Psychology 2035A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Test Anxiety, Traffic Reporting, Hans Selye

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2035A/B
• Professor: Doug Hazlewood

Document Summary

Many circumstances can create stress in people"s lives. Stress comes in all sorts of packages; large and small, pretty and ugly, simple and complex. All too often, the package is a surprise. Stress is neither a stimulus nor a response but a special stimulus-response transaction in which one feels threatened or experiences loss or harm. Stress is any circumstances that threaten or are perceived to threaten one"s well-being and thereby tax one"s coping abilities. It is a noun (we have stress), an adjective (he has a stressful job), an adverb (she acts stressed), and a verb (writing a paper stresses me). For many of us stress levels are high and are on the rise. Stress is associated with overwhelming, traumatic crises such as hijacking, floods, earthquakes, and nuclear accidents. However, these are just the tip of the iceberg. Many everyday events such as waiting in line, having car trouble, misplacing your keys, large bills, are also stressful.