Psychology AS revision - Stress and Workplace theories

Outline cognitive behavioural therapy

There are many different therapies that are part of the psychological approach to stress management:

1. Meichenbaums SIT – works like immunisation against disease: the individual trains with a therapist to identify fears and concerns and ways to combat them through positive thinking and relaxation techniques
2. Hardiness training – teaches individuals to recognise the physical symptoms of stress, to analyse stressful situations, and to build confidence through meeting and overcoming challenges of increasing magnitude
3. Cognitive behavioural therapy – changes the way individuals think during stressful situations and helps them cope with the stressor

In which year did Holmes and Rahe conduct their study to assess the relationship between stress caused by major life changes and illness?

Holmes and Rahe (1967): the researchers studied the hospital records of about 5000 patients for any major life changes that had occurred before the individual felt ill. They discorvered that patients were likely to have experienced major life changes before falling ill and the more serious life changes were linked to greater levels of stress and illness.

The researchers were further by making a list of  43 common life events and asking volunteers to give each one a score between 1 and 100 for how stressful they deemed it. They called the numbers that made up each score Life Change Units (e.g. death of spouse is 100 LCUs – the most stressful common life event). The researchers then ranked each of these events from most to least stressful and called this the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). Once they’d analysed the results, they found a strong positive correlation between SRRS score (i.e the number of LCUs) and the likelihood of illness: as one increases so does the other.

The correlational relationship between LCU score and illness was later demonstrated by Rahe et al (1970) who conducted a similar study on 2500 US sailors and found that higher LCU scores were again linked to higher incidences of illness.

One thing to bear in mind from both of these studies is that one cannot infer a causal relationship based on these findings alone, as both were correlational studies… there could have been a third variable linking the two together.

Explain the Hardy personality

Hardy personalities have the following characteristics:

1. high levels of commitment – work hard at jobs, relationships and other activities in life.
2. View change as a positive and an opportunity to better themselves – they enjoy a challenge.
3. Believe they have control over their lives – described as having an ‘internal locus of control’

By contrast, non-hardy personalities view change in a much more negative way and do not feel that they can cope with challenges. They do not believe that they have control over their lives, they give up easily, and do not see the point in bettering themselves or rising to a challenge.

“hardiness” could fluctuate with an individuals life experiences (could be high if they’re not currently experiencing stress but then plummet with the loss of a loved one) its also difficult to quantify and measure “hardiness”, which makes it tricky to conduct any meaningful tests on.