DISCUSS THE MEANING OF THE WORD STRESS

Natalie Blakeley

Understanding Stress

Activity 1

Stress is a term that we often hear in day to day life. For example, Soldiers returning from the war in Iraq are suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Mothers of young children are seemingly always stressed out and it is estimated that approximately 13.4 million working days are lost each year through stress related illness in Great Britain alone. But what exactly is this term that we hear so often?

Seyle (1950) defined stress as “the individual’s psychophysiological response, mediated largely by the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system, to any demands made on the individual”. It is the emotional and physical strain that is caused by how we respond to stressors and a stressor can be anything that causes the stress response. Whilst something can be a stressor to one person it may not have any effect on another. Therefore stress is very specific to individuals. For example, whilst one person who is given an increased workload in their job may thrive, his colleague may not be able to deal with the pressure of it.

There are three categories of stress:

stress as a stimulus (the engineering model)
stress as a response (the physiological model)
Stress as an interaction between an organism and its environment (the transactional model).

The Engineering Model sees external influences initiating the stress reaction in an individual. Stress is what happens to someone not within them. Should a large unexpected bill arrive in the post you could have a stress reaction but the bill itself would be the stimulus within the environment that would cause the stress. We often hear sayings such as “moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do” but how do we know this?

Holmes and Rahe (1967) developed the social readjustment scale by examining the medical records of 5000 patients and making a list of the 43 most prevalent life events which seemed to precede the patient’s illness. The life events listed included the death of a spouse ranking 1st and most stressful with minor violations of the law ranked 43rd and the least stressful. All of the life events listed was given a point’s value with the higher ranked events having higher points. They now had a scale which could be self-administered. The participant would check all of the life events on the list that had happened to them within a set period of time and would be left with a final points tally. With a score of 150 or less, you have a 37% chance of becoming seriously ill. Between 150 to 300 and it jumps to 51%. Over 300 and there's an 80% chance of serious illness in the next 2 years.

Even though the Holmes Rahe scale is still used today there are some obvious criticisms with it. Several of the events on the list could be classed as positive and planned events such marital reconciliation and retirement. However, different people will have different views on what is stressful and what isn’t. One individual may have been looking forward to retirement for many years whilst another may be forced to retire from a job that they adore. Another example of how this scale is inaccurate is that a “Mortgage of over $100,000” would certainly be a stressful stimulus for someone ...

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The Physiological (response) model of stress is what happens within a person as a response to the engineering model. What physical changes do we go through when that unexpected bill lands on the doormat? Our heart rate may increase, we may get a dry mouth or we could develop a headache. These are all physical effects of stress. When we experience excessive stress a bodily reaction is triggered. This reaction is called the fight or flight response and is our body’s primitive response that prepares the body to either fight or flee from an attack or threat to our survival. It would have been particularly useful for a caveman returning to his cave who might happen across a sabre tooth tiger. His body would automatically kick in his fight or flight response in preparation for either fighting the tiger until one or the other expired, or running away as fast as possible to escape the threat. The physical changes that our body goes through when this response kicks in include an increased heart rate, blood pressure and respiration, thickening of the blood, sharpening of the senses, release of adrenalin and other stress hormones and a release of endorphins as a natural pain relief. The body is also able to prioritise where to send energy. If the caveman chose to run away from the tiger then the body would divert energy to the legs, detracting it from then unnecessary areas such as the digestive system and bladder. This could result in an unfortunate loss of bodily functions! In modern society it is unlikely that we use the fight of flight function on a regular basis. The nearest we are likely to get is stepping into the road and realising that a car is coming. Our fight or flight response would help us get out of the way.

Seyle (1956) called the body’s stress response the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) and is what he believed is the physiological process that the body goes through when faced with stress. In other words it is the human body’s defence mechanism against stress. There are three stages of the GAS. They are the alarm reaction, resistance and exhaustion. The alarm reaction is the physiological response that prepares our body to “fight or flight”. The resistance stage is when the body is at maximum use and if the stress is short-term the body begins to recover. The exhaustion stage is where under prolonged long-term stress the bodily functions are ineffective. It is during this stage that our immune system begins to shut down and where the risk of stress-related disease increases. Because the physiological (response) model of stress is only capable of dealing with short-term stress this is why there is now such an increase in stress related illnesses. Examples of these illnesses are Coronary Heart Disease, Coronary Artery Disease, Hypertension (high blood pressure) and stomach ulcers. It is hard to criticise the GAS theory as these physiological changes do happen. However, some individuals may be able to cope better with long-term stress and may even thrive on it. Within these individuals there may be no correlation between the GAS and an increased chance of illness.

The final model of stress is the transactional model. This model represents a combination of both the engineering model and the response model and looks at the balance between the demands (stimulus) made on an individual and the ability of that individual to cope (response) with those demands. The transactional model also explains that there is a difference in how individuals respond to stress. One particular difference that may effect how an individual deals with stress could be personality type. The reason that personality types may effect how we deal with stress is because the behaviour of certain personality types when under stress is different to others. The three personality types are as follows:

Type A personalities are stereotypically competitive and goal oriented, aggressive and hostile, always seem to be in a hurry and hate queuing.
Type B personalities are generally more creative and imaginative.
Type C personalities have difficulty expressing emotions, particularly negative ones such as anger.

Freidman and Rosenman (1974) conducted a study of 3000 healthy men between the ages of 39-59. They were assessed to determine their personality type as either type A or non Type A. During the nine year long study 257 of the men died and of these deaths 70% came from the Type A group. It was therefore concluded that Type A personalities are more susceptible to stress and are therefore more likely to suffer from stress related illnesses such as Coronary Heart Disease. Also, Temoshok’s (1987) study investigated the link between the Type C personality in relation to cancer. Although there is no clear evidence that suggests that having a Type C personality causes cancer, it would seem that it can influence how long a cancer patient lives for as this type of personality may increase the progression of the cancer. Whilst both of these studies seem credible a more recent study by Holmes (1944) has indicated that hostility is the single most accurate predictor of Coronary Heart Disease and hostility can be found in all 3 of the personality groups. Also, although it is easy to imagine a typical Type A as a harassed business man, a Type B as a free spirit and a Type C as a loner, we cannot stereotype people into these groups. You could only tell what personality group an individual belonged to if you specifically studied them to determine their behavioural patterns.

Throughout this essay we have looked at the different categories of stress and examined studies on each category and what the effects are on the human body. There is no doubt in my mind that the three models of stress (stimulus, response, transactional) exist. However, in the stimulus and transactional models I feel that we cannot generalise the way that Homes and Rahe, Friedman and Rosenman and Temoshok have. For example the Homes Rahe Scale lists things that although might be a stressful, life changing event for one person could be viewed as positive for another. I also believe that the 43 life events listed are outdated with current times. It is the same with the transactional model. We cannot tell who is hostile, a Type A personality or a Type B personality without studying them and even if we could, can we then guarantee that an individual who is one of these will then develop stress related illnesses? I do however feel that there is a link between stress-related illnesses and the response model of stress. The Fight or Flight response is something that actually happens to our bodies when faced with stress. It is a massive problem with modern day society. We are being pushed harder and have stressors in all aspects of life from work to home. Unless we find a way to either reduce this long-term stress of learn to deal with it then the serious illness caused by stress will continue to rise.

Bibliography

http://www.nickoh.com/emacs_files/psychology/ss_dir/friedman_rosenman1974.html

http://www.psych.uncc.edu/pagoolka/TypeA-B-intro.html

Giddens, A. 1989. Sociology, Polity Press, Cambridge