Abnormal Psychology1

Stress & Categories of stressors Lect 15

 Life would be simple indeed if our needs were automatically gratified. As we know, many obstacles, both personal and environmental, prevent this ideal situation. Such obstacles place adjustive demands on us and can lead to stress. All situations, positive and negative, that require adjustment are stressful.

 To avoid confusion, we will refer to adjustive demands as stressors, to the effects they create within an organism as stress, and to efforts to deal with stress as coping strategies. is important to remember in the long run is that the two concepts- stress and coping are interrelated and dependent on each other.
3

 Canadian physiologist Hans Selye (1956; 1976a), said that stress can be broken down further into positive stress, eustress, and negative stress, distress. (In most cases, the stress experienced during a wedding would be eustress; during a funeral, distress.) In general, distress has greater potential for causing difficulties in adjustment. , though distress typily has the potential to do more damage.
4

Categories of Stressors
Adjustive demands, or stressors, stem from a number of sources. These sources represent three categories: frustrations, conflicts, and pressure. 1. Frustrations: When a person's strivings thwarted, either by obstacles that block progress toward a desired goal or by the absence of appropriate goal, frustration occurs.
5

 A wide range of obstacles, Both External internal, can lead to frustration. Prejudice , discrimination, unfulfillment in a job, and death of a loved one are common frustration stemming from the environment; physical hacaps, lack of needed competencies, loneliness, and inadequate self-control are sources of fru tion based on personal limitations .
6

2. Conflicts: In many instances stress results from simultaneous occurrence of two or more incompatible needs or motives: the requirements of one preclude satisfaction of the others. In essence we have a choice to make, and we experience conflict while trying to make it. Conflicts are classified as approachavoidance, double-approach, and doubleavoidance types.

a. Approach-avoidance conflicts involve strong tendency to approach and to avoid the same goal. Perhaps an individual wants to join a highstatus group but can do so only by endorsing views contrary to their values Approach-avoidance conflicts are sometimes referred to as mixed blessing dilemmas because some negative and some positive features must be accepted regardless of which course of action is chosen.
8

 Roth and Cohen point out that being inflexible in making these choicesthat is, in always choosing an approach strategy or an avoidance strategy-can be maladaptive. When dealing with a stressor, sometimes the best method of coping is to approach it; at other times, the best thing to do is to avoid it.
9

b- Double-approach conflicts involve choosing between two or more desirable goals, such as which of two movies to see on one's only free night of the week. To a large extent, such simple plus-plus conflicts result from the inevitable limitations in one's time, space, energy, and resources; they are usually handled in stride.
10

 In more complex cases, however, as when an individual is torn between two career opportunities or between present satisfactions and future ones, decision making can be difficult and stressful. Though the experience may cause more eustress than distress, the stress is still there and the choice difficult; in either case, the individual gives up something.
11

c. Double-avoidance conflicts are those in which the choices are between undesirable alternatives, such as either going to a party when you would rather stay home or being considered impolite if you cancel at the last moment. Neither choice will bring satisfaction, so the task is to decide which course of action will be least disagreeable-that is, least stressful.
12

3- Pressures : Stress may stem not only from frustrations and conflicts, but also from pressures to achieve specific goals or to behave in particular ways. In general, pressures force a person to speed up, intensify effort, or change the direction of goal oriented behavior. All of us encounter many everyday pressures, and we often handle them without undue difficulty.

13

 In some instances, however, pressures seriously tax our coping resources, and if they become excessive, they may lead to maladaptive behavior. Pressures can originate from external or internal sources. Students may feel under severe pressure to make good grades because their parents demand it, or they may submit themselves to such pressure because they want to get into graduate school.
14

 A given situation may involve all three categories of stressors- frustration, conflict, and pressure. E.g. A premed student whose lifelong ambition to become a doctor received rejection letters from all the medical schools to which he had applied. This unexpected blow left him feeling, sad and empty. He felt extreme frustration his failure and conflict over what his next should be.
15

 He was experiencing pressure from his family and peers to try again, but he was overwhelmed by a sense of failure. He felt so bitter that he wanted to drop everything and become a beach bum or a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas. The loss of self-esteem he was experiencing left him with no realistic backup plans and little interest in pursuing alternative careers.
16

 Although a particular stressor may predominate m any situation, we rarely deal with an isolated demand, Instead, we usually confront a continuously changing pattern of interrelated and sometimes contradictory demands.
17

18