A-Level Psychology (AQA)

Topic Summaries

Stress

Managing and coping with stress

  • Stress inoculation therapy: based on the theory that by changing the way we think about stress, we can decrease negative and irrational thinking by implementing more effective positive behaviours. Research suggests patients need to go through 3 stages:
    • Conceptualisation phase: a therapist will go through the patient’s stresses with them, focusing on minimising the sources of stress that they can change while coming up with coping mechanisms for stress that is out of their control. This is an opportunity to give the patient a positive view of stress management.
    • Skills acquisition and the rehearsal phase: targets the cognitive aspects of stress; the therapist will teach the patient stress management skills (e.g. breathing techniques).
    • Real-life application and follow-through phase: the patient is forced to put their skills into practice (e.g. through role play or VR experiences). The therapist will suggest personal experiments where the patient deliberately puts themselves in stress-inducing situations to test the skills they have learned. If a patient relapses, it is acknowledged and accepted as an opportunity to further the skills of inoculation.
  • Biofeedback:
    • 👥 Budzynski (1973) found patients can learn to identify, modify, and transfer changes to their physiological responses to stressors. Patients recognised their physiological responses through an auditory or visual sign and could train themselves to adjust their output such as reducing breathing rate to lowering the signal back to the normal baseline level through the process of biofeedback.
    • 👥 Davis (1986) found that urinary cortisol levels of in a sample of breast cancer patients undergoing weekly stress inoculation therapy sessions was significantly lower than a control group who experienced an increase in cortisol levels. This demonstrates that the therapy can be effective in lowering stress through the stabilisation of the HPA system and that can be achieved through biofeedback and operant conditioning.
  • Gender differences:
    • The main difference between the genders with coping with stress is that men tend to take on a problem-solving, logical response whereas women are more likely to take an emotional response.
    • 👥 Lazarus and Folkman (1984) found the male approach tackles the cause of stress head-on whereas women tended to tackle the proximal causes of stress and associated stresses. They also found women tended to distract themselves from the stress and keep busy as a means of coping.
    • 👥 Peterson (2003) demonstrated this difference in relation to infertile males and females. He used a self-report study and found that men used practical solutions to alleviate the stressor whereas women more often accepted the blame and avoided directly addressing the stressor.
    • This is supported by 👥 Taylor’s (2000) research into the fight or flight response. She postulated that women were more likely to use a ‘tend and befriend’ when faced with a stressor that meant they relied on social networks with other women who can relate and provide emotional support. This is the alternative to the fight or flight response which women are more likely to use.

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