Psychology 2990A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Perceived Control, Judith Rodin, Ellen Langer

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2990A/B
• Professor: Stelian Medianu

Document Summary

Stress can affect body in dramatic ways (death, psychological effects: psychological distress is significantly higher among students than in canada"s general population, declined with each successive year. Effects of negative events: hans selye. Stress is body"s physiological response to threatening events, body adapts to threats: holmes and rahe. Stress is a degree to which people have to change and readjust their lives in response to an external events. Life events are assigned a certain number of points. The higher the score, the worse their physical and mental health: problems. Most studies use correlation rather than experimental designs. Just because life changes are correlated with health problems, does not mean that life changes caused the health problems. Some argue that it is not the life changes, but the person"s personality traits. Ex: tendency to experience negative moods, low in optimism. Focus on stressors experienced by the middle class and under-represents stressors experienced by the poor and members of minority.