Deck 5: Diverse Understandings of Stress

Question 1

According to Seyle's general adaptation syndrome theory of stress, the ______ system is activated.

A)hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal
B)sympathetic-adrenal-medullary
C)sympathetic nervous
D)catecholamine

Answer 1

hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal

Question 2

During the first Gulf War, many individuals were hospitalized for the trauma of not knowing whether the warheads contained chemical weapons or not.This is an example of one of the main dimensions of stress, called ______.

A)centrality
B)valence
C)duration
D)predictability

Answer 2

predictability

Question 3

According to Lazarus's Cognitive appraisal model, in primary appraisal, people assess whether an event involves each of the following EXCEPT ______.

A)control
B)threat
C)harm
D)challenge

Answer 3

control

Question 4

Lazarus suggests that we make two major types of appraisals when we face any potentially stressful event.During the primary appraisal we ______.

A)base our opinion on a galvanic skin response
B)determine whether we think our coping skills are going to be effective in managing the stressor.
C)ascertain whether the event is positive, negative or neutral.
D)experience low stress

Question 5

According to ______, stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize.

A)Cannon
B)Selye
C)Taylor
D)Lazarus

Question 6

During secondary appraisal in the Cognitive Appraisal Model, individuals ______.

A)evaluate their resources for dealing with stress
B)engage in the use of defense mechanisms
C)unconsciously recall other similar stressful events
D)experience resistance and then exhaustion

Question 7

The ______ orchestrates the SNS via the secretion of corticotropin-releasing factor.

A)pons
B)hypothalamus
C)limbic system
D)amygdala

Question 8

Research was conducted where one group of residents in a nursing home were given the responsibility of caring for a plant, and another group did not receive a plant.After 6 months, the group with a plant to care for were significantly better off than the group without plants.This is an example of one of the main dimensions of stress, called ______.

A)control
B)predictability
C)duration
D)clarity

Question 9

Research shows that women with higher levels of oxytocin in their bodies ______.

A)bond better with their babies
B)have less trust in others and are overprotective
C)are engaged in less affiliative and nurturing behaviors
D)spend less time with their friends to ensure an optimal coping response

Question 10

Research on nursing home residents found that by ______ they were significantly better off than those in the control group.

A)giving them positive reinforcement
B)realizing that one has no control over the outcome and moving toward a stage of acceptance
C)giving them control of various aspects of their day-to-day life
D)giving them a monetary daily living allowance

Question 11

The main chemical(s) associated with the fight or flight response is/are ______.

A)catecholamines
B)endorphin
C)cortisol
D)insulin

Question 12

During the fight or flight response, epinephrine ______.

A)increases heart rate and blood pressure
B)converts fat into energy
C)increases the release of oxytocin
D)gets oxygen into the bloodstream

Question 13

The theory that women developed additional stress responses aimed to protect, calm and quiet children, to remove them from harm's way, and to marshal resources to help is called ______.

A)fight-or-flight theory
B)The emotional social support theory
C)Seyle's General Adaptation Syndrome
D)tend-and-befriend theory

Question 14

Historically, stressors were primarily acute.An example of an acute stressor would be ______.

A)stubbing a toe
B)living with rheumatoid arthritis
C)taking a biochemistry class that you must pass with a C to stay in your major
D)living in an overpopulated community

Question 15

The earliest theory of stress suggests our current response is a remnant of our evolutionary past and was developed by ______.

A)Walter Cannon
B)Richard Lazarus
C)Hans Seyle
D)Rene Descartes

Question 16

The diathesis-stress model assumes that to become ill ______.

A)a person must have only a relatively permanent predisposition to the illness
B)some type of stress is all that is necessary
C)both a relatively permanent predisposition to the illness and the experience of stress are necessary
D)a person needs to make a primary appraisal of threat or harm

Question 17

According to Cannon's fight or flight theory of stress, the ______ system is activated.

A)HPA
B)GAS
C)oxytocin
D)SNS

Question 18

Epinephrine is present in greater amounts when we are scared, norepinephrine is present in greater amounts when we are ______.

A)ambivalent or overwhelmed
B)sad
C)happy
D)angry

Question 19

______ was the first to sketch the pattern of responses of the autonomic nervous system in response to stress and to map out the full level of physiological activation.

A)Lazarus
B)Taylor
C)Folkma
D)Cannon

Question 20

Lazarus (1966) added more psychological components to the process of stress.Lazarus indicated that stress ______.

A)is the upsetting of homeostasis
B)is a substantial imbalance between environmental demand and the response capability of the focal organism
C)has psychosocial stress which reflects the subject's inability to forestall or diminish perception recall and anticipation
D)is the imbalance between the demands paced on the individual and that individual's resources to cope

Question 21

Life-change units are associated with which of the following?

A)the fight-or-flight response
B)the General Adaptation Syndrome
C)the Hassles and Uplifts Scale
D)the Social Readjustment Rating Scale

Question 22

______ refer(s) to everyday insults, indignities, and demeaning messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned White people who are unaware of the hidden messages they are sending.

A)Stereotype threat
B)Microaggressions
C)Collective racism
D)Unconscious racism

Question 23

Which of the following is FALSE?

A)Researchers have developed measures of daily hassles.
B)Researchers have developed measures of chronic stress.
C)The most widely used measure of stress today is the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, a measure of major life events.
D)Researchers have developed a variety of tools to assess different psychological and physiological aspects of stress.

Question 24

Recent research examining the biological effects of discrimination showed that telomeres are ______ for African American men and women who experience high levels of discrimination compared to those who report lower levels of discrimination.

A)tangled
B)shorter
C)thicker
D)darker

Question 25

S.M.was told by an acquaintance, "You don't act like a black guy, ya know?" This comment is referred to as ______.

A)a secondary appraisal
B)a primary appraisal
C)crossover
D)a microaggression

Question 26

The diathesis-stress model indicates that the diathesis refers to ______.

A)vulnerable predispositions
B)the reason we are stressed
C)the lack of vulnerability for stress
D)the cause for post-traumatic stress disorder

Question 27

Which of the following about PTSD is FALSE?

A)PTSD is found only in the U.S.and Canada.
B)Psychological processes at the time of or around the trauma are the strongest predictors of PTSD.
C)Symptoms include migraines and poor respiratory health.
D)Psychologists have argued that PTSD can occur even if the stressful event is not experienced directly.

Question 28

Studies of children exposed to noisy environments indicate that ______.

A)these children eventually habituate to high levels of noise and show the same performance on learning tasks as their counterparts not exposed to noise
B)these children have more learning difficulties than their counterparts not exposed to noise
C)these children perform better on reading tasks and have fewer learning difficulties than their counterparts not exposed to noise because they developed better selective attention skills
D)females have lower levels of stress and better performance on reading tasks compared to their male counterparts because they are more resilient

Question 29

Activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis results in the secretion of ______.

A)catecholamines
B)norepinephrine
C)cortisol
D)serotonin

Question 30

Data from the National Health Interview Survey showed that ______ were significantly more likely to report experiencing recent serious psychological distress and feelings of helplessness compared to all other ethnic groups.

A)African Americans
B)Asian Americans
C)Mexican Americans
D)American Indians

Question 31

Culture may act as a stressor in the diathesis-stress model of psychopathology by ______.

A)activating cultural folklore
B)activating certain vulnerabilities and predispositions that may lead to the emergence of psychopathology
C)the confusion that might occur from misunderstood communication
D)causing confusion when interpreting research data

Question 32

Chandane failed her second A & P exam and worried that her chances of becoming a physical therapist were very slim.This time, she decided to get help from her professor during office hours every week to try to do better on the last two exams.After talking with her counselor, she realized that there was something she could have been doing (seeking out extra help) that would be more effective than simply hoping it she would finally understand confusing material the night before the exam when she studied on her own.According to Lazarus, deciding to seek out help was ______.

A)a secondary appraisal
B)a primary appraisal
C)a contingency appraisal
D)a diathesis

Question 33

Which of the following is considered a short-term environmental stressor?

A)background stressors
B)techno-political stressors
C)natural disaster stressors
D)allostasis

Question 34

Whitbeck et al.(2002) found that in a sample of Native Americans in the upper Midwest the association between discrimination and depression decreased if individuals ______.

A)participated in traditional practices such as powwows
B)lived in the urban areas
C)spoke with an accent that blended in with others from the region
D)were of high socioeconomic status

Question 35

What environmental stress has been shown to reduce the learning capabilities of children in the classroom or home environments?

A)airport noise
B)a small class size with assigned seating
C)poor use of colors in the decoration of the classroom
D)a phonics approach to teaching reading

Question 36

Martin had a bad day at work and returns home to verbally abuse his wife and three children.This is referred to as ______.

A)chronic stress
B)spillover
C)compensatory responding
D)reciprocity

Question 37

Which of the following is an example of a techno-political stressor?

A)Hurricane Katrina
B)role ambiguity at work
C)the Boston Marathon bombings
D)marital conflict

Question 38

Bolger et al.(1989) first recognized and defined two specific types of stress contagion: ______.

A)microsystems and macrosystems
B)spillover and crossover
C)diathesis and vulnerability
D)socioeconomic level and regional location

Question 39

For ______, deaths peaked on the fourth day of the month.

A)Chinese and Japanese Americans
B)Hispanic and Mexican Americans
C)African Americans
D)American Indians

Question 40

According to Brofrenbrenner (1977), work and home are examples of ______.

A)microsystems
B)role theory
C)mesosystem
D)reciprocity

Question 41

In one of the biggest reviews of the studies on PTSD, Ozer et al.(2003) found that psychological processes at the time of or around the trauma, not prior characteristics, are the strongest predictors of PTSD.

Question 42

According to a 2016 survey by Barber and Santuzzi (2016), 86% of Americans feel a sense of stress to constantly check their phones.This "telepressure" would be considered a(n) ______.

A)major life event
B)acute stressor
C)chronic stressor
D)a type of Baskerville effect

Question 43

When comparing major theories of stress, the following one has specific ideas about how oxytocin can generate an individual to respond to a stressor.

A)flight-or-fight
B)General Adaptation Syndrome
C)cognitive appraisal
D)tend-and-befriend

Question 44

Lazarus, who proposed the transactional model of stress, sees stress as stemming from ______.

A)too many negative life events
B)lack of homeostasis
C)inherent weakness within the individual
D)the person's perception of an event

Question 45

Which of the following is TRUE?

A)Blocking oxytocin in women makes them spend less time with their friends.
B)Evidence to support the tend-and-befriend theory comes from animals, but not humans.
C)Oxytocin increases the flight response and decreases relaxation.
D)Researchers have studied the effects of oxytocin by administering a nasal spray to human participants.

Question 46

Dr.Inez is conducting research on stress outside the laboratory.To assess stress levels, she is most likely to use a questionnaire.

Question 47

During the secondary appraisal process, people essentially ask themselves, "What's at stake?" In other words, is it a harm, threat or challenge?

Question 48

Which of the following is the best example of chronic stress?

A)running from a bee or wasp to avoid being stung
B)dealing with the phone ringing off the wall from election campaigns and business solicitors
C)allostatic load that can cause heart and memory problems
D)dealing with a sprained wrist

Question 49

Most of the early major theories of stress, such as Seyle and Cannon, paid more attention to the psychological changes in the mind that accompany the experience of stress than physiological processes.

Question 50

The Baskerville effect is an example of ______.

A)the tend-and-befriend model
B)a self-fulfilling prophecy
C)the stress contagion effect
D)microaggressions

Question 51

The diathesis stress model assumes that two factors are necessary to produce disease: a predisposition and stress.

Question 52

Recent research has shown that spraying oxytocin into someone's nose via a nasal spray can improve how accurately they are at recognizing feelings in others.

Question 53

Cannon (1929) viewed stress as the biological mobilization of the body for action, involving sympathetic activation and endocrine activity.

Question 54

The stress of an unlucky day may be strong enough to cause physiological damage.This has been demonstrated by ______.

A)the finding that men are more likely than women to die after their spouse has died.
B)the allostasis effect
C)the statistical increase of Chinese and Japanese Americans rate of death on the fourth day of the month, considered to be unlucky
D)the finding that heart attacks increase in the winter

Question 55

Which of the following is FALSE regarding Selye's model?

A)The appraisal process is key to stress according to this model.
B)It hypothesizes that no matter what the stressor, the body reacts in the same way and these responses are driving by the HPA axis.
C)It emphasizes physical aspects of stress.
D)It says that when responding to stress, the body goes through three stages.

Question 56

In humans, breastfeeding mothers have been found to be calmer than those who do not breastfeed (Uvnas-Moberg, 1996).

Question 57

Brofrenbrenner's (1977) ecological theory explains how the work domain can affect elements of the home domain, and vice versa.This approach identifies different levels or systems in which the individual acts.

Question 58

The ______ is the name given to the phenomenon in which the stress of an unlucky day may be strong enough to cause physiological damage.

A)Barnum effect
B)Baskerville effect
C)allostasis effect
D)fundamental attribution error

Question 59

The SAM system involves ______.

A)the adrenal cortex, the outer part of the adrenal glands
B)corticosteroids
C)hydrocortisone
D)the adrenal medulla, the innermost part of the adrenal glands

Question 60

Recent research has shown that living in a harsh family environment leads to the modification of children's genes.

Question 61

According to the research discussed in the textbook, what are some ways that men and women might differ in how they respond to stress?

Question 62

There are six main dimensions of stress.Please list three dimensions, and give a short definition and example for each of these three.

Question 63

Culture influences both the appraisal of stress and the experience of stress.Different cultures have different expectations for various aspects of life, and these differences can make a high threat event look like a low threat event to another group.Write about what you know from reading the textbook about how culture can influence stress, and include personal examples or examples you have observed or read about to support your answers.

Question 64

Using the example of a person losing his job at the post office where he has worked for the last 15 years, define and give an example of what his primary appraisal and secondary appraisal could be.