Stress theories

Dr. D. Dutta Roy, Indian
Statistical Institute,
STRESS THEORIES
Lecture note
Dr. D. Dutta Roy
Psychology Research Unit
INDIAN STATISTICAL INSTITUTE
203, B.T. Road, Kolkata- 700 108
E-mail: ddroy@isical.ac.in
Place: Performing art therapy centre,
Rabindra Bharati University
Web: http://www.isical.ac.in/~ddroy

What is stress ?

Write answers to following questions
How many people are stressed ?
What are the bodily changes in stress ?
Is there any positive stress ?
Is there any negative stress ?
What is the emotion of positive stress
experience ?
What is the emotion of negative stress
experience ?

Definition
• Physician Hans Selye was
pioneer who defines stress as a
non specific response of the
body to any demand
characterized by the secretion of
glucocorticoids.
• Glucocorticoid (glucose
+ cortex + steroid) hormone
derives from their role in the
regulation of the metabolism
of glucose, their synthesis in
the adrenal cortex, and
their steroidal structure.

Stages of stress
• Selye developed
concept of the
general adaptation
syndrome (GAS) to
discuss three stages
of stress :
• Alarm
• A stage of resistance
• Exhaustion

Alarm
• In the first stage of GAS
called alarm reaction, the
body releases adrenaline and
a variety of other
psychological mechanisms to
combat the stress and to stay
in control. This is called fight
or flight response. The
muscles tense, the heart
beats faster, the breathing
and perspiration increases,
the eyes dilate, the stomach
may clench. Believe it or not,
this is done by nature to
protect you in case
something bad happens.
Once the cause of the stress
is removed, the body will go
back to normal.

Resistance or
Adaptation
• If the cause for the stress is not
removed, GAS goes to its second
stage called resistance or
adaptation. This is the body’s
response to long term protection.
It secretes further hormones that
increase blood sugar levels to
sustain energy and raise blood
pressure. The adrenal cortex
(outer covering) produces
hormones called corticosteroids
for this resistance reaction.
Overuse by the body's defense
mechanism in this phase
eventually leads to disease. If this
adaptation phase continues for a
prolonged period of time without
periods of relaxation and rest to
counterbalance the stress
response, sufferers become prone
to fatigue, concentration lapses,
irritability and lethargy as the
effort to sustain arousal slides into
negative stress.

Exhaustion
• The third stage of GAS is
called exhaustion. In this
stage, the body has run out
of its reserve of body energy
and immunity. Mental,
physical and emotional
resources suffer heavily. The
body experiences "adrenal
exhaustion". The blood
sugar levels decrease as the
adrenals become depleted,
leading to decreased stress
tolerance, progressive
mental and physical
exhaustion, illness and
collapse.

Effect of Stress on bodily changes

How stressors affect our organs

Stress and Immune system
• Immune system is the body’s defense against illness
because it fights and destroys bacteria, viruses and
other foreign substances that may invade our bodies. If
this system is impaired, as in the case of prolonged
stress, we are more prone to illness and disease.
• The corticoids and endorphins that are released into our
body during the stress response reduce and dampen the
activity of our immune system. This is called
immunosuppression.
• Immunosuppression causes cold, allergies, sinuses and
several psychophysiological disorders specially at the
phase of exhaustion.

Stress experience

Stress variation
• Selye (1983) pointed four variations of
stress.
• Overstress or Hyperstress
• Understress or Hypostress
• Damaging stress (Distress)
• Good stress (Eustress)

PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS

PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESSORS
• Deprivation of needs
– Physiological needs
– Safety needs
– Social needs
– Self esteem needs
– Self actualization
• Role conflict
– Role set
– Role specificity

Role Space Conflicts
• Self-Role Distance: This stress arises out of the conflict between the self-
concept and the expectations from the role, as perceived by the role occupant.
• Intra-Role Conflict: Since an individual learns to develop expectations as a
result of his socialization and identification with ‘significant’ others, it is quite
likely that he sees certain incompatibility between the expectations (functions) of
his role. For example, a professor may see incompatibility between the
expectations of teaching students and of doing research. These may not be
inherently conflicting, but the individual may perceive these as incompatible.
• Role Stagnation: As the teacher grows older, the need for taking up a new role
becomes crucial. This problem of role growth becomes acute especially when
an individual who has occupied a role for a long time enters another role in
which he may feel less secure. However, the new role demands that an
individual outgrow the previous one and take charge of the new role effectively.
This is bound to produce some stress. In college which are fast expanding, and
which do not have any systematic strategy of manpower development, teachers
are likely to experience this stress of role stagnation .

Role Set Conflicts:
• Role Ambiguity: When teacher is not clear about the
various expectations that people have from his role the
conflict that he faces is called role ambiguity. Role
ambiguity may be due to lack of information available to
the role occupant, or due to lack of understanding of the
‘cues’ available to him.
• Role Expectation Conflict: When there are conflicting
expectations or demands by different role senders
(persons having expectations from the role), the role
occupant may experience the stress. There may be
conflicting from the boss, subordinates, peers or clients.
• Role Overload: When the role occupant feels that there
are too many expectations from the ‘significant’ others in
his role set, he experiences role overload.

Role Set Conflicts:
• Role Erosion: A role occupant may feel that the functions which he
would like to perform are being performed by some other role.
• Resource Inadequacy: Resource inadequacy stress is experienced
when the resources required by the role occupant for performing the role
effectively are not available.
• Personal Inadequacy: When a role occupant feels that he is not
prepared to undertake the role effectively, he may experience this
stress. This role occupant may feel that he does not have enough
knowledge, skills, or training, or he/she has not had time to prepare for
the assigned new roles without enough preparation or orientation are
likely to experience this type of stress.
• Role Isolation: the role occupant may feel that certain roles are
psychologically closer to him, while others are a t a much greater
distance. The main criterion of distance is the frequency and ease of
interaction. When linkages are strong, the role isolation will be low & in
the absence of strong linkages the role isolation will be high.

PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS RESPONSE
• Anxiety
– Apprehension of danger
– Inattentiveness
– Forgetting
– Irritability
• Depression
– Loss of hope
– Apathy
– Feeling of
meaninglessness
• Burnout
– Emotional exhaustion:
• Tired & fatigued feeling
– Depersonalization
• Negative & Cynical
Attitude
– Loss of feeling of personal
achievement derived from
their job
– Others evaluate them as
negatively.

• It’s also less severe, more
temporary in duration, and
clearly caused by situational
stressors rather than a
biologically mandated
chemical imbalance. While
burnout isn’t a recognized
clinical psychiatric or
psychological disorder, there
are some similar features
between burnout and
diagnosable conditions such
as depression, anxiety
disorders or mood disorders.

Burn out Curve
• Burnout is systematic process. Take preventive measures across each stage of changes

Work-Related Causes of
Burnout
• Unclear Requirements: When it’s not clear to teachers how to
succeed, it’s harder for them to be confident, enjoy their work,
and feel they’re doing a good job.
• Impossible Requirements: Sometimes it’s just not possible to
do a job as it’s explained. If a job’s responsibilities exceed the
amount of time given to complete them properly
• High-Stress Times with No “Down” Times: where teachers
work longer hours and handle a more intense workload for a
time.
• Big Consequences for Failure: People make mistakes; it’s
part of being human. However, when there are dire
consequences to the occasional mistake.
• Lack of Personal Control: People tend to feel excited about what
they’re doing when they are able to creatively decide what needs to be
done and come up with ways of handling problems that arise.

PERSONALITY TYPE
• Type A
• Type B

Burnout Model
Stress in College
Job Related Stress
Role Stress
Life Stress
Emotional exhaustion
Depersonalization
Negative reactions to
Personal accomplishment
Type A Personality
Social Network

COPING STRATEGIES

Coping strategies
• Appraisal focused: Appraisal-focused strategies occur when the
person modifies the way they think, for example: employing denial,
or distancing oneself from the problem. People may alter the way
they think about a problem by altering their goals and values, such
as by seeing the humour in a situation.
• Problem focused: They do this by finding out information on the
problem and learning new skills to manage the problem.
• Emotion focused : Emotion-focused strategies involve releasing
pent-up emotions, distracting one-self, managing hostile feelings,
meditating, using systematic relaxation procedures.
• http://books.google.co.in/books?
id=aLWW8PIXWpAC&pg=PA551&dq=General+adaptation+syndro
me&hl=en&ei=zqOVTKWYJIvqvQPv1s2ZDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result
&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Gener
al%20adaptation%20syndrome&f=true

Individual approach in stress
management

Enactive mastery experience
Close your eyes. Think that you are away from the job. You
are on the job. Job has no control over you. Do job
analysis now.
Job analysis: Think of main job, their task components and
related abilities, temperament, job environment, job
network (input-process-output), your specific roles etc.
Self-analysis: Do your judgment about P-E fit. Assess your
specific need and limitation. Make strategy as how can
you enhance or control target behaviour. Write target
behaviour like to enhance or to control.
Enacting : Enacting specific role to fulfill target behaviour.
Study its outcome.

Vicarious experience
• Write about target
temperament, aptitudes,
interests to enhance or to
control.
• Identify specific expert
around you, observe his
behaviour.
• If possible, read
autobiography of expert
person or see the movie
etc.
Late D.P. Kohil, Founder
Director, CBI,

Verbal persuasion
• Give or collect feedback from others about
your performance.

Physiological and affective
state
• Progressive relaxation
• Music therapy
• Vibroacoustic therapy
• Autogenic training
• Time management
• Meditation or Yoga

Time Management
• Time management refers to a range of skills,
tools, and techniques used to manage time
when accomplishing specific tasks, projects
and goals. This set encompasses a wide
scope of activities, and these include
planning, allocating, setting goals, delegation,
analysis of time spent, monitoring, organizing,
scheduling, and prioritizing. A time
management system is a designed
combination of processes, tools and
techniques.

Autogenic training
• The technique involves the daily practice of
sessions that last around 15 minutes, usually in
the morning, at lunch time, and in the evening.
During each session, the practitioner will repeat
a set of visualizations that induce a state of
relaxation. Each session can be practiced in a
position chosen amongst a set of recommended
postures (e.g. lying down, sitting meditation,
sitting like a rag doll, etc.). The technique can be
used to alleviate many stress-induced
psychosomatic disorders.

Progressive relaxation
• Progressive relaxation involves
alternately tensing and relaxing the
muscles. A person practicing it may
start by sitting or lying down in a
comfortable spot and taking some
deep breaths, and then he or she will
proceed to tense, then relax, groups
of muscles in a prescribed sequence
(one such sequence is starting with
the hands and moving up to the
arms, shoulders, neck, and head,
and then down the torso and legs to
the feet). The effect of the tension-
relaxation sequence is to cause
deeper relaxation than would be
achieved by simply attempting to
relax.

Vibroacoustic therapy
• Vibroacoustic Therapy
(VAT) is performed by
transferring amplified sound
directly to the human body
through loudspeakers or
transducers that are
embedded in a bed or
vibrotactile device.
• The innovative therapy was
introduced by Norwegian
musician/researcher, Olav
Skille, in 1982. VAT utilizes
electronically-generated low
frequency tones (generally in
the 30-120 Hz range), usually
mixed with synthesized music,
to treat a variety of conditions.
Olav Skille

Yoga

Rabindrik therapy
• Identify specific words that will enhance
your capability to control over the
environment.
• Explore it in Geetbitan / Sanchayita;
• Listen, sing and perform it.

Group approach in Role stress
management

Role stress
• Police officers are playing multiple roles
simultaneously and consecutively
according to the job demands in group.
Some roles are written and some are not
written. This causes both role space and
role set conflicts.

Role space conflict
Role space (the dynamic
relationship amongst the
various roles an individual
occupies and his self) has
three main variables :
self,the role under
question, and the other
roles he occupies.
• Example: DIG is asked to
find out the clue alone..

Role set conflict
• Role set consists of
important persons who have
varying expectations from
the role that he occupies.
• Example: DIG is asked to
arrange the case for
proceedings within time limit,
he is requested by his
colleagues to find some
clues for certain case. He
finds that his junior takes
long leave so he has to
perform that role also.

Role stress management
Role analysis;
Role drama;
Role feedback;

Effect of disaster, war, violence,
terrorism & trauma on individuals
and groups

What is disaster ?
• There are four different meanings of disaster
– Disaster as agents for example earthquake, tornado
and fire
– Physical impact of the agent as the resulting property
damage or loss of life
– Social impact created by the physical impact. It
includes disruption of human settlements
– Evaluation of physical and social impact using
standard of evaluation. The analysis includes (a)
hazard analysis (b) vulnerability analysis ( c ) disaster
relevant resource analysis and (d ) assessment of
agent impacts and victim needs

Traumatic events
• Types
– Individual exposed
• Intentional: assault, robbery, rape
• Unintentional: motor vehicle accident, injury
– Communities exposed
• Human made : Technological accident, plane crash
• Natural: hurricane, earthquake, tornado
• Dimensions of traumatic events
– Threat to life
– Exposure to the grotesque (dead body)
– Physical harm or injury
– Loss of significant others
– Loss of property
– Information stress

Psychological consequences
• Psychiatric morbidity
– High perceived threat, Low controllability, Lack of predictability, High
loss and injury, Exposure to the dead and mutilated body.
• Bereavement
• Psychosocial, cognitive and biological effects of traumatic events
are complex and interrelated. For some posttraumatic psychiatric
symptoms are transitory. They respond to education, enough rest,
maintaining biological rhythms (sleep and eat at right time). Limiting
media exposure can minimize the disturbing effects on children.
Educating spouses or of significant others of distressed can assist in
treatment.
• For some, new experiences reminded traumatic events and causes
post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

PTSD
• A number of treatment approaches like
psychodynamic therapy, group therapy,
psychological debriefing, cognitive
behaviour therapy, pharmacotherapy,
psychosocial rehabilitation, marital and
family therapy are useful interventions.

Symptoms

Interventions for children

Performing art therapy
• Play therapy, drawing and dancing
give children the opportunity to
express their feelings and
concerns about the earthquakes.
The "Planning Your Future"
component of the project helps
each youth develop a life plan with
both short and long-term goals.
Then, the youth work together to
develop goals, which fosters
solidarity and community
participation.

Management

Thank You

References
• Freudenberger, H.J. (1974). Staff burn-out Journal of Social Issues,
30, 159-165.
• Shinn, M., Rosario, M., Morch, H. and Chestnut, D.E.
(1984). Coping with job stress and burnout in the human services.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 846-876.

Stress theories

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