practising your hobby 1 2 3

Being lucky 1 2 3

Saving money 1 2 3

Liking fellow workers 1 2 3

Not working (i.e. holiday) 1 2 3

Successful financial dealings 1 2 3

Smile from someone you like 1 2 3

• Can you identify weaknesses of the life events scale?

• What is the difference between life events and daily hassle?

• Some research has suggested that daily hassles lead to more stress as they can combine to produce one large stress.

• Daily hassles are irritating, frustrating, demanding and characterise everyday transactions with the environment. (Kanner, 1981)

Background • Give examples of the following: daily

hassles, life events, uplifts. • What did Kanner believe?

• He believed a person can withstand a major event once in a lifetime far more easily than constant smaller ones.

Aim:• To compare the Hassles and Uplifts scale

and the Berkman Life Events scale as predictors of psychological symptoms of stress.

Methodology:• A longitudinal study using self-report

and psychometric tests. • Repeated measures design as

participants completed both self-reports.

Participants:• 100 middle-aged adults in California.• Mostly white with adequate or above

income.• Protestant with at least a 9th grade

education.

Procedure:

• All tests were sent out by post one month before the test began.

• Participants were asked to complete;• The Hassles rating every day for nine months• The Life-events rating after 10 months• The Hopkins Symptom Checklist and the

Bradburn Moral scale every month for nine months

To assess their psychological symptoms of stress.

HSCL – example• :• 1. Suddenly scared for no reason• 2. Feeling fearful• 3. Faintness, dizziness, or weakness• 4. Feeling tense or keyed up• 5. Blaming yourself for things• 6. Difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep• 7. Feeling blue• 8. Feeling of worthlessness• 9. Feeling everything is an effort• 10. Feeling hopeless about future

Findings:• The Hassles scale was a better predictor of

psychological and physiological symptoms than the Life events scores.

• Hassles seemed to be consistent month on month.

• Life events for men correlated positively with Hassles and negatively with uplifts.

• For women, the more life events they reported, the more hassles and uplifts were reported.

• Hassle frequency correlated positively with psychological symptoms on the Hopkins symptom checklist. – The more hassles, the more symptoms.

Conclusions:• Assessment of daily hassles and uplift

may be a better approach to the prediction of stress and ill health than the life events approach.

• Hassles contribute to psychological symptoms, whatever life events happen.

Issues:• Self-report measures

• Unreliable• Social desirability- not wanting to seem too stressed

• Generalisability• Mostly white• All from California

• Longitudinal• See the effects and changes of stressors and hassles

over time

• Gained informed consent

• High ecological validity• Can be applied to everyday life

Debates:

• Reductionism vs Holism• Takes into account many factors influencing

stress levels

• Nature vs Nurture• The environment determines stress

• Psychology as science• Objective measures that draw comparisons

• Determinism vs Free will• Everyday hassles determine the levels of

stress

Geer and Maisel

The effect of control in reducing stress reactions

Background• What do people prefer? • By definition, what can people do? • If people can predict when a unpleasant event

is going to happen, what should they have?

• People prefer predictable rather than unpredictable averse events. By definition, people who control the termination of a stimulus can also predict it length. Therefore, people who can predict when an unpleasant event is going to stop should have lower response to it.

Aim:

• To see if perceived or actual control can reduce stress reactions to adverse stimuli.

Methodology:• A laboratory experiment on 60 psychology

undergraduates from New York university. • Independent measures design as

participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions.

• Stress levels were measures using galvanic skin response- GSR- and heart rate monitors (ECG).

Procedure:• Group one: Were given control over how long

they could look at pictures of car crash victims for. They were able to press a button to terminate the image and were told that a tone would precede each image.

• Group two: Were warned that the images would be 60 seconds apart and would last for 35 seconds with a 10 second warning tone before each new image. The group had no control but knew what was happening.

• Group three: Were told that from time to time they would see images and hear tones but were not told of any timings.

Procedure:

• Each participant was seated in a sound-proof room and was wired up to the GSR and ECG machines.

• The machine was calibrated for 5 minutes whilst the participant relaxed and a baseline measurement was taken.

• Instructions were read over an intercom.

• Each photo was preceded with a 10 second tone and then flashed up for 35 seconds- only group one could terminate the image.

• The GSR was taken at the onset of the tone, during the second half of the tone and in response to the picture.

Findings:• The ECG recordings were discarded as they

appeared to be inaccurate.• Group 2 who knew the timings showed the

most stress.• Group 1 who had full control showed the

least stress.• No difference between Groups 2 and 3

• Being able to predict what was coming did not seem to prevent stress response, whereas being able to stop it did.

Conclusions:• Having control over your environment

can reduce stress responses.

Evaluation• GRAVE?

Issues:• Objective

• Scientific data was collected from GSR

• Reliability• Basement measurements allowed comparisons to be made

• Standardised• Low generalisability

• Ethnocentric

• Demand characteristics• Used psychology students who my have been able to guess the aim or

change the way the GSR picked up stress levels, e.g. digging nails into palm gives high readings

• Low ecological validity• Lab experiment involving looking at car crash victims whilst wired up

• Ethics• Looking at car crash victims

• Confounding variables• Nerves can mess with the GSR readings.

Debates:• Psychology as science

• Objective results from the GSR machine

• Ethnocentrism• All from New York

• Situational vs Individual• Caused by the situation or by the

individuals response or perceptions.

• Nature vs Nurture• The biological response to stress

EXAM STYLE QUESTIONS Causes of Stress

WORKPLACE

ROLE OF CONTROL

DAILY HASSLES

January 2010Describe one piece of research which considers workplace stress. (10)Discuss problems of conducting research into the causes of stress. (15) June 2014Outline how work can be a cause of stress. (10)Evaluate the use of quantitative data when researching the causes of stress. (15)

June 2011Outline one piece of evidence which suggests that stress can be caused by hassles and or life events. (10)Evaluate the reliability of methods of measuring stress. (15)

ExampleOutline one piece of evidence which suggests that stress can be caused by lack of control. (10)Evaluate the use of qualitative data when researching the causes of stress. (15)

Workplace [10]

Introduction:

Conclusion:

Assumption: Johansson:

Hassles [10]

Introduction:

Conclusion:

Assumption: Kanner:

Control [10]

Introduction:

Conclusion:

Assumption: Geer: