Psychology 2035A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Learned Helplessness, Substance Abuse, Behavior Modification

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2035A/B
• Professor: John Campbell

Document Summary

Stress is any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one"s well-being and thereby tax one"s coping abilities . Most of the things we are stressed about are not the events themselves, but the anticipation. Psychologists have viewed stress in 3 different ways: An organism-environment interaction: stress - a stimulus. Events that place strong demands on us. These situations are referred to as stressors. Statements such as: there"s all kinds of stress in my life right now. I have 3 exams next week, i lost my backpack, and my car just broke down : stress - a response. Stress can be viewed as a response that has cognitive, physiological and behavioural components. A person might say: i"m feeling all stressed out. I"m really worried, and i"ve been flying off the handle all week! . Presence of negative emotions is an important feature of stress response.