PSY 139 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Acute Stress Reaction, Adjustment Disorder, Adrenal Cortex

• School: Hofstra University
• Department: Psychology (PSY)
• Course: PSY 139
• Professor: Mark Serper

Document Summary

Organisms internal biological and psychological responses to such demands. Stress is a by-product of poor or inadequate coping. Both positive stress and negative stress (distress) tax a person"s coping skills. Stress is a significant component of multiple dsm diagnostic categories. All part of new category of disorders: trauma and stressor related disorders which occur in response to identifiable stressors. Nature of stressor experience of crisis life changes individual perception of stressor individual stress tolerance lack of external resources and social supports. Study done of women who were about to give birth, all without a companion there with them. This researcher assigned half of them a female companion to assist them emotionally to reduce stress. They found that the women with the companion gave birth to over half as many babies without birthing complications as the women who did it alone.