Differences in Personality Might Cause Cardiovascular Problems
Williams – anger and cardiovascular disorders
Method: A sample of 13 000 participants completed a questionnaire. This asked questions about their feelings of anger. For example, did they ever feel like hitting someone?
Results: Those with a high score on the anger questionnaire were more likely to have a heart attack when tested again six years later.
Conclusion: People who get angry more easily have a higher chance of getting a cardiovascular problem.
Other factors apart from personality must be included such as diet, their occupations, genetic vulnerability, exercise levels, smoking and the consumption of alcohol.
Stress Can Also Effect the Immune System
When someone experiences stress over a long period of time, their immune system stops functioning properly.
Brady et al – stress and the development of ulcers
Method: Monkeys were given electric shocks over periods of time. There were pairs of monkeys. One was the ‘executive’. The ‘executive’ could delay the shocks by pressing level at the correct moment, however, the other one could not.
Results: The executive monkey was developing illness’s such as ulcers and would later die.
Conclusion: The stress was weakening their immune system and therefore killing them.
Appalling ethics, monkey’s cannot be generalised to humans and we also know that those with little control over their own lives have high levels of stress.
The same Immune System Suppression happens in Humans – Kiecolt-Glaser et al, stress and wound healing
Method: Small samples of skin were taken from 13 women who cared for relatives with Alzheimer’s disease. A control group also had samples taken.
Results: The carers took an average of nine days more to heal.
Conclusion: Long term stress impairs the effectiveness of the immune system to heal.
However, the effects could be due to poor diet, lack of sleep and not just the stress they experienced.
Sources of Stress
Holmes and Rahé looked through several medial patients records and found that many had suffered major life events prior to their illness. A scale was therefore compiled to show the importance of life changes in terms of stress caused.
The SOCIAL RE-ADJUSTMENT RATING SCALE.
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Compiled a list of 43 life event that could cause stress and asked people to give a score, depending on how stressful they thought it was. The units for which it was measured in were Life Change Units. The more LCU’s it had, the more stressful the event was.
- They then ranked the events from highest to lowest and called it the SRRS.
- They then carried out a study to see how it worked.
Criticisms
- It can be to do with recall. If they can remember an event more clearly, they might rank it higher.
- It does not separate positive and negative life events. Positive life events may actually be stressful but be positive in the end, whereas something like a funeral may have long term negative effects.
- Long-term minor stressors are not considered.
The Workplace
- You are constantly being watched on your performance.
- Job insecurity.
- Overcrowding.
- Organisational change.
- Interpersonal conflicts.
- Management.
- Lack of control.
- Being responsible for others.
- Environment.
Different Personalities
You can split people into different groups. Types A’s and Type B’s. Type A’s are competitive and ambitious. Type B’s are non-competitive, relaxed and easy going.
Comments on Friedman and Rosenman.
- Personality types are a bit simplistic. Type C and Type D personalities were also identified.
- It doesn’t prove that personality characteristics can cause stress and illness.
- The sample is quite limited.
Culture
Biological Studies – Cooper et al (1999)
- The higher level of cardiovascular disorder that is found in African-Americans is due to their genes as it is more commonly found in this group and therefore higher levels of stress are likely to be found.
- However, they did find that it was higher in urbanised countries and lower in countries such as Nigeria. This suggests a social influence.
Social Studies
- Overcrowding, pollution and high unemployment are found in more urbanised areas and therefore this causes more stress.
- However, Adams-Campbell found that African American women had higher blood pressure than white women of the same social economic class.
Cognitive Studies
- African Americans suffer more prejudice than other cultures and therefore suffer more stress.
Gender
Biological Explanations
- Men and women have evolved differently and therefore have different responses.
Social Explanation
- Different cultures have had different ways of coping with stress. They are also stereotyped differently and in Western cultures are more likely to respond worse to stress and take up drinking or smoking to cope.
- Carroll found that women have a better social network than men and therefore are not as at risk from things from CHD. However, he also found that there has been an increase in CHD in women, this could be to do with new stereotypes as more women smoke and drink than they used to.
Cognitive Explanation
- Men and women interpret differently to how they’d cope with stressful situations.
- Codele found that women are able to control there anger and respond to a situation much better. Men might see anger as a good way of responding. This could be due to biology or stereotypes or both.
Physiological Methods of Stress Management Use Drugs and Biofeedback
- Drug Therapy
- They slow down the activity of central nervous system.
- Drugs called benzodiazephines help the body react to its own natural anxiety relieving GABA which slows down the activity of the neurones to make us feel more relaxed.
- They reduce the activity of the Sympathetic Nervous System. The SNS increases heart rate, blood pressure and levels of the hormone cortisol. High levels of cortisol can make our immune system weak and increase the risk of heart disease.
- The group of drugs that relieve these symptoms are called beta-blockers.
- Biofeedback
- The person learns to control their own symptoms.
- The person is attached to a machine that monitors heart rate and blood pressure.
- The person learns to control their heart rate by taking deep breaths.
- Relaxation encourages the patient to do this automatically.
- The person learns to do this in real life.
Meichenbaum’s Stress Inoculation Technique
- Preparation for dealing with stress.
- Coceptualisation: Identifies fears and concerns with therapists help.
- Skill Acquisition and rehersal: Positive thinking and relaxation.
- Application and Follow Through: Practicing skill with support in real life situation.
Hardiness Training
- Kabasser suggested that a strong and hardy person shows three Cs. Control over their lives, Commitment and Challenge.
- Maddi introduced a training programme to increase hardiness arguing that the more hardy a person is, the easier they’ll find it to cope with stress. Focusing, Relieving stressful encounters, Self improvement.
- Psychological methods only suit a narrow band of people.
- Research is based is based on white, middle class people and so isn’t necessarily generalised to others.
- Procedures are very lengthy and therefore require time and effort.
- Some procedures are too complicated.
Control over how we view stressors affects how stressed we get
