The Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping was developed by American psychologist Richard S. Lazarus. It is used to analyze the complex processes individuals undergo in coping with stressful life experiences. The core assumption of this theory is that coping is a process wherein adaptational outcomes are determined by how individuals appraise stressful experiences, the coping styles that are employed by the individual, and how dispositional and situational factors serve as mediating variables (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Lazarus, 1999). In early traditional approaches, studies have primarily focused on examining the causal relationship between stress and coping. For example, animal experimentations conceptualized stress as a physiological drive that is triggered by negative environmental stimuli.
High levels of stress can leads to holes in memory of eyewitnesses when asked to recall details such the persons involved. (Aharonian & Brian) The Yerkes-Dodson law proposes that the relationship between arousal and performance is an inverted U, in which moderate increase in arousal causes performance to increase but with too much arousal, performance decreases (Diamond, Campbell, Halonen & Zoladz, 2007). Yerkes-Dodson law predicts that on simple tasks, stress levels of cortisol can enhance a person’s memory and on more complex tasks stress levels of cortisol should impair a person’s memory. Traumatic experiences place a person at the highest side of the arousal performance curves (Yerkes and Dodson Curve) and they generate flashbulb memories so powerful that they are long lasting and can cause anxiety and mood disorders. In their study to develop this model, Yerkes and Dodson carried out a lab experiment on 40 lab rice to see how they learned a maze.
The word ‘stress’ in English according to Oxford dictionary is a state of mental or emotional strain, or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances (Oxford English Dictionary, 2000). Stress may include feelings, thought and physiological reactions that happen as a results of stressful events. Which means any interference disturbing individual’s well-being both physically and mentally. Stress can also be described as a system of consequence response to an action or situation that places special physical or psychological demands or both on a person resulting from the interaction of a person and that person’s environment (Hellriegel, et al.,
An imbalance in this mechanism, when coping is important, gives rise to the experience of stress, and to the stress response” (Cox ,1978). To rephrase it in simpler term, stress is what you go through when you believe you can’t cope effectively with a certain situation. If you see an incident or situation as only lightly challenging, you will probably feel only a little stress; however, if you face a threatening situation or event. Stressors, which means situations and pressures that create stress, exist in various ways such as a noisy environment. Apparently, stress has a lot of impact on physical and mental health.
Stress affects how you feel, think, and behave as well as how your body works. In order to better understand stress, it is important that we first define what stress is scientifically. Stress causes a surge of hormones in your body. When you are stressed your body reacts by stimulating the body to produce hormones that include adrenaline and cortisol. Essentially, these hormones help you to deal with any
Student’s name Professor’s name Course Date Stress Introduction Stress is the state of an emotional, physical, and mental response of a person due to adverse circumstances in a particular stimulus. It differs from one person to another. It depends on the personality and age of a person. It is worth noting that people tend to experience danger either in real life or imaginations. Hence, stress comes when the body tries to respond to such threats.
Cortisol is formed in the adrenal glands, which is located at the top of a person’s kidneys and is believed to be the “batteries” of a person. Adrenal glands play an important part in the body because it produces chemicals such as adrenaline, epinephrine and norepinephrine which helps a person cope up with stress. But too much stress can cause adrenal exhaustion which can facilitate breaking of nails and general appearance of exhaustion. Stress decreases skin moisture resulting to skin damage, wrinkles and advance the process of aging. Apart from physiological changes brought by stress, negative thoughts can also
The basic premise is that autonomic activity results whenever some organized action or thought process is interrupted. Lazarus and colleagues (1984b; 1978) have proposed a cognitive theory of stress which addresses this interaction. They refer to this interaction as a transaction, taking into account the ongoing relationship between the individual and the environment. Their theory places the emphasis on the meaning that an event has for the individual and not on the physiological responses. According to the Transaction Theory of stress, the cognitive appraisal of stress is a two-part process which involves a primary appraisal and a secondary appraisal.
He defined stress as a set of non-specific responses collectively called as” General Adaptation Syndrome”. Hans Selye’s theory of non-specificity was criticized by Mason (Mason, 1971). Gold stein defined stress as “stress is a condition in which expectations, whether genetically programmed, established by prior learning or deduced from circumstances, do not match the current or anticipated perceptions of the internal or external environment and this discrepancy between what is observed or sensed and what is expected or programmed elicits patterned, compensatory responses” (Goldstein and Kopin, 2007).Later the word allostasis was introduced to stress research, which is the process of adaptation to different stressors.When there is any defect in the process of adaptation, it leads to” allostatic load or overload” (McEwen, 1998). 3.2 General adaptation syndrome (Gas)
Stress according to psychologists can be defined “as a negative emotion experience accompanied by various psychologists, cognitive and behavioural changes” (Crane, Hannibal, 221). It is essentially a form of a physical or mental reaction produced by the body while facing adverse circumstances. Various factors such as gender and culture play a role in the effects of stress on the boy. Stress can trigger negative response from the body. The body exerts a stress response when subjected to stressors.