Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15: Myelin, Multiple Sclerosis, Protective Factor
13 May 2018
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Stress, Coping, and Health!
•Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurological disorder that is thought to arise from an
autoimmune reaction. !
•The body's immune system begins to attack and break down the myelin sheath
surrounding axons. !
•The demyelinated neuron can no longer transmit action potentials efficiently. !
•This results in symptoms ranging from weakness and a lack of coordination
in mild cases to severe speech problems and paralysis in the more extreme
form.!
•The milder version is more common; symptoms flare up and then ease over a period
of several days. !
•Chronic MS is much more debilitating. The symptoms simply get worse over
time and never relapse. MS is not terminal, but it does lead to a shorter life
expectancy. We do not yet know what causes MS.!
•There is a certain genetic predisposition, but environmental triggers are
necessary. Implicated in the onset of MS and the cycling in RRMS are diet,
stress, trauma, and lack of sunshine.!
•Psychological and physical well-being depends on complex interactions among
environmental demands, the personal and environmental resources that we have to deal
with them, the individual vulnerabilities that make us susceptible to certain kinds of
demands, and protective factors that help to shield us from the ravages of stress.!
•A third of adult Canadians show symptoms of chronic stress, and a recent Leger
Marketing survey found that 41 percent of adult Canadians report their level of work
stress as high or very high. !
THE NATURE OF STRESS!
•Psychologists have viewed stress in three different ways: as a stimulus, a response, and an
organism-environment interaction. Some define stress in terms of eliciting stimuli, or events
that place strong demands on us. These situations are termed stressors. !
• “There's all kinds of stress in my life right now. I have three exams next week, I lost
my backpack, and my car just broke down.”!
•Stress also has been viewed as a response that has cognitive, physiological, and
behavioural components. !
•Thus, a person might say, “I'm feeling all stressed out. I'm tensed up, I can't
concentrate because I'm really worried!
• The presence of negative emotions is an important feature of the stress response and links
the study of stress with the field of emotion!
•A third way of thinking about stress combines the stimulus and response definitions
into a more inclusive model. Here stress is viewed as a person-situation interaction,
or, more formally, as a transaction between the organism and the environment!
Stressors
•Stressors are specific kinds of eliciting stimuli. Whether physical or psychological, they
place demands on us that endanger well-being, requiring us to adapt in some manner. !
•The greater the imbalance between demands and resources, the more stressful a
situation is likely to be.!
•microstressors—the daily hassles and everyday annoyances we encounter at school, on
the job, and in our family relations!
• Catastrophic events often occur unexpectedly and typically affect large numbers of people. !
•natural disasters, acts of war, and concentration camp confinement !
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•Major negative events such as being the victim of a major crime or sexual abuse, the death
or loss of a loved one, an academic or career failure, or a major illness, also require major
adaptation.!
•events that occur suddenly and unpredictably, and that affect a person over a long period
of time seem to take the greatest toll on physical and psychological well-being!
Measuring Stressful Life Events
•To study linkages between life events and well-being, researchers have devised life event
scales to quantify the amount of life stress that a person has experienced over a given
period of time!
•respondents might be asked to rate the predictability, controllability, and duration of each
event they experienced, permitting an analysis of these factors as well. !
•Life event scales have been widely used in life stress research. !
•Like other self-report measures, however, they are subject to possible distortion and
failures of recall.!
•Some early theorists believed that any life event that requires adaptation, whether negative
or positive in nature, is a stressor !
•most modern researchers now define stress in terms of negative life changes only !
The Stress Response!
•four aspects of the appraisal process are of particular significance:!
1. appraisal of the demands of the situation (primary appraisal);!
2. appraisal of the resources available to cope with it (secondary appraisal);!
3. judgments of what the consequences of the situation could be; and!
4. appraisal of the personal meaning, that is, what the outcome might imply about us.!
•According to Richard Lazarus (1991), you will first engage in a primary appraisal of this
situation as being either benign, neutral/irrelevant, or threatening in terms of its demands
(how difficult an interview it will be) and its significance for your well-being (how badly you
want or need the job). !
•At the same time, you will be appraising your perceived ability to cope with the
situation, that is, the resources available to deal with it. Lazarus calls this resource
appraisal step secondary appraisal. !
•Coping resources include your knowledge and abilities, your verbal skills, and your
social resources, such as people who will give you emotional support and
encouragement. !
•If you believe that the demands of the interview greatly exceed your
resources, you will likely experience stress.!
•You will also take into account the potential consequences of failing to cope
successfully with the situation!
•Finally, the psychological meaning of the consequences may be related to your
basic beliefs about yourself or the world. !
•Certain beliefs or personal standards can make people vulnerable to
particular types of situational demands. !
•For example, if your feelings of self-worth depend on how successful you are
in situations like this one, you may regard doing poorly during the interview
as evidence that you are a worthless failure.!
•Appraisal patterns can differ from person to person in so many ways helps us understand
why there can be so much individual variation in the way people respond to the same event
or situation, and it also helps us understand why some people are particularly vulnerable to
certain types of demands.!
Chronic Stress and the GAS
•Hans Selye was a pioneer in studying the body's response to stress. !
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•He described a physiological response pattern to strong and prolonged stressors
that he called the general adaptation syndrome (GAS). !
•The GAS consists of three phases: alarm reaction, resistance, and
exhaustion!
•In response to a physical or psychological stressor, animals exhibit a rapid increase in
physiological arousal. !
•This alarm reaction occurs because of the sudden activation of the sympathetic
nervous system and the release of stress hormones by the endocrine system. !
•The sympathetic nervous system has an activating effect on the smooth
muscles, organs, and glands of the body. !
•Sympathetic nervous system activation, for example, leads to an increase in
heart rate and respiration, dilates the pupils, and slows digestion. This alarm
reaction helps the body deal with the source of the stress.!
•There is also an endocrine, or hormonal, stress response. !
•Perception of a threat leads a cascade of messages from the hypothalamus within
the brain to the pituitary gland at the base of the brain, and then from the pituitary
gland to the adrenal glands. !
•The adrenal glands produce a number of different hormones, but during a period of
stress the most important is cortisol. !
•Cortisol triggers an increase in blood sugars, in part by acting on the liver.
Thus, the extra blood arriving at your skeletal muscles contains additional
sugar, along with the additional oxygen. Cortisol also suppresses the
immune system !
•If you are injured, this action of cortisol suppresses inflammation so that injured
tissues do not swell. !
•The powerful anti-inflammatory effects of cortisol are well demonstrated by
the use of cortisone, which the body converts to cortisol, to treat the joint
inflammation of persistent secretion of cortisol is associated with a number
of serious clinical conditions, such as depression and anxiety disorders!
•You are more sensitive to visual stimuli, movement is faster and stronger, and injury
is less likely to generate movement-limiting swelling; your body is primed and ready
to act.!
•The alarm reaction stage cannot last indefinitely, however, and the body's natural
tendency to maintain the stable internal state of homeostasis results in
parasympathetic nervous system activity. The parasympathetic nervous system
functions to reduce arousal. !
•Despite attempts to return to homeostasis, if the stressor continues, the
stress response also continues!
•With continued exposure to stress, the body remains on red alert and enters
the second stage, resistance.!
•During the stage of resistance, the body's resources continue to be mobilized so that the
person can function despite the presence of the stressor. !
•Resistance can last for a relatively long time, but the body's resources are being
depleted. !
•How long the stage of resistance can last depends on the severity of the stress, the
individual's general health, available support (such as social support), and other
factors. !
•Elevation of heart rate and respiration, suppression of digestion, suppression of the
immune system, and changes in blood sugar levels cannot continue indefinitely
without exhausting the body. !
•Eventually, remaining bodily resources are no longer sufficient and the stage of
resistance comes to an end.!
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PSYCH 1000 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Stress, coping, and health: multiple sclerosis (ms) is a neurological disorder that is thought to arise from an autoimmune reaction. The body"s immune system begins to attack and break down the myelin sheath surrounding axons. The demyelinated neuron can no longer transmit action potentials e ciently. This results in symptoms ranging from weakness and a lack of coordination in mild cases to severe speech problems and paralysis in the more extreme form. The milder version is more common; symptoms are up and then ease over a period of several days: chronic ms is much more debilitating. The symptoms simply get worse over time and never relapse. Ms is not terminal, but it does lead to a shorter life expectancy. We do not yet know what causes ms. There is a certain genetic predisposition, but environmental triggers are necessary. Marketing survey found that 41 percent of adult canadians report their level of work stress as high or very high.
