1. Health, Stress, and Coping
Reporters:
Paul Symon Alonzo
Joseph Hector Galang
Geanne Flores
February 26, 2013
Main Reference: General Psychology for Filipino College Students
Edited by Lota A. Teh and Ma. Elizabeth J. Macapagal

2. Overview:
Health and Psychology
Health Psychology
Biopsychosocial model of health
Focus: AIDS in the Philippines
Stress and stressors.
General Adaptation Syndrome
Coping with Stress

3. Health psychology

4. Health
As defined by the World Health Organization
(WHO), is “the state of complete
physical, mental, and social well-being.”

5. Health Psychology
The branch of psychology concerned with individual’s
behaviors and lifestyles affecting a person’s health
and illness.
Uses psychological processes to help improve the
physical outcomes of individuals.
In general, health psychology is concerned with the
role of cognitive, affective, behavior, and social
factors affecting health illness.

6. The shift to Biopsychosocial model of
Health
Central to linking the mind (realm of psychology) and
the body (realm of biology) in understanding illness.

7. Focus: AIDS in the Philippines
Source: Philippine National AIDS Council
http://www.pnac.org.ph/uploads/documents/public
As of December 2012: ations/NEC_HIV_Dec-AIDSreg2012.pdf

8. Focus: AIDS in the Philippines
Social factors:
Thriving commercial sex industry
Failure to use condoms especially in paid sex.
Sexual cultural norms
“Embarrassment, from a social psychological perspective
(e.g., Dahl, Gorn& Weinberg, 1998), can occur when a situation
poses a dilemma between a publicly observable behavior
(e.g., buying condoms at a drugstore) and apprehension
about negative social evaluation by
others (e.g., disapproving judgments by others, like people in l
ine at the counter or even imaginedothers not physically
present like one’s parents). ”(Manalastas, 2009)

9. Focus: AIDS in the Philippines
Increase in casual sex among the youth.
Methamphetamine use was strongly
associated with behavioral risk factors for HIV
infection. (US Center for Disease Control)

10. Stress and
Stressors

11. Stress
 Term used to describe the
physical, emotional, cognitive, and
behavioral responses to events that
are appraised as threatening or
challenging.

12. Stressors
 Stress-causing events
 May come from within a person or
from an external source, and ranges
from mild to severe.

13. Kinds of stressors
 Distress
 Eustress

14. External events that can cause
stress
 Catastrophes
 Acute Stress Disorder and Post-
Traumatic Stress Disorder
 Major Life Changes
 Hassles

15. Measuring Stress
 Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS)

18. Measuring Stress
 College Undergraduate Stress Scale

22. Psychological Factors
 Pressure
 Uncontrollability
 Frustration
 Conflict

23. Pressure
 Happens when…
 There are urgent demands for a
person’s behavior coming from an
outside source.

24. Uncontrollabillity
 Depends on the degree pf control a
person has over a situation
 The lesser the control, the greater the
stress.

25. Frustration
 Occurs when people are blocked or
prevented from achieving a desired
goal or fulfilling a perceived need.
 External Frustration
 Internal/Personal Frustration

26. Frustration
 Responses to frustration
 Persistence
• Continuation of efforts to get around
whatever is causing the frustration.
 Aggression
• Actions meant to harm or destroy
• Displaced aggression

27. Frustration
 Occurs when people are blocked or
prevented from achieving a desired
goal or fulfilling a perceived need.
 External Frustration
 Internal/Personal Frustration

28. Conflict
 Approach-Approach Conflict
 Involves choosing between two
desirable goals. Also a “win-win”
situation.
 Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict
 Involves choosing between two or
more unpleasant goals.

29. Conflict
 Approach-Avoidance Conflict
 Involves only one goal or event, which
may have both positive and negative
aspects
 Multiple Approach-Avoidance Conflict
 Involves multiple goals that have both
positive and negative elements.

30. General Adaptation Syndrome

31. What is the General Adaptation
Syndrome?
The General Adaptation Syndrome (or GAS) describes
the body's short and long-term emotional and
physical effects of stress.

32. GAS: A Brief History
Introduced by Hans Selye in 1936. Hans Selye is
considered as the founding father of stress research.
He conducted a research involving rats in which he
injected various extracts from the glands of the body.
The rats exhibited the same symptoms.
He believed at first that he discovered a new
hormone.

33. GAS: A Brief History
However, after further tests using other substances
and methods such as injecting formaldehyde, cutting
the rats’ spinal cord, exposure to cold and forced
exercise, the results were still the same.
The predictable sequence he observed on the rats is
now what we call the General Adaptation Syndrome.

34. Three Stage
Reaction
• Alarm phase
• Stage of resistance
• Exhaustion stage.

35. The alarm phase of the general
adaptation syndrome
In the alarm phase you enter a heightened
psychological and physiological arousal, known as the
fight or flight response.
Stress hormones are released into the bloodstream.
Adrenaline increases muscle tension, heart rate, and
causes a number of other physical effects of stress.
You are now immediately equipped with enough
energy to handle it.
You are more focused and alert!

36. The resistance phase of the general
adaptation syndrome
The mind and the body attempt to adapt to the cause
of stress.
Also known as the adaptation phase.
Homeostasis begins restoring balance and a period of
recovery for repair and renewal takes place.
Body remains alert (at a lower level) but continues
the normal functions.
Stress hormone levels may return to normal but you
may have reduced defenses and adaptive energy left.

37. The exhaustion phase of the general
adaptation syndrome
Exhaustion sets in.
Stress has generally occurred for some time and at
this point, resistance can drop off and the activity
returns to the point before the emergency.
Characterized by issues such as burnout and
exhaustion.
Body’s immune system that fights off disease and
infection is weakened.

38. The exhaustion phase of the general
adaptation syndrome
Chronic stress can damage nerve cells in tissues and
organs. Particularly vulnerable is the hippocampus
section of the brain. Thinking and memory are likely
to become impaired, with tendency toward anxiety
and depression.

39. Coping

40. Coping
“The process of managing external
and/or internal demands that are
appraised as taxing or exceeding the
resources of the person.” By Lazarus and Folkman (1984)

41. Basically…
Coping is anything we
do to deal with stress!

42. Coping is divided into two basic types:
• Problem-focused Coping
• Emotion-focused Coping

43. Problem-Focused Coping
Problem-Focused strategies includes:
Defining the problem.
Generating the alternative solutions.
Weighing those solutions.
Implementing the selected alternative.

44. Emotion-Focused Coping
- Means concentrating on alleviating
the emotions associated with the stressful
situatione.
- Especially when the situation is
beyond one’s control.

45. This involves cognitive
strategies, some behavioral strategies to
cope with negative feelings are exercise, use
of alcohol, drugs, releasing anger and
seeking emotional support from
friends.(Atkinson et al., 1996)

46. Defense Mechanism
1. Repression
2. Rationalization
3. Projection
4. Intelectualization
5. Denial
6. Displacement

47. Positive Thinking

48. Religion

49. Stress Management Programs

50. Culture related to Stress and coping
What people find stressful and how they
respond to stress is partly patterned by culture
(Western,1996)
1. Cultural context shapes the types of
stressors we experience.
2. Culture may affect how we appraise the
stressfulness of a given event.
3. Culture affects our individual choice of
coping strategy.
4. Culture provide different institutional
mechanisms for coping with stress.