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Psychology in Society

STRESS

1. The psycho-physiology of stress (p. 334-336)

◆ Stress is the feeling we experience when things are getting too much

◆ Thus stress is an emotional response to circumstances & events

◆ It is a physiological response to physical & psychological demands

◆ Demands are called stressors

◆ Experience of stress involves combination of psychological and physiological factors

◆ To try and understand the psycho-physiological processes involved in stress we have to consider both physical tension and emotional tension

1. Physical tension

❖ All living bodies maintain some degree of tension

❖ The sympathic and parasympathic divisions of the autonomic nervous system are responsible for physical tension in the body

❖ Sympathic stimulation increases the body’s degree of physical tension while parasympathic stimulation decreases the physical tension

❖ The relationship between these 2 systems determines the level of physical tension in the body

❖ In some individuals the sympathic system is more dominant than the parasympathic

❖ The higher the level of sympathic dominance the higher the level of the person’s basic tension level

❖ Individuals with a parasympathic system that dominates have lower levels of basic tension

❖ Everybody has a characteristic level of physical tension

❖ Your characteristic level of physical tension is expressed by the characteristic ratio of your sympathic activity to your parasympathic activity

❖ Your basic level of tension is higher than mine when your ratio of your sympathic activity versus your parasympathic activity is higher than mine

❖ Looking at people’s behaviour a person with a basic level of physical tension that is higher will display more restless behaviour

❖ Although we have a natural basic level of physical tension it does not mean it always stays the same

❖ When sense are stimulated the body’s physical tension increases

❖ Our level of physical tension is higher if we are active

❖ Physical level of tension is higher when we are alert than when we are relaxed

❖ This difference in physical tension is referred to as the body’s level of physical arousal

❖ We react differently to incoming stimuli

❖ The basic level of tension can affect our reactions to stimuli in adverse ways

❖ We also differ in our stability of our nervous system

❖ Some individual’s systems are more labile (fluctuation) and others are more stable

❖ With a labile system you are more likely to react more quickly and more intense to incoming stimuli because the balance between the sympathic and parasympathic systems are disturbed

2. Emotional tension

❖ The physical alertness of the body is not only factor that plays a role in physical tension

❖ Physical tension also depends on the way we experience the situation

❖ If we experience the situation as threatening our physical tension increases

❖ Physical tension together with the cognitive content (understanding of the particular situation) leads to the conscious experience of feeling tense

❖ The feeling of tenseness about a specific situation is called emotional tension

❖ The degree of emotional tension we experience is linked autonomic homeostasis of our nervous system

❖ If you have a stable nervous system (high autonomic homeostasis) our physical arousal is smooth and steady – you are less likely to experience emotional tension

❖ Our physical arousal together with the amount of treat in a situation hold for us determines the degree of emotional tension

❖ Thus our emotional tension varies as our level of physical arousal & our perception of the threat changes

❖ The difference between no emotional tension and the level of emotional tension experienced in a specific situation indicates our level of psychological arousal

3. Psycho-physiological arousal

❖ We can now put physical and emotional tension together to form the concept of psycho-physiological arousal

❖ Psycho-physiological arousal usually called arousal consists of

a) Physical tension = difference between our basic tension level and the actual tension level in a particular situation and

b) Psychological arousal = difference between our feeling of no emotional tension & the feeling of emotional tension that we experience in that situation

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