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STRESS MANAGEMENT
UNIT-1

S.NO TOPIC PAGE

NO.
1. Nature of stress 02

Stress is an everyday event 03

Stress lies in the eyes of the beholder 04
Stress is embedded in the environment 07
Stress is influenced by culture 08

2. Major types of Stress 09

Frustration 10
Internal Conflict 11
Change 14
Pressure 15

3. Symptoms of Stress 16
Emotional Responses 16
Physiological Responses 20
Behavioural Responses 28
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NATURE OF STRESS
Over the years, the term stress has been used in different ways by different
theorists.
The condition of stress has two components: physical, involving direct material
or bodily challenge, and psychological, involving how individuals perceive
circumstances in their lives. These components can be examined in three ways:
✓ One approach focuses on the environment: stress is seen as a stimulus, as
when someone has a demanding job or they experience severe pain from
arthritis or a death in the family. Physically or psychologically challenging
events or circumstances are called stressors.

✓ The second approach treats stress as a response, focusing on people’s

reactions to stressors.
An example of this approach is seen when people use the word stress to
refer to their state of tension. People’s responses can be psychological,
such as our thought patterns and emotions when we ‘‘feel nervous,’’ and
physiological, as when our heart pounds, mouth goes dry, and we perspire.
The psychological and physiological response to a stressor is called strain.

✓ The third approach describes stress as a process that includes stressors

and strains, but adds an important dimension: the relationship between
the person and environment.
This process involves continuous interactions and adjustments—called
transactions—with the person and environment each affecting and being
affected by the other.
According to this view, stress is not just a stimulus or a response, but
rather a process in which the person is an active agent who can influence
the impact of a stressor through behavioral, cognitive, and emotional
strategies.
People differ in the amount of strain they experience from the same
stressor. One person who is stuck in traffic and late for an important
appointment keeps looking at his watch, honking his horn, and getting
angrier by the minute; another person in the same circumstances stays
calm, turns on the radio, and listens to music.
In the contemporary world, stress is defined as any circumstances that threaten
or are perceived to threaten one’s well-being and thereby tax one’s coping
abilities. The threat may be to one’s immediate physical safety, long-range
security, self-esteem, reputation, or peace of mind.
We also define stress as the circumstance in which transactions lead a person to
perceive a discrepancy between the physical or psychological demands of a
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situation and the resources of his or her biological, psychological, or social

systems, where a demand, resource, may be either real or believed to exist.

• STRESS is an EVERYDAY EVENT

Stress is a part of everyday life. So much so that the term stress has become
part of everyone’s colloquial speech.
A poll by the American Psychological Association in 2010 shows that, for
many of us, stress levels are high and are on the rise. One-third of Americans
surveyed reported “living with extreme stress,” and nearly half believed that
their stress had “increased over the past 5 years.” It seems that being
“stressed out” has become a hallmark of modern life.
Undeniably, stress is associated with overwhelming, traumatic crises such as
bombings, floods, earthquakes, and nuclear accidents. Studies conducted in
the aftermath of such traumas typically find elevated rates of psychological
problems and physical illness in the affected communities. However, these
infrequent events represent the tip of the iceberg. Many everyday events, such
as waiting in line, having car trouble, misplacing your keys, and staring at
bills you can’t pay, are also stressful.
Major and minor stressors are not entirely independent. A major stressful
event, such as going through a divorce, can trigger a cascade of minor
stressors, such as looking for an attorney, taking on new household
responsibilities, and so forth. It isn’t necessarily true that minor stressors
would produce minor effects. Research shows that routine hassles may have
significant negative effects on a person’s mental and physical health.
According to the national APA survey, daily problems concerning money,
work, and the economy were the top three reported causes of stress.
Relationship of minor hassles with mental health: Many theorists believe that
stressful events can have a cumulative or additive impact. In other words,
stress can add up. Routine stresses at home, at school, and at work might be
fairly benign individually, but collectively they can create great strain.
Whatever the reason, it is evident that daily hassles make important
contributions to psychological distress.
Research indicates that hassles that evoke strong negative emotions are the
ones most related to stress. And perceiving a situation as threatening elicits
negative emotions. Therefore, individual perceptions are important in how
people experience stress.

• STRESS lies in the EYES OF THE BEHOLDER

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Stress often results from inaccurate perceptions of discrepancies between

environmental demands and the actual resources. Stress is in the eye of the
beholder.
The experience of feeling threatened depends on what events we notice and
how we choose to interpret or appraise them. Appraisals account for many of
the individual differences in reactions to potential stressors. Events that are
stressful for one person may be routine for another. For example, many
people find flying in an airplane somewhat stressful, but frequent fliers may
not even raise an eyebrow.
Transactions in stress generally involve an assessment process that Richard
Lazarus and his coworkers call cognitive appraisal. Cognitive appraisal is a
mental process by which people assess and differentiate between two factors:
Primary appraisal is an initial evaluation of whether an event is (1)
irrelevant to you, (2) relevant but not threatening, or (3) stressful. When you
view an event as stressful, you are likely to make a secondary appraisal,
which is an evaluation of your coping resources and options for dealing with
the stress.
People’s appraisals of stressful events alter the impact of the events
themselves. Research has demonstrated that negative interpretations of
events are often associated with increased distress surrounding these events.
❖ PRIMARY APPRAISAL
When we encounter a potentially stressful circumstance—for example,
feeling symptoms of pain or nausea—we first try to assess the meaning of
the situation for our well-being. This assessment process is called primary
appraisal. This appraisal seeks answers to such questions as, ‘‘What does
this mean to me?’’ and ‘‘Will I be okay or in trouble?’’
Our primary appraisal regarding any stressful situation can yield any of
the three judgements: it is irrelevant; it is good; it is stressful.
Circumstances we appraise as stressful receive further appraisal for three
implications:
1. Harm-loss refers to the amount of damage that has already occurred, as
when someone is incapacitated and in pain following a serious injury.
Sometimes people who experience a relatively minor stressor think of it as
a ‘‘disaster,’’ thereby exaggerating its personal impact and increasing their
feelings of stress.
2. Threat involves the expectation of future harm—for example, when
hospitalized patients contemplate their medical bills, difficult
rehabilitation, and loss of income. Stress appraisals seem to depend
heavily on harm-loss and threat.
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3. Challenge is the opportunity to achieve growth, mastery, or profit by

using more than routine resources to meet a demand. For instance, a
worker might view an offer of a higher-level job as demanding, but see it
as an opportunity to expand her skills, demonstrate her ability, and make
more money. Many people are happiest when they face challenging but
satisfying activities.
Appraisals can influence stress even when the stressor does not relate to
us directly—even that is, when the transaction is vicarious. If we see other
people in stressful circumstances, such as suffering from pain, we may
empathize with their feelings and feel vulnerable ourselves, but our
responses are still influenced by appraisals.
People can experience stress vicariously, and their reactions depend on the
process of primary appraisal. As a dramatic real-life confirmation of this
process, researchers found heightened stress reactions among people
across the United States a few days after the September 11 terrorist
attacks.

❖ SECONDARY APPRAISAL
Secondary appraisal refers to our assessment of the resources we have
available for coping. Although these assessments occur continuously in our
transactions, we are especially aware of our secondary appraisals when we
judge a situation as potentially stressful and try to determine whether our
resources are sufficient to meet the harm, threat, or challenge we face.
Examples of secondary appraisal judgments include: • I can’t do it—I
know I’ll fail. • I’ll try, but my chances are slim. • I can do it if Ginny will
help. • If this method fails, I can try a few others. • I can do it if I work
hard. • No problem—I can do it.
The condition of stress that we experience often depends on the outcome of
the appraisals we make. When we judge our resources as sufficient to
meet the demands, we may experience little or no stress; but when we
appraise demands as greater than our resources, we may feel a great deal
of stress.
These processes determine everyday stress responses, but also influence
much more severe reactions, such as the development of post-traumatic
stress disorder.
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❖ FACTORS LEADING TO STRESSFUL APPRAISALS

Appraising events as stressful depends on two types of factors—those that
relate to the person and those that relate to the situation.
Personal factors include intellectual, motivational, and personality
characteristics.
1. One example is self-esteem: people who have high self-esteem are likely
to believe they have the resources to meet demands that require the
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strengths they possess. If they perceive an event as stressful, they may

interpret it as a challenge rather than a threat.
2. Another example relates to motivation: the more important a
threatened goal, the more stress the person is likely to perceive.
3. One other example involves the person’s belief system: as psychologist
Albert Ellis has noted, many people have irrational beliefs that increase
their stress.
4. The tendency to appraise even minor issues as major problems is often
called perfectionism, and this thinking style not only often causes
emotional distress but also can pose a serious threat to long-term health.
Situational Factors also have a role to play in appraising events as
stressful.
1. Events that involve very strong demands and are imminent tend to be
seen as stressful. Thus, patients who expect to undergo a physically
uncomfortable or painful medical procedure, such as surgery, tomorrow
are likely to view their situation as being more stressful than, say,
expecting to have a blood pressure test next week.

• STRESS may be EMBEDDED in the ENVIRONMENT

Many kinds of stress come from the environmental circumstances that
individuals share with others.
Ambient stress consists of chronic environmental conditions that, although
not urgent, are negatively valued and place adaptive demands on people.
Features of the environment such as excessive noise, traffic, and pollution can
threaten well-being and leave their mark on mental and physical health. For
example, investigators found an association between chronic exposure to high
levels of noise and elevated blood pressure among children attending school
near Los Angeles International Airport. Similarly, studies of children living
near Munich International Airport found elevated stress hormones, reading
and memory deficits, and poor task persistence in samples of schoolchildren.
Crowding is a major source of environmental stress. Even temporary
experiences of crowding, such as being packed into a passenger train for a
crowded commute, can be stressful. However, most of the research on
crowding has focused on the effects of residential density. Generally, studies
suggest an association between high density and increased physiological
arousal, psychological distress, and social withdrawal. Siddiqui and Pandey
in the year 2003 found crowding to be one of the most critical stressors for
urban residents in Northern India, indicating that this is an important issue
that goes well beyond Western cities.
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Psychologists have also explored the repercussions of living in areas that are
at risk for disaster. For instance, studies suggest that people who live near
nuclear power plants, hazardous waste sites, waste incinerators, or polluting
industrial facilities experience higher levels of distress. Similarly, residents
in areas prone to earthquakes or hurricanes may experience increased stress.
There is considerable evidence that exposure to community violence, whether
as a victim or as a witness, is associated with anxiety, depression, anger, and
aggression among urban youth. Although it’s clear that exposure to violence
and emotional distress are linked, researchers are still exploring the
mechanisms underlying this connection. One such mechanism is the stress
associated with the experience of community violence. Children who report
recent exposure to traumatic events show increased stress hormones.
Investigators have also examined poverty as a source of environmental stress.
Children from lower income homes tend to have higher levels of stress
hormones than their higher-income peers. Poverty related stress takes its toll
on both mental and physical health. Studies suggest that some of the link
between poverty and poorer adjustment can be explained by perceived social
class discrimination.

• STRESS is INFLUENCED by CULTURE

Although certain types of events (such as the loss of a loved one) are probably
viewed as stressful in virtually all human societies, cultures vary greatly in
the predominant forms of stress their people experience.
The challenges of daily living encountered in modern, Western cities like
Montreal or Philadelphia are quite different from the day-to-day difficulties
experienced in indigenous societies in Africa or South America.
Culture sets the context in which people experience and appraise stress. In
some cases, a specific cultural group may be exposed to pervasive stress that
is unique to that group. For example, the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in
Kosovo in 1999 and the devastating and widespread destruction from the
tsunami in Indonesia and regions of Southeast Asia in 2004 were
extraordinary forms of stress distinctive to these societies.
Even within the modern, Western world, disparities can be found in the
constellation of stressors experienced by specific cultural groups. Social
scientists have explored the effects of ethnicity-related sources of stress
experienced by African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans,
and other minority groups, and they have documented that racial
discrimination negatively affects the mental health and well-being for targets
of racism.
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Further, exposure to racism through social exclusion, stigmatization, and

harassment affects appraisals of stressful events. Extreme forms of racism
still exist. Of all hate crime incidents reported for 2010, 48.2% were
motivated by race, and the majority of those were anti-black.
Everyday discrimination can take many forms, including verbal insults
(ethnic slurs), negative evaluations, avoidance, denial of equal treatment, and
threats of aggression. Feldman-Barrett and Swim emphasize that these acts
of discrimination are often subtle and ambiguous. Hence, minority group
members may experience stress not only from explicit discrimination but also
from the subjective perception of discrimination in ambiguous situations. In
one study, black participants showed cognitive impairment following
ambiguous prejudice, apparently as a result of grappling with the
uncertainty. Such perceived discrimination has been linked to greater
psychological distress, higher levels of depression, and decreased well-being
for a variety of minority groups, including sexual minorities.
For immigrants, acculturation, or changing to adapt to a new culture, is a
major source of stress related to reduced well-being. Indeed, acculturation
stress is associated with depression and anxiety. Studies show that the
discrepancy between what individuals expect before immigrating and what
they actually experience once they do immigrate is related to the amount of
acculturation stress they report.
Schwartz and colleagues note that how one is received into the new culture
also relates to acculturation stress levels. The extra layers of stress
experienced by minority group members clearly take their toll, but scientists
are still exploring the degree to which ethnicity-related stress may have
detrimental effects on individuals’ mental and physical health.

MAJOR TYPES OF STRESS

An enormous variety of events can be stressful for one person or another.
Theorists have tried to analyse the nature of stressful events and divide them
into subtypes.
One sensible distinction involves differentiating between acute stressors and
chronic stressors.
Acute stressors are threatening events that have a relatively short duration and
a clear endpoint. Examples would include having a difficult encounter with a
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belligerent drunk, waiting for the results of a medical test, or having your home
threatened by severe flooding.
Chronic stressors are threatening events that have a relatively long duration
and no readily apparent time limit. Examples would include persistent financial
strains produced by huge credit card debts, ongoing pressures from a hostile boss
at work, or the demands of caring for a sick family member over a period of
years.
Robert Sapolsky, a leading authority on stress, points out another type of
stressor that is unique to humans. Anticipatory stressors are upcoming or future
events that are perceived to be threatening. That is, we anticipate the impact of
the event even though it has not happened yet. We may worry about breakups
that never occur, bad grades we never receive, or hurricanes that never make
landfall. The problem with anticipatory stress is that it can affect us
psychologically and physically just as strongly as actual stressors do.

• MAJOR SOURCES OF STRESS

❖ FRUSTATION
Frustration occurs in any situation in which the pursuit of some goal is
thwarted. In essence, we experience frustration when we want something
and can’t have it.
Everyone has to deal with frustration virtually every day. Long daily
commutes, traffic jams, and annoying drivers, for instance, are routine
sources of frustration that can produce negative moods and increase levels
of stress. Such frustration often leads to aggression; even artificially
induced frustration in a laboratory setting can lead to increased
aggression from participants.
Some frustrations, such as failures and losses, can be sources of significant
stress. Fortunately, most frustrations are brief and insignificant.
More often than not, frustration appears to be the culprit at work when
people feel troubled by environmental stress. Excessive noise, heat,
pollution, and crowding are most likely stressful because they frustrate
the desire for quiet, a comfortable body temperature, clean air, and
adequate privacy.
Frustration also plays a role in the aggressive behaviors associated with
“road rage”. Further, frustration in the workplace often results in burnout,
a specific effect of stress.
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❖ INTERNAL CONFLICT
Internal conflict is an unavoidable feature of everyday life. That
perplexing question “Should I or shouldn’t I?” comes up countless times on
a daily basis.
Internal conflict occurs when two or more incompatible motivations or
behavioral impulses compete for expression.
Sigmund Freud proposed over a century ago that internal conflicts
generate considerable psychological distress. This link between conflict
and distress was measured with precision in studies by Laura King and
Robert Emmons. They used an elaborate questionnaire to assess the
overall amount of internal conflict experienced by subjects. They found
higher levels of conflict to be associated with higher levels of psychological
distress.
Conflicts come in three types, which were originally described by Kurt
Lewin and investigated extensively by Neal Miller. These types—
approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, and approach-avoidance.
✓ Approach-approach conflict: In an approach-approach conflict a choice
must be made between two attractive goals.
The problem, is that we can choose just one of the two goals. For example,
if we have a free afternoon; should we play tennis or go to the movies? or
When out for a meal; do we want to order the pizza or the spaghetti?
Among the three kinds of conflict, the approach-approach type tends to be
the least stressful.
In approach-approach conflicts we typically have a reasonably happy
ending, whichever way we decide to go.
Nonetheless, approach-approach conflicts centering on important issues
may sometimes be troublesome. If we are torn between two appealing
college majors or two attractive job offers, we may find the decision-
making process quite stressful.

✓ Avoidance-avoidance conflict: In an avoidance-avoidance conflict a choice

must be made between two unattractive goals. Forced to choose between
two repelling alternatives, we are, “caught between a rock and a hard
place.” For example, imagine having painful backaches. Should we submit
to surgery that most of us dread, or should we continue to live with the
pain?
Avoidance-avoidance conflicts are most unpleasant and highly stressful.
Typically, people keep delaying their decision as long as possible, hoping
that they will somehow be able to escape the conflict situation. Taking the
same example, we might delay surgery in the hope that the backaches will
disappear on their own.
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✓ Approach-avoidance conflict: In an approach-avoidance conflict a choice

must be made about whether to pursue a single goal that has both
attractive and unattractive aspects.
For instance, imagine Susan was offered a job promotion that will mean a
large increase in pay. The catch is that she will have to move to a city that
she absolutely hates.
Approach-avoidance conflicts are common, and they can be highly
stressful. Any time we have to take a risk to pursue some desirable
outcome, we are likely to find yourself in an approach-avoidance conflict.
Approach-avoidance conflicts often produce vacillation. That is, people go
back and forth, beset by indecision that can create stress. Fortunately, we
are equipped to focus on the positive aspects of our decision once it has
been made.
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❖ CHANGE
Life changes may represent a key type of stress. Life changes are any
noticeable alterations in one’s living circumstances that require
readjustment.
Research on life change began when Thomas Holmes, Richard Rahe, and
their colleagues set out to explore the relation between stressful life events
and physical illness. They interviewed thousands of tuberculosis patients
to find out what kinds of events preceded the onset of their disease.
Surprisingly, the frequently cited events were not uniformly negative. The
list included plenty of aversive events, as expected, but patients also
mentioned many seemingly positive events, such as getting married,
having a baby, or getting promoted.
However, the reason as to why would a positive event, like moving to a
nicer home produces stress, according to Holmes and Rahe, because that
event is an impetus of change. Their thesis is that disruptions of daily
routines are stressful. According to their theory, changes in personal
relationships, changes at work, changes in finances, and so forth can be
stressful even when the changes are welcomed.
Based on this analysis, Holmes and Rahe developed the Social
Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) to measure life change as a form of
stress. The scale assigns numerical values to forty-three major life events
that are supposed to reflect the magnitude of the readjustment required
by each change. Respondents are asked to indicate how often they
experienced any of these forty-three events during a certain time period.
The person then adds up the numbers associated with each event checked.
The total is an index of the amount of change-related stress the person has
recently experienced.
Studies have shown that people with higher scores on the SRRS tend to be
more vulnerable to many kinds of physical illness—and many types of
psychological problems as well.
However, experts have criticized this research, citing problems with the
methods used and raising questions about the meaning of the findings.
These experts have argued that the SRRS does not measure change
exclusively. The list of life changes on the SRRS is dominated by events
that are clearly negative or undesirable. These negative events probably
generate great frustration. So even though the scale contains some
positive events, it could be that frustration, rather than change, creates
most of the stress assessed by the scale.
However, we have little reason to believe that change is inherently or
inevitably stressful. Some life changes may be quite challenging, while
others may be quite benign.
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❖ PRESSURE
Pressure involves expectations or demands that one behave in a certain
way. Pressure can be divided into two subtypes: the pressure to perform
and the pressure to conform.
We are under pressure to perform when we are expected to execute tasks
and responsibilities quickly, efficiently, and successfully. For example,
salespeople are usually under pressure to move lots of merchandise.
Professors at research institutions are often under pressure to publish in
prestigious journals. Comedians are under pressure to get laughs.
Pressures to conform to others’ expectations are also common.
Businessmen are expected to wear suits and ties. Suburban homeowners
are expected to keep their lawns manicured. Teenagers are expected to
adhere to their parents’ values and rules.
Weiten has devised a scale to measure pressure as a form of life stress. In
research with this scale, a strong relationship has been found between
pressure and a variety of psychological symptoms and problems. In fact,
pressure has turned out to be more strongly related to measures of mental
health than the SRRS and other established measures of stress.
Academic pressures, common for students worldwide, are related to
increased anxiety and depression and affect student motivation and
concentration. Research also suggests that stress resulting from academic
pressure may actually impede academic performance and lead to
problematic escape behaviors such as drinking.
Students often report that pressure is self-imposed, and is not brought
about by outside forces. For example, some students might sign up for
extra classes to get through school quickly or might actively seek
additional leadership positions to impress your family.
Self-imposed stress doesn’t stop when education is completed. People
frequently put pressure on themselves to rapidly climb the corporate
ladder or to be perfect parents. Even the pressure that modern people put
on themselves to maintain a proper work-family balance can serve as a
source of stress.
Individuals who think that failure to meet exceedingly high standards is
unacceptable (that is, negative perfectionists) are more prone to fatigue
and depression. In sum, because individuals might create stress by
embracing unrealistic expectations for themselves, they might have more
control over their stress than they realize.
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SYMPTOMS OF STRESS
The human response to stress is complex and multidimensional. Stress
affects people on several levels. People’s reactions to stress can be
analysed at three levels: emotional responses; physiological responses; and
behavioural responses.

• EMOTIONAL RESPONSES
Emotions are powerful, largely uncontrollable feelings, accompanied by
physiological changes. When people are under stress, they often react
emotionally.
More often than not, stress tends to elicit unpleasant emotions. In studying
one of the most severe disasters of modern times, the Indian Ocean tsunami
of 2004, researchers found that almost 84% of survivors showed signs of
severe emotional distress, including depression and anxiety.
Emotional responses to stress seem to transcend time and culture. For
instance, a historical researcher, examining texts from 2100–2000 b.c., found
evidence that core negative emotional reactions to trauma have not really
changed over the millennia.

❖ NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
There are no simple one-to-one connections between certain types of
stressful events and particular emotions, but researchers have uncovered
some strong links between specific cognitive reactions to stress and
specific emotions. For example, self-blame tends to lead to guilt,
helplessness to sadness, and so forth.
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Although stressful events can evoke many negative emotions, some are
certainly more likely than others. According to Richard Lazarus, common
negative emotional responses to stress include the following:
✓ Annoyance, anger, and rage: Stress often produces feelings of anger
ranging in intensity from mild annoyance to uncontrollable rage.
In a national survey, respondents reported irritability or anger as the
most frequent symptom of their stress. Frustration is particularly likely to
generate anger.

✓ Apprehension, anxiety, and fear: Stress often evokes anxiety and fear.
Freudian theory has long recognized the link between conflict and anxiety.
However, anxiety can also be elicited by the pressure to perform, the
threat of impending frustration, or the uncertainty associated with
change.

✓ Dejection, sadness, and grief: Sometimes stress— especially frustration—

simply brings one down. Routine setbacks, such as traffic tickets and poor
grades, often produce feelings of dejection. More profound setbacks, such
as deaths and divorces, typically leave one grief-stricken.
In his insightful analyses of stress-emotion relations, Richard Lazarus
mentions five other negative emotions that often figure prominently in
reactions to stress: guilt, shame, envy, jealousy, and disgust. In the short
term, these reactions are to be expected in response to stressful events.
Experiencing such emotions does not mean that you are weak or that you are
“losing it.” For most people these reactions usually dissipate over time. If
negative reactions such as these persist indefinitely and interfere with one’s
social, occupational, or family functioning, a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress
disorder may be applicable. Sometimes people who reflect severe, persistent,
and debilitating reactions to any traumatic event are advised to seek
professional help.

❖ POSITIVE EMOTIONS
Investigators have tended to focus heavily on the connection between
stress and negative emotions. However, research shows that positive
emotions also occur during periods of stress. This finding may seem
counterintuitive, but researchers have found that people experience a
diverse array of pleasant emotions even while enduring the most dire of
circumstances.
For instance, Susan Folkman and her colleagues (1997) conducted a 5-
year study of coping patterns in 253 caregiving partners of men with
AIDS. Surprisingly, over the course of the study the caregivers reported
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experiencing positive emotions about as often as they experienced

negative ones—except during the time immediately surrounding the death
of their partners.
One study examined participants’ emotional functioning early in 2001 and
then again in the weeks following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United
States. Like most U.S. citizens, these individuals reported many negative
emotions in the aftermath of 9/11, including anger, sadness, and fear.
However, within this “dense cloud of anguish,” positive emotions also
emerged. For example, people felt gratitude for the safety of their loved
ones, many took stock and counted their blessings, and quite a few
reported renewed love for their friends and family.
Fredrickson et al. also found that the frequency of pleasant emotions (such
as happiness and contentment) correlated positively with a measure of
subjects’ resilience, whereas unpleasant emotions (such as sadness or
irritation) correlated negatively with resilience. Based on their analyses,
the researchers concluded that “positive emotions in the aftermath of
crises buffer resilient people against depression and fuel thriving”
Contrary to common sense, positive emotions do not vanish during times
of severe stress. Moreover, these emotions appear to play a key role in
helping people bounce back from the negative emotions associated with
stress.
One particularly interesting finding has been that a positive emotional
style is associated with an enhanced immune response. Positive emotions
also appear to be protective against heart disease. These effects probably
contribute to the recently discovered association between positive
emotions and longevity. People who report experiencing a high level of
positive emotions appear to live longer than others.
Positive emotions can contribute to building social, intellectual, and
physical resources that can be helpful in dealing with stress and allow one
to experience flourishing mental health.
The benefits of positive emotions are so strong that Fredrickson argues
that people should “cultivate positive emotions in themselves and in those
around them as means to achieving psychological growth and improved
psychological and physical well-being over time”.

❖ EFFECTS OF EMOTIONAL AROUSAL

Emotional responses are a natural and normal part of life. Even
unpleasant emotions serve important purposes. Like physical pain,
painful emotions can serve as warnings that one needs to take action.
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However, strong emotional arousal can also hamper efforts to cope with
stress. For example, research has found that high emotional arousal can
sometimes interfere with attention and memory retrieval and can impair
judgment and decision making.
The well-known problem of test anxiety illustrates how emotional arousal
can hurt performance. Often students who score poorly on an exam will
nonetheless insist that they know the material. Many of them are
probably telling the truth. Researchers have found a negative correlation
between test-related anxiety and exam performance. That is, students who
display high test anxiety tend to score low on exams.
Test anxiety can interfere with test taking in several ways, but one critical
consideration appears to be the disruption of attention to the test. Many
test-anxious students waste too much time worrying about how they’re
doing and wondering whether others are having similar problems. In
addition, there is evidence that test anxiety may deplete one’s capacity for
self-control, increasing the likelihood of poor performance. In other words,
once distracted, test-anxious students might not have the self-control to
get themselves back on course. This tendency is related to a concept called
ego depletion.
The inverted-U hypothesis predicts that task performance should improve
with increased emotional arousal—up to a point, after which further
increases in arousal become disruptive and performance deteriorates. This
idea is referred to as the inverted-U hypothesis because plotting
performance as a function of arousal results in graphs that approximate
an upside-down U. In these graphs, the level of arousal at which
performance peaks is characterized as the optimal level of arousal for a
task.
This optimal level of arousal appears to depend in part on the complexity
of the task at hand. The conventional wisdom is that as tasks become
more complex, the optimal level of arousal tends to decrease. A fairly high
level of arousal should be optimal on simple tasks. However, performance
should peak at a lower level of arousal on complex tasks.
The research evidence on the inverted-U hypothesis is inconsistent and
subject to varied interpretations. The original formulation of this
hypothesis was more related to animal learning than to human
performance in stressful situations. Hence, it may be risky to generalize
this principle to the complexities of everyday coping efforts. However,
scientists argue that the theory should be refined rather than discarded.
 20

• PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSES
Stress frequently elicits strong emotional responses. These responses also
bring about important physiological changes. Test anxiety, for example, is
associated with elevations in blood pressure. Even in cases of moderate
stress, one may notice cases of increased heart rate, breathing becoming
faster than ever, and sky-rocketing perspiration levels.
If in phase of any frightening event, there are some observable and
unobservable physiological reactions to stress—for instance, almost
immediately our heart begins to beat more rapidly and more forcefully, and
the skeletal muscles of our arms and legs may tremble.
The body is aroused and motivated to defend itself, and the sympathetic
nervous system and the endocrine system cause this arousal to happen. After
the emergency passes, the arousal subsides.
The physiological portion of the response to a stressor—or strain—is called
reactivity, which researchers measure by comparison against a baseline, or
‘‘resting,’’ level of arousal. Genetic factors influence people’s degree of
reactivity to stressors. People who are under chronic stress often show
heightened reactivity when a stressor occurs, and their arousal may take
more time to return to baseline levels.

❖ THE FLIGHT-OR-FIGHT RESPONSE

Walter Cannon was a pioneer in stress research with his work on the
fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight response is a physiological
reaction to threat that mobilizes an organism for attacking (fight) or
fleeing (flight) an enemy.
For instance, when we see a threatening figure and our heart rate
increases, blood pressure rises, respiration increases, digestion slows—all
things that prepare us to act and that are evolutionarily advantageous.
Such physiological responses occur in the body’s autonomic nervous
system. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is made up of the nerves
that connect to the heart, blood vessels, smooth muscles, and glands.
The autonomic nervous system is somewhat autonomous. That is, it
controls involuntary, visceral functions that people don’t normally think
about, such as heart rate, digestion, and perspiration
The autonomic nervous system can be broken into two divisions. The
parasympathetic division of the ANS generally conserves bodily resources.
For instance, it slows heart rate and promotes digestion to help the body
save and store energy. The fight-or-flight response is mediated by the
 21

sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, which mobilizes

bodily resources for emergencies.
In one experiment, Cannon studied the fight or-flight response in cats by
confronting them with dogs. Among other things, he noticed an immediate
acceleration in the cats’ breathing and heart rate and a reduction in
digestive processes.
Shelley Taylor and her colleagues have questioned whether the fight-or-
flight model applies equally well to both males and females. They note
that in most species females have more responsibility for the care of young
offspring than males do. Using an evolutionary perspective, they argue
that this disparity may make fighting and fleeing less adaptive for
females, as both responses may endanger offspring and thus reduce the
likelihood of an animal passing on its genes.

Consistent with this theory, David and Lyons-Ruth found gender

differences in how infants respond to threat. Specifically, when frightened,
female infants showed more approach behaviors toward their mothers
than male infants did. Taylor speculates that the hormone oxytocin
signals the need for affiliation in females in times of social distress.
Our physiological responses to stress are part of the fight-or-flight
syndrome seen in many species. In a sense, this automatic reaction is a
leftover from our evolutionary past. It is clearly an adaptive response for
many animals, as the threat of predators often requires a swift response of
fighting or fleeing.
However, in this modern world, the flight-or-fight response may be less
adaptive for human functioning than it was thousands of generations ago.
Most modern stressors cannot be handled simply through fight or flight.
Work pressures, marital problems, and financial difficulties require far
more complex responses. Moreover, these chronic (and anticipatory)
stressors often continue for lengthy periods of time, so that the fight-or-
flight response leaves one in a state of enduring physiological arousal.

❖ GENERAL ADAPTATION SYNDROME

The concept of stress was popularized in both scientific and lay circles by
Hans Selye. Beginning in the 1930s Selye exposed laboratory animals to a
diverse array of unpleasant stimuli.
The patterns of physiological arousal he observed in the animals were
largely the same, regardless of which unpleasant stimulus elicited them.
Thus, Selye concluded that stress reactions are nonspecific. In other
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words, they do not vary according to the specific type of circumstances

encountered.
Initially, Selye wasn’t sure what to call this nonspecific response to a
variety of noxious agents. In the 1940s, he decided to call it stress, and his
influential writings gradually helped make the word part of our everyday
vocabulary.
To capture the general pattern all species exhibit when responding to
stress, Selye formulated a seminal theory called the general adaptation
syndrome. The general adaptation syndrome is a model of the body’s stress
response, consisting of three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
1. Alarm Reaction Stage- In the first stage of the general adaptation
syndrome, an alarm reaction occurs when an organism recognizes the
existence of a threat.
The first stage of the GAS is like the fight-or-flight response to an
emergency—its function is to mobilize the body’s resources. This fast-
acting arousal results from the sympathetic nervous system, which
activates many organs through direct nerve connections, including the
adrenal glands, which when stimulated release epinephrine and
norepinephrine into the bloodstream, producing further activation.
Somewhat less quickly, the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA)
of the stress response is activated, and this component of the stress
response was Selye’s novel and main emphasis. Briefly, the hypothalamus
triggers the pituitary gland to secrete ACTH, which causes the adrenal
gland to release cortisol into the bloodstream, further enhancing the
body’s mobilization.
2. Stage of Resistance- If a strong stressor continues, the physiological
reaction enters the stage of resistance. Here, the initial reactions of the
sympathetic nervous system become less pronounced and important, and
HPA activation predominates.
In this stage, the body tries to adapt to the stressor. Physiological arousal
remains higher than normal, and the body replenishes the hormones the
adrenal glands released.
Despite this continuous physiological arousal, the organism may show few
outward signs of stress. But the ability to resist new stressors may become
impaired.
According to Selye, this impairment may eventually make the individual
vulnerable to the health problems he called diseases of adaptation. These
health problems include ulcers, high blood pressure, asthma, and illnesses
that result from impaired immune function.
 23

3. Stage of Exhaustion- If the stress continues over a substantial period of

time, the organism may enter the third stage, called the stage of
exhaustion. According to Selye, the body’s resources for fighting stress are
limited. If the stress cannot be overcome, the body’s resources may be
depleted, and physiological arousal will decrease. Eventually, the
individual may collapse from exhaustion. During this phase, the
organism’s resistance declines. This reduced resistance may lead to what
Selye called “diseases of adaptation,” such as cardiovascular disease or
high blood pressure.
The effects of the body’s having to adapt repeatedly to stressors—such as with
fluctuations in levels of hormones like cortisol and epinephrine, blood pressure,
and immune function—that accumulate over time are called allostatic load,
which creates wear and tear on the body and impairs its ability to adapt to
future stressors.
✓ Studies of chronic stress have confirmed that high levels of allostatic load
are related to poor health in children and the elderly.
✓ The concept of allostatic load highlights the importance of considering the
overall accumulation of physiological strain over time. In this view, the
cumulative amount of strain typically has a greater influence on health
than the degree of activation in response to any one stressor.
✓ Four factors are important in the overall amount of bodily activation or
physiological stress:
1. Amount of exposure- When we encounter more frequent, intense, or
prolonged stressors, we are likely to respond with a greater total amount
of physiological activation.
2. Magnitude of reactivity- In response to any particular stressor, such as
taking a major academic exam, some individuals will show large increases
in blood pressure or stress hormones while others show much smaller
changes.
3. Rate of recovery- Once the encounter with a stressor is over,
physiological responses return to normal quickly for some people, but stay
elevated for a longer time for others. Continuing to think about a stressor
after it is over, revisiting it mentally, or worrying about it recurring in the
future can delay physiological recovery and add to the accumulated toll
through prolonged physiological activation.
4. Resource restoration- The resources used in physiological strain are
replenished by various activities, and sleep may be the most important of
them. Sleep deprivation can be a source of stress, and contributes to
allostatic load directly. What’s more, poor sleep quality or reduced
amounts of sleep predict the development of serious health problems, such
as heart disease
✓ During sleep, some aspects of physiological activity typically drop below
daytime levels, as happens with blood pressure; the larger the drop, the
 24

more beneficial it is for health, but this can be disrupted by daily

stressors.
✓ The restoration of stress resources has a major impact on allostatic load
and related.
✓ When combined, the above four factors determine our overall physiological
stress burden. Any conditions that contribute to increased exposure to
stressors, greater reactivity, delayed recovery, or reduced restoration can
have important influences on health.

Selye’s theory and research forged a link between stress and physical illness. He
showed how prolonged physiological arousal that is meant to be adaptive could
lead to diseases. His theory has been criticized because it ignores individual
differences in the appraisal of stress, and his belief that stress reactions are
nonspecific remains the subject of debate.

Do All Stressors Produce Same Physical Reactions?

Many studies have demonstrated that stressors of various types increase the
secretion of hormones by the adrenal glands, including cold temperatures, noise,
pain, athletic competition, taking examinations, flying in an airplane, and being
in crowded situations.
Selye believed that the GAS is nonspecific with regard to the type of stressor.
That is, the physiological reactions the GAS describes will occur regardless of
 25

whether the stress results from very cold temperature, physical exercise, illness,
conflicts with other people, or the death of a loved one.
However, the notion of non-specificity does not take important psychosocial
processes into account. Three lines of evidence suggest this is a problem:
✓ First, some stressors appear to elicit a stronger emotional response than
others do. This is important because the amount of hormone released in
reaction to a stressor that involves a strong emotional response, as a
sudden increase in environmental temperature might produce, appears to
be different from the amount released with a less emotional stressor, such
as a gradual increase in temperature.
After conducting extensive studies of various stressors and hormones,
John Mason concluded that he and his colleagues ‘‘have not found
evidence that any single hormone responds to all stimuli in absolutely
nonspecific fashion’’. For instance, some stressors led to increases in
epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol, but other stressors increased
only two of these hormones.
He also pointed out that research conducted since Selye first described the
GAS has shown that stressors are most likely to trigger the release of
large amounts of all three of these hormones if the individual’s response
includes a strong element of emotion.

✓ Second, findings of many studies Marianne Frankenhaeuser and other

researchers have conducted on stress Because distress is an emotion, her
view ties in with and extends that of Mason.

✓ Third, evidence suggests that cognitive appraisal processes play a role in

people’s physiological reaction to stressors.
For example, researchers assessed elementary school children’s cortisol
levels in urine samples taken on regular school days and on days when
achievement tests were given. The expected increase in cortisol on test
days was found, but not for all children—their intellectual ability was an
important factor. Intelligence test scores were obtained from school
records.
Cortisol levels increased on test days for children with above-average
intelligence, but not for children with low to average intelligence. The
influence of intelligence suggests that the brighter children were more
concerned about academic achievement and, as a result, appraised the
tests as more important and threatening than did the other children.
The basic structure of the GAS appears to be valid, but it assumes that all
stressors produce the same physiological reactions and fails to include the role of
psychosocial factors in stress. Whether physiological stress responses are
general, or show more specific patterns influenced by psychological processes
remains a current debate and focus of stress research.
 26

The range of physiological responses involved in stress has expanded well beyond
those described by Cannon and Selye, and this ‘‘cutting edge’’ of stress research
helps us understand its effects on health.

❖ BRAIN-BODY PATHWAYS
When we experience stress, our brain sends signals to the endocrine
system, which consists of glands that secrete chemicals called hormones
into the bloodstream. These signals travel through the endocrine system
along two major pathways. The hypothalamus, a small structure near the
base of the brain, appears to initiate action along both pathways.
The first pathway is routed through the autonomic nervous system. The
hypothalamus activates the sympathetic division of the ANS. A key part of
this activation involves stimulating the central part of the adrenal glands
(the adrenal medulla) to release large amounts of catecholamines into the
bloodstream.
These hormones radiate throughout the body, producing many important
physiological changes. The net result of catecholamine elevation is that
the body is mobilized for action. Heart rate and blood flow increase,
pumping more blood to the brain and muscles. Respiration and oxygen
consumption speed up, facilitating alertness.

Digestive processes are inhibited to conserve energy. The pupils of the

eyes dilate, increasing visual sensitivity.
The second pathway involves more direct communication between the
brain and the endocrine system. The hypothalamus sends signals to the
so-called master gland of the endocrine system, the pituitary gland.

The pituitary secretes a hormone (ACTH) that stimulates the outer part of
the adrenal glands (the adrenal cortex) to release another important set of
hormones—corticosteroids. These hormones play an important role in the
response to stress.

They stimulate the release of chemicals that help increase your energy
and help inhibit tissue inflammation in case of injury. Cortisol is a type of
corticosteroid that is often used as a physiological indicator of stress in
humans.
27
 28

Stress can also produce other physiological changes:

✓ The most critical changes occur in the immune system. Our immune
system provides us with resistance to infections. However, evidence
indicates that stress can suppress certain aspects of the
multifaceted immune response, reducing its overall effectiveness in
repelling invasions by infectious agents. The exact mechanisms
underlying immune suppression are complicated, but it appears
likely that both sets of stress hormones contribute.
✓ Contemporary research implicates stress-induced chronic
inflammation, a risk factor for disease, as an indicator of an
immune system that is chronically activated.
In any case, it is becoming clear that physiological responses to stress
extend into every corner of the body. Moreover, some of these responses
may persist long after a stressful event has ended. These physiological
reactions can have an impact on both mental and physical health.

• BEHAVIOURAL RESPONSES
Although people respond to stress at several levels, their behavior is a crucial
dimension of these reactions. Emotional and physiological responses to
stress—which are often undesirable—tend to be largely automatic. However,
dealing effectively with stress at the behavioral level may shut down these
potentially harmful emotional and physiological reactions.
Most behavioral responses to stress involve coping. Coping refers to active
efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands created by stress.
This definition is neutral as to whether coping efforts are healthy or
maladaptive. The popular use of the term often implies that coping is
inherently healthy. When we say that someone “coped with her problems,” we
imply that she handled them effectively.
In reality, coping responses may be either healthy or unhealthy. For example,
if John was flunking a history course at midterm, he might cope with this
stress by (1) increasing his study efforts, (2) seeking help from a tutor, (3)
blaming his professor for poor grades, or (4) giving up on the class. Clearly,
the first two coping responses would more likely lead to a positive outcome
than the second two would.
People cope with stress in a variety of ways. Coping efforts can be directed at
reducing the perceived threat of a stressor, diminishing negative emotions
brought on by stress, or addressing the problem directly. Coping strategies
help determine whether stress has any positive or negative effects on an
individual.
 29

❖ PSYCHOSOCIAL ASPECTS OF STRESS

COGNITION and stress

EMOTIONS and stress
SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR and stress
✓ COGNITION AND STRESS
While taking a particularly stressful exam in school, students may neglect or
misinterpret important information in a question or have difficulty
remembering an answer they had studied well. It is frustrating when an
answer is ‘‘on the tip of our tongue,’’ especially knowing that we will probably
remember it after the test is over. High levels of stress affect people’s memory
and attention.
Preoccupation with worries about failure can interfere with memory and
attention that are required for good performance on the exam. Stress can also
impair cognitive functioning by distracting our attention.
Noise can be a stressor, which can be chronic for people who live in noisy
environments, such as next to train tracks or highways. Chronic Noise affects
cognitive performance in the following way:

Many people try to deal with this kind of stress by changing the focus of their
attention from the noise to relevant aspects of a cognitive task—they ‘‘tune
out’’ the noise. Evidence suggests that children who try to tune out chronic
noise may develop generalized cognitive deficits because they have difficulty
knowing which sounds to attend to and which to tune out.
Not only can stress affect cognition, but the reverse is also equivalently true.
Worry about future threats and ruminating about past difficulties can
 30

maintain elevated physiological stress responses, even in the absence of

actual stressful situations.
Andrew Baum (1990) has studied this kind of thinking in individuals who
were living near the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania
when a major nuclear accident occurred. He found that years later some of
these people still experienced stress from the incident, but others did not. One
of the main factors differentiating these people was that those who continued
to feel this stress had trouble keeping thoughts about the accident and their
fears out of their minds. It seems likely that these thoughts perpetuated their
stress and made it chronic.
Executive Functioning
The two-way connection between cognition and stress is particularly
important in the group of cognitive processes called executive functioning.
Executive functions refer to set of cognitive abilities involved in the
regulation and direction of our ongoing behavior, such as maintaining and
shifting attention as needed; inhibiting unhelpful or inappropriate responses
or impulses; current or working memory capacity; and selecting among
alternative responses under consideration.
These are the cognitive processes that enable us to direct or guide our
behavior intentionally. Better executive cognitive functioning obviously can
help one manage the demands of stressful situations, but stressful
experiences can also temporarily disrupt these same cognitive processes. That
is, difficulties with concentration, memory, problem-solving, and impulse
control during stressful experiences may reflect the fact that stress has
temporarily depleted or fatigued these cognitive resources.
Depleted executive cognitive resources can then lead to more difficulty
dealing with stressful situations, creating a possible ‘‘vicious cycle’’ of stress
and impaired cognition. These same aspects of cognitive functioning are
supported by structures and circuits in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain that
also the support parasympathetic ‘‘brake’’ on physiological stress responses.

✓ EMOTIONS AND STRESS

Long before infants can talk, they display what they feel by their motor,
vocal, and facial expressions. Each emotion has a specific facial pattern.
Using varied procedures, researchers have shown that although newborn
babies express several specific emotions, such as disgust, distress, and
interest.
Emotions tend to accompany stress, and people often use their emotional
states to evaluate their stress. Cognitive appraisal processes can influence
both the stress and the emotional experience. For example, anyone might
 31

experience stress and fear if they came across a snake while walking in the
woods, particularly if they recognized it as poisonous.
Fear is a common emotional reaction that includes psychological discomfort
and physical arousal when we feel threatened. Of the various types and
intensities of fears people experience in everyday life, psychologists classify
many into two categories: phobias and anxiety.
Phobias are intense and irrational fears that are directly associated with
specific events and situations. Some people are afraid of being enclosed in
small rooms, for instance, and are described as claustrophobic.
Anxiety is a vague feeling of uneasiness or apprehension—a gloomy
anticipation of impending doom—that often involves a relatively uncertain or
unspecific threat. That is, the person may not be aware either of the
situations that seem to arouse anxiety or of exactly what the ‘‘doom’’ entails.
Patients awaiting surgery or the outcome of diagnostic tests generally
experience high levels of anxiety. In other situations, anxiety may result from
appraisals of low self-worth and the anticipation of a loss of either self-esteem
or the esteem and respect of others.
Stress can also lead to feelings of sadness or depression. The difference
between feeling sad and depression is that of a serious disorder is a matter of
degree. Depression meets the criteria for a psychological disorder when it is
severe and prolonged, lasting at least 2 weeks.
Another common emotional reaction to stress is anger, particularly when the
person perceives the situation as harmful or frustrating. We can see this in
the angry responses of a child whose favorite toy is taken away or an adult
who is stuck in a traffic jam. Anger has important social ramifications,
including aggressive behavior.

✓ SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR AND STRESS

Stress changes people’s behavior toward one another. In some stressful
situations, such as train crashes, earthquakes, and other disasters, people
may work together to help each other survive. Some stressful circumstances
lead people to seek the comfort of others for support or companionship. In
other stressful situations, people may become less sociable and more hostile
and insensitive toward the needs of others.
When stress and anger join, negative social behaviors often increase.
Research has shown that anger in response to stress often leads to aggressive
behavior, and these negative effects continue after the stressful event is over.
The stress of social rejection, for example, can lead to increased aggressive
behavior, even toward the source of that rejection.
 32

Stress-related aggressive behavior has important implications in real life. For

example, stress can undermine the quality of marriage and other close
relationships, and in some cases can increase levels of conflict and the
potential for spouse abuse.
Child abuse is a major social problem that poses a serious threat to children’s
physical and emotional health, and parental stress is often a contributing
factor.
Prior to an act of battering, frequently the parent has experienced a stressful
crisis, such as the loss of a job or other difficulties. A parent under high stress
is at risk of losing control. If, for example, a child runs around the house
making a racket, a stressed parent may become angry, lose control, and strike
the child, perhaps reflecting the temporary depletion of psychological
resources required for self-restraint.

✓ GENDER AND SOCIOCULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN STRESS

The experience of stress depends on a person’s gender and sociocultural group
membership. Women generally report experiencing more major and minor
stressors than men do.
This difference could result partly from women’s greater willingness to say
they experienced stress; it probably also reflects real variations in
experiences. Because in today’s two-income households mothers still do most
of the chores, they often have heavier daily workloads than men and greater
physiological strain than women without children. Women’s greater domestic
burden also includes greater effort attending to the emotional needs of family
members.
Being a member of a minority group or being poor appears to increase the
stressors people experience. Research in the United States has shown that
individuals with these sociocultural statuses report experiencing a
disproportionately large number of major stressors, and not surprisingly they
experience far greater health difficulties.
For example, Black Americans report far more stressors than Hispanics, who
report more stress as than do nonminority people. A prospective study
spanning 71/2 years found that income and educational attainment are also
important factors.
Adults with low income and education reported more chronic stress and major
stressors, such as divorce or the death of a child, than adults with higher
income and education. And the greater the stress they had experienced
earlier, the more likely they were to have died or to have poor health in the
next several years.
 33

Other research found that the lower people’s income and education, the
greater their daily levels of stress hormones, such as epinephrine and cortisol.
Discrimination is a major source of stress for ethnic minorities, with negative
effects on health.
There appear to be gender and sociocultural differences in physiological
strain from stressors, too. Many studies have found that men show more
reactivity than females when psychologically stressed.
Men also seem to take longer for their physiological arousal to return to
baseline levels after the stressor has ended. But some evidence suggests that
men and women differ in the events they find stressful, and the strength of
reactivity compared with that of the opposite sex may be greater when the
stressor is relevant to the person’s gender. For instance, men show greater
reactivity than women do when their competence is challenged, and women
show greater reactivity than men when their friendship or love is challenged.
Taylor and her colleagues (2000) have suggested that the ‘‘fight or flight’’
response is an accurate description of men’s stress reactions, whereas
women’s responses might be better characterized as a ‘‘tend and befriend’’
reaction in which they increase their efforts to maintain their close social
connections and ties.
Regarding sociocultural differences, some studies in the United States have
found that Blacks show greater reactivity than Whites when under stress.
But other findings suggest that differences between Blacks and Whites vary
depending on the stressor and the subjects’ gender. For instance, Black
women show greater reactivity than White women when a stressor is
perceived as racist.