PSYC 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Coronary Artery Disease, Learned Helplessness, Protective Factor
15 May 2019
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• Hardiness: characteristics that help one cope with stress (ability to deal with poor
conditions/stress in a stressful environment - psychological construct)
o 3 C's:
• Control: (most important one); believe that they have control over outcomes (not
powerless to influence events)
• Commitment; hardy = committed to work, families, and other pursuits; believe theyre
doing what is important
• Challenge: see demands as an opportunity, not a threat
o Resilience: unexpectedly good recovery after stressor/adversity (includes positive personal
growth)
• Resilient people: use humour, positive emotions, social support, optimism, "power of
positive thinking"
• Thought to be rare, but isnt (esp. after trauma)
• Coping Self-Efficacy: belief that we are able to perform the behaviours necessary to cope
successfully
o Self-efficacy = ability to believe in oneself and their abilities
o Important protective factor
o Related to secondary appraisal
o Specific to situation's demands (not a global trait - how can I handle these demands?)
o Bandura's regular self-efficacy, influenced by:
• Previous success/failure in similar situations
• Observational learning
• Persuasion
• Emotional arousal (optimal)
• Personality Factors:
o Type A:
• Impatient, easily angered, hyper competitive, highly motivated
▪ Rapid talking/walking/eating
▪ Exaggerated sense of time urgency (time oriented)
▪ Aggressive or irritated by delays/obstacles (rule governed)
o Type B:
• Laid back, patient, easy-going and relaxed
o Type A = 2x risk of stress and coronary heart disease
• Not due to high ambition/fast paced lifestyle
• Due to frequent negative emotions (frustration, angry, hostile, impatient)
• Time pressures of one own making, or anger at barriers to a goal = hostility
• Hostility = alienated others, produces conflict, reduces overall social support
• Type A overreact to anger, physiologically
• Spiritual Beliefs:
o Helps in coping with stress (good for losses, illness, setbacks - i.e. find higher meaning)
o Can sometimes increase stress (i.e. marital problems, abuse = guilt, pressure)
o Dependant on perceptions: illness = question faith, guilt about past sins, etc.
• Optimism:
o Better adjustment to negative life events, fewer feelings of helplessness
o Better immune functioning
• Coping: active efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress
o Adaptive: healthy; actively trying to solve problem
o Maladaptive: unhealthy; ignoring problem, indulging in alcohol, etc.
• Limited-value Strategies:
o Aggression (acting out):
• Behaviour intended to hurt someone (emotionally/physically)
• Displacement: act aggressively to someone who was not at fault
• Catharsis: Freud's idea that we should release pent-up aggression - blow off steam
▪ Aggression does not lead to a decrease in anger; increases aggressive
tendencies!
o Self-indulgence:
• When things are going poorly in one area of life, we often "develop alternative
rewards" for ourselves
• Substitutes to help feel better (shopping, eating, gambling, drugs)
• Internet addiction (inordinate amount of time online, inability to control)
• Interfere with daily functioning
• Occasionally okay, excessive use or got-to strategy = negative
• May result in guilt, regret or embarrassment
o Self-blame:
• Highly critical of themselves during periods of stress
• Catastrophic thinking:
▪ Think failures are result of personal shortcomings
▪ Focus on negative feedback (ignore positive)
• Problematic for people who've experienced traumatic events
o Defense Mechanisms:
• Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory
• Distorting or denying reality; disguising our own desires
▪ Denial: refuse to acknowledge or face an unpleasant reality
▪ Fantasy: deluding oneself; create alternate reality
▪ Overcompensation: make up for real (or imagined) deficiencies by focussing
extra-hard on some other (desirable) characteristic
• Common, but not good coping strategies
• Increases depression; involved avoiding the problem and "wishful thinking" (X)
• Anticipated stressor = defense mechanisms associate with higher anxieties
o Giving Up:
• Learned helplessness: passive behaviour due to exposure to unavoidable, aversive
events
• Martin Seligman: dogs given unavoidable electric shocks. Later, placed in a room
where they had the chance to avoid the shocks.
▪ Results: the dogs didn’t even try to avoid them!!
• Idea that we believe we cannot control the unpleasant event; don’t bother trying
• Beliefs are not always accurate but by thinking that nothing will ever change, we
ultimately do nothing = learned helplessness
• Increased depression, anxiety
• Coping:
o Active efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress
o Constructive coping strategies:
• Confronting the problem directly
• Effort
• Realistic appraisal of stressors and resources
• Recognizing and managing disruptive emotional reactions
• Learning to exert some control over potentially destructive behaviours
•
o Appraisal Based Coping:
• Ellis' A-B-C model:
▪ Focus on altering irrational thought processes to reduce maladaptive responses
▪ Activating event: the stressor
▪ Belief system: appraisal of the situation
• Negative appraisals = exaggerate problems
• Positive appraisals = constructive coping
▪ Consequences: result of line of thinking
▪
▪ Unrealistic, negative appraisals = irrational assumptions/thoughts
▪ Can reduce negative appraisals (and resultant catastrophic thinking by):
• Detecting when it occurs
• Disputing irrational assumptions
Document Summary
Impatient, easily angered, hyper competitive, highly motivated: rapid talking/walking/eating, exaggerated sense of time urgency (time oriented, aggressive or irritated by delays/obstacles (rule governed, type b: Substitutes to help feel better (shopping, eating, gambling, drugs) Internet addiction (inordinate amount of time online, inability to control) Interfere with daily functioning: occasionally okay, excessive use or got-to strategy = negative, may result in guilt, regret or embarrassment, self-blame, highly critical of themselves during periods of stress, catastrophic thinking, think failures are result of personal shortcomings. Focus on negative feedback (ignore positive: problematic for people who"ve experienced traumatic events, defense mechanisms: Freud"s psychoanalytic theory: distorting or denying reality; disguising our own desires, denial: refuse to acknowledge or face an unpleasant reality, overcompensation: make up for real (or imagined) deficiencies by focussing. Fantasy: deluding oneself; create alternate reality extra-hard on some other (desirable) characteristic: common, but not good coping strategies, anticipated stressor = defense mechanisms associate with higher anxieties.
