Stress

By the end of this section you will be able to:

• Define stress e.g. Seyle’s GAS model
• Demonstrate knowledge of the physiological (biological) and psychological (cognitive and behavioural) signs of stress
• Describe physiological and psychologically ways of measuring stress;
• Demonstrate knowledge of research into possible causes of stress e.g. heat, noise, pollution, architecture, crowding, stressful life events.

What is stress?

Signs of stress

Selye (1950) used the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) to describe how we react to stress on a physiological level. It has three stages:

1. The alarm stage. This involves arousal of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) to prepare us for fight or flight. What does your body need for you to be prepared for the fight or flight response?
2. The resistance stage. If the stressor remains, the body has to adapt to its presence. SNS arousal decreases but remains quite high. The ability to cope with new stressors is reduced and immunity might be affected.
3. The exhaustion stage. Eventually the body runs out of coping resources. Blood sugar levels drop and, in extreme cases, severe hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar) can lead to death. A variety of physical illnesses may be more likely at this stage, e.g. high blood-pressure, ulcers, asthma and heart disease.

Physical effects of stress

These can be measured by:
• Measuring hormone levels in the urine or blood;
• Measuring heart-rate, respiration rate or blood pressure;
• Taking GSR measures, i.e. measuring the electrical conductivity of the skin which changes with the level of arousal;
• Testing for enlargement of the adrenal glands (a longer-term side-effect of over-activity).

Psychological responses

People under stress report a variety of psychological symptoms e.g.:
• Negative emotions such as anger, depression, anxiety, aggressiveness;
• Feelings of helplessness as if they can do nothing to escape the situation or improve it;
• Low self-esteem;
• Inability to concentrate;
• Feelings of listlessness and apathy;
• Feeling a need to smoke or drink more or take mood-changing drugs.

Causes of Stress

Noise
Burns and Dobson (1984) say that noise is most stressful if it is unpredictable and uncontrollable. If noise is constant we usually become used to it and can block it out. If we can control it we can get rid of it. Either way we can reduce its ability to annoy us. Noise from neighbours can be particularly stressful because it is both unpredictable and uncontrollable.

Temperature
	Baron and Ransberger (1978) found that moderately hot, rather than very hot or very cold temperatures seem to be connected with more frequent riots or other civil disturbances. However, we do not know if this is due to individuals feeling more stressed or because people are more active in more pleasant temperatures and tend to have more contact with each other.

Why would this happen?

Pollution

This covers many situations ranging from having to put up with cigarette smoke to worries about a wide range of hazardous substances in the air, water or food. Threat of pollution is another problem. More than a year after the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident, researchers showed how people living close to the plant felt more stressed than people living near a similar plant where there had been no accident.

Architecture

Cochrane (1995) Suggested that stress linked to living in high-rise blocks as opposed to low-rise buildings had more to do with the quality of relationships with neighbours than with the actual quality of the housing or how densely populated an area was. Other research has shown the importance of how space is used with buildings, e.g. open-plan offices are generally less popular than other kinds of offices because workers perceive them as noisy and lacking in privacy.

Why would this cause stress?

Critical life events

Holmes and Rahe (1967) suggested that major life events, good or bad, were potentially stressful so they devised the Holmes-Rahe Social Readustment Ratings Scale (SRRS) to measure the impact of different events. There are over 40 ‘events’ on the scale and people mark those which have affected them in the previous twelve months, e.g. death oa a spouse, Christmas, change in financial state. High scores have been found to relate to an increased chance of physical or mental illness but the link is rather weak. Some critics argue that the scale does not allow for individual differences in reactions to events. Others criticise it for putting positive and negative events together.

Example of Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)

Rank	life event	Mean value
1	Death of spouse	100
2	divorce	73
3	Marital separation	65
4	Jail term	63
5	Death of close family member	63
6	Personal injury or illness	53
7	Marriage	50
8	Fired at work	47
9	Marital reconciliation	45
10	Retirement	45
11	Change in health of family member	44
12	Pregnancy	40
13	Sex difficulties	39
14	Gain of new family member	39
15	Business readjustment	39
16	Change in financial state	38
17	Death of close friend	37
18	Change to different line or work	36
19	Change in number of arguments with spouse	35
20	Mortgage over $10,000	31
21	Foreclosure of mortgage or loan	30
22	Change in responsibilities at work	29
23	Son or daughter leaving homw	29
24	Trouble with in-laws	29
25	Outstanding personal achievement	28
26	Wife begins or stops work	26
27	Begin or end school	26
28	Change in living conditions	25
29	Revision of personal habits	24
30	Trouble with boss	23
31	Change in work hours or conditions	20
32	Change in residence	20
33	Change in schoolds	20
34	Change in recreation	19
35	Change in church activities	19
36	Change in social activities	18
37	Mortgage or loan less than $10,000	17
38	change in sleeping habits	16
39	Change in number of family get-togethers	15
40	Change in eating habits	15
41	Vacation	13
42	Christmas	12
43	Minor violation of the law	11

If you score over 150 then you may need help in managing the stress in your life.

Daily hassles and uplifts

Lazarus (1981) agreed that critical life events are important but he thought it would also be useful to measure the ‘hassles and uplifts of everyday life’.

The hassles scale has 117 items such as ‘losing things’ and rises in the price of common goods’. The uplifts scale has 135 items including things life ‘feeling healthy’ and relating well to ‘spouse/lover’. Lazarus studied 45-64-year-old men for 12 months using these scales and found that hassles scores were positively related to physical and psychological ill health and uplifts scores were negatively related to such things.

Activity

A Head-teacher sits at her desk. The day started badly. Her new car had broken down and she was forced to walk the last two miles of her journey to work, arriving hot and flustered. She is working through the school accounts – they don’t balance. Constant interruptions make matters worse. The Head of Psychology walks in demanding money for textbooks which the school can’t afford. A parent phones worried about his son’s progress in mathematics. Just as she returns to the school accounts, her secretary walks in with a pile of urgent papers to sign. By this time, the head-teacher is under stress. Her pulse is racing, she is sweating and her stomach feels as though it is in a knot.

1. What are the causes of the Head teacher’s stress?
2. How does the stress affect her physically?
3. How would this stress affect her psychologically