"What is Stress?" Study Guide Flashcards
What is a stressor? What are some examples? What kinds of stressors have you experienced?
A stressor is any stimulus appraised by the individual as threatening or capable of causing harm or loss. Some examples include school, unemployment, divorce, weddings, finances, death of a loved one, etc. Some stressors I’ve experienced recently are school courses, death of a relative, and work-related issues.
What does it mean that stress doesn’t occur in a vacuum?
According to the article, it means that the perception of potential stressors is influenced by the individual’s overall level of well-being and incorporates environmental factors into a model of personal stress.
How did Claude Bernard, Walter Cannon, and Hans Selye contribute to the understanding of the physiological basis of stress?
Claude Bernard discovered that living organisms attempt to maintain an internal balance and how this struggle continues despite changes in the outside environment. Walter Cannon coined the terms “homeostasis” and “fight or flight mode.” Hans Selye is known as the father of stress, having developed the GAS (General Adaptation Syndrome) model.
___ described how living organisms attempt to maintain an internal constancy or balance.
Claude Bernard
Cannon later refined this process (how living organisms attempt to maintain an internal constancy or balance) and renamed it as ____.
Homeostasis
How did Selye define stress?
Selye discovered that his laboratory animals adjusted to demands (which were created by the need to adapt to external stimuli) by initiating a complex pattern of physiological responses but that the responses were the same regardless of the source of demand. Selye called this “stress”.
Selye developed the General Adaptation Syndrome. What are the three phases?
Alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. During the alarm phase, hormones (cortisol, adrenaline, and nor-adrenaline) are released to give the body energy. During the resistance phase, stress is either resolved or it continues. If it continues, the body progresses to the exhaustion phase, causing the individual to experience fatigue.
Who coined the term “fight or flight”? What does it mean?
Walter Cannon coined the term “fight or flight”. It describes the options available in coping with stressors; the body is primed to either confront the stressor or avoid it.
Thomas Holmes and Richard Rake found a relationship between stressful events and susceptibility to illness. Explain their theory.
Their theory was that people who experienced serious life events in a short period of time were more likely to come down with a serious illness.
Is the brain able to differentiate between symbolic and real threats?
No; according to Albert Theodore William Simeons, the brain hasn’t evolved to the point where it can discriminate between symbolic and physical threats and therefore cannot initiate different responses for these stressors.
When did the holistic health movement come into being?
It came into being in the 1960s, as an attempt to expand the view of health that had been proclaimed in 1947 by the WHO.
How did Halbert Dunn describe health?
Halbert Dunn believed that the WHO vision characterized health as a static state. The WHO defined it as a state of complete physical, social, and mental well-being, not merely the absence of disease. He, however, considered health to be a conscious deliberate approach to life and being and refined well-being to focus on functioning, which he viewed as evidence of well-being.
What are the six dimensions of well-being?
Physical, social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and environmental/occupational.
