Chapter 13: Why is Psychological Stress Stressful?
Some psychological factors can trigger a stress-response on their own or make another stressor seem more stressful.
Outlet
Experiment of Jay Weiss: rats that are under stress who are given an outlet for their frustration are less likely to get ulcers than stressed rats who are not given an outlet.
- An outlet provides relief and distraction for humans too. E.g.: exercise, hobbies...
Social support
- If you are under stress in a room full of strangers -->you get more stressed
- If you are stressed in a room full of friends --> you get less stressed
- Within the same family, there are significantly higher glucocorticoid levels among stepchildren than among biological children
- If you are a member of an ethnic minority, the fewer members there are of your group in your neighborhood, the higher your risks of mental illness, psychiatric hospitalization, and suicide
Predictability
- By being given news about the stressor to come, you are also implicitly being comforted by now knowing what stressors are not coming
- Organisms will eventually habituate to a stressor if it is applied over and over
- There are circumstances in which a stress-response can be more likely to occur in someone despite the reality that the outside world is less stressful
- During the Nazi bombings of England, London was hit every night at the same time. The suburbs were hit randomly, but much less frequently (max once a week). The people in the suburbs developed more ulcers due to the unpredictability of the bombings.
- Being able to predict future events helps us feel like we’re in control and we can strategize
Control
- Airplanes are safer than cars, yet we tend to feel more stressed in planes. This is because we have no control.
- Let someone run voluntarily, and they feel great. Force someone the same amount, and they get a massive stress-response.
- The link between occupational stress and increased risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases is due to the combination of high demand and low control
A perception of things worsening
- If a rat is used to getting 50 shocks a day and another rat is used to getting 10 shocks a day, the latter will become much more stressed than the former if one day it receives 25 shocks
Some subtleties of predictability
- Information either just before or long before the stressor does little good to alleviate the psychological anticipation
- Predictive information can make things worse if the information is vague
Subtleties of control
- An inappropriate sense of control can make us feel terrible (e.g.: “your child’s schizophrenia was caused by your mothering style”)
- People with a strong internal locus of control have far greater stress-responses than do those with external loci when confronted with something uncontrollabe
Resources: Sapolsky, R. Why zebras don’t get ulcers: The acclaimed guide to stress, stress-related diseases, and coping. New York (NY): Henry Holt and Company. 2004 3rd edition
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