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