Deck 3: Stress and Its Effects

Question 1

Whether or not an event is stressful is most likely to depend on

A) how much physiological arousal it causes.
B) how much change there is.
C) how one appraises and adapts to the event.
D) whether one is prepared for the event.

Answer 1

how one appraises and adapts to the event.

Question 2

Dealing with a rude store clerk and waiting for the results of an examination are two examples of

A) acute stressors.
B) ambient stressors.
C) environmental stressors.
D) chronic stressors.

Answer 2

acute stressors.

Question 3

The four major types of stress described in your textbook are

A) pressure, anxiety, environment, social demands.
B) frustration, anger, pressure, and change.
C) frustration, conflict, pressure, and change.
D) conflict, pressure, anxiety, and social demands.

Answer 3

frustration, conflict, pressure, and change.

Question 4

Primary appraisal is an initial evaluation of whether an event is

A) imminent.
B) detrimental to one's health.
C) relevant and stressful.
D) expected.

Question 5

Threatening events that have a relatively long duration and no apparent time limit are referred to as

A) ambient stressors.
B) cultural stressors.
C) acute stressors.
D) chronic stressors.

Question 6

Secondary appraisal involves

A) making plans to avoid the situation.
B) tapping into your defense mechanisms.
C) soliciting a second opinion about a stressful event.
D) evaluating your coping resources and options.

Question 7

One challenge faced by members of ethnic minorities in dealing with everyday discrimination is that manifestations of such discrimination are often

A) imaginary.
B) ambiguous.
C) minor.
D) consistent.

Question 8

____ has been a major source of stress in many societies around the world.

A) Religious conflict
B) Cultural change
C) Intergenerational disagreement
D) Coping deficiency

Question 9

Which of the following statements regarding the nature of stress is correct?

A) Routine hassles may have significant negative effects on mental and physical health.
B) Major stressful events are more strongly related to mental health than are minor hassles.
C) Most people effectively deal with everyday stress through the use of defense mechanisms.
D) Experts generally agree that major and minor stressors are independent of each other.

Question 10

Lazarus's findings on hassles suggest that the effects of stress are

A) cumulative.
B) mutually exclusive.
C) specific to different domains.
D) inversely related to the number of demands.

Question 11

Crowding and noise have been identified as sources of ____ that have been found to be modestly correlated with depression and hostility.

A) acute stress
B) traumatic stress
C) ambient stress
D) rational stress

Question 12

Acute stressors

A) are threatening events that have a relatively short duration and clear endpoint.
B) are unpleasant environmental conditions to which one must adjust.
C) are conditions that have a relatively long duration and no apparent time limit.
D) always lead to physical illness.

Question 13

Which of the following is a common kind of frustration leading to stress?

A) anger
B) anxiety
C) losses
D) subjective threat

Question 14

Which of the following is not a major source of stress described in your textbook?

A) change
B) conflict
C) frustration
D) socialization

Question 15

Which of the following may be a significant cause of stress for ethnic minorities in Western societies?

A) cultural change
B) overt interracial conflict
C) effects of subtle discrimination
D) effects of modernization

Question 16

According to psychologists, frustration occurs when

A) feelings of anger are aroused.
B) the pursuit of some goal is thwarted.
C) incompatible motivations are activated.
D) individuals perceive subjective threat.

Question 17

The emerging consensus among contemporary researchers is that stress is

A) a stimulus event that presents difficult demands.
B) the response of physiological arousal elicited by a troublesome event.
C) a special stimulus-response transaction in which one feels threatened.
D) a series of events that tend to elicit overwhelming feelings of anxiety.

Question 18

The term "ambient stress" refers to

A) stress that seems to have no identifiable source.
B) specific situations in which stress is most likely to occur.
C) chronic environmental conditions that place adaptive demands on people.
D) stressful situations that result from demands placed on us by others.

Question 19

One accepted definition of stress is

A) any potentially upsetting event that occurs in one's environment.
B) any circumstance that threatens well-being and taxes coping abilities.
C) any negative change that occurs in the course of life.
D) anything that causes chronic illness in organisms.

Question 20

The notion that "stress lies in the eye of the beholder" suggests that

A) coping strategies tend to vary from individual to individual.
B) people's appraisals of stressful events are highly subjective.
C) there are certain events that just about everyone finds stressful.
D) the appraisal of stress generally involves the use of visual imagery.

Question 21

Whenever others expect you to conform to their expectations or perform in certain ways, you tend to experience

A) anger.
B) conflict.
C) frustration.
D) pressure.

Question 22

Research with the Social Readjustment Rating Scale has shown that people with higher scores

A) are less susceptible to stress.
B) know from experience how to handle stress.
C) tend to have pessimistic outlooks on life.
D) are vulnerable to physical and psychological problems.

Question 23

Approach-avoidance conflicts often produce

A) vacillation.
B) bad decisions.
C) aggression.
D) self-directed anger.

Question 24

Research findings indicate that cognitive appraisals may influence a person's ____ responses to stressors.

A) emotional
B) social
C) controllable
D) perceptual

Question 25

Holmes and Rahe concluded that change is stressful

A) only when it is undesirable.
B) only when it is overwhelming.
C) whether it is undesirable or desirable.
D) only when accompanied by pressure.

Question 26

Psychologists study responses to stress at which of the following levels?

A) behavioral
B) emotional
C) physiological
D) all of these

Question 27

____ may be a common effect of environmental or ambient stress.

A) Conflict
B) Frustration
C) Change
D) Trauma

Question 28

Which of the following researchers designed a scale to measure pressure as a form of life stress?

A) Albert Bandura
B) Thomas Holmes
C) Neil Miller
D) Wayne Weiten

Question 29

____ are largely uncontrollable and are accompanied by physiological changes.

A) Conflicts
B) Pressures
C) Stressors
D) Emotions

Question 30

Current research indicates that

A) positive change is typically more stressful than negative change.
B) only negative change is stressful.
C) we have little reason to believe that change is inherently stressful.
D) all change is inevitably stressful.

Question 31

____ is any noticeable alteration in one's life circumstances.

A) Stress
B) Life conflict
C) Life change
D) Dissonance

Question 32

An approach-avoidance conflict may best be resolved by ____ the avoidance motivation rather than ____ the approach motivation.

A) decreasing; decreasing
B) decreasing; increasing
C) increasing; decreasing
D) increasing; increasing

Question 33

Generally, which kind of conflict tends to be the least stressful?

A) approach-approach
B) avoidance-avoidance
C) approach-avoidance
D) All types are equally stressful.

Question 34

Fredrickson et al. (2003) found that the frequency of pleasant emotions correlated ____ with resilience, and the frequency of negative emotions correlated ____ with resilience.

A) positively; negatively
B) negatively; positively
C) positively; positively
D) negatively; negatively

Question 35

The Social Readjustment Rating Scale was designed to measure

A) frustration.
B) all kinds of stress.
C) change-related stress.
D) the anxiety produced by certain events.

Question 36

Weiten's research on the stressful effects of pressure indicates that there is a strong relationship between pressure and

A) the appraisal of stress.
B) measures of procrastination.
C) a variety of psychological problems.
D) stress-induced physiological arousal.

Question 37

You want to ask someone for a date, but you're afraid of being rejected. Which of the following types of conflict applies to your situation?

A) approach-approach
B) avoidance-avoidance
C) approach-avoidance
D) frustration-aggression

Question 38

You are a talented artist and you are good at mathematics. You enjoy both and don't know which to major in at college. Which of the following types of conflict applies to your situation?

A) approach-approach
B) avoidance-avoidance
C) approach-avoidance
D) frustration-aggression

Question 39

Research supports a previous theory that internal conflicts generate considerable psychological stress. The theorist who proposed this was

A) Freud.
B) Watson.
C) Selye.
D) Maslow.

Question 40

Conflict occurs when

A) pursuit of an important goal is thwarted.
B) an event is perceived as threatening.
C) two incompatible behavioral impulses compete for expression.
D) ambiguous stimuli are encountered in the environment.

Question 41

The correlation between test-related anxiety and exam performance is thought to be

A) positive.
B) negative.
C) U-shaped.
D) non-existent.

Question 42

The fight-or-flight response is a reaction that begins in response to a threat. This is a(n) ____ reaction.

A) involuntary
B) voluntary
C) unusual
D) cultural

Question 43

The "fight-or-flight" response was first described by

A) Martin Seligman
B) Ray Rosenman
C) Walter Cannon
D) Hans Selye

Question 44

The correct order of stages in the general adaptation syndrome is

A) resistance, alarm, exhaustion.
B) alarm, exhaustion, resistance.
C) resistance, exhaustion, alarm.
D) alarm, resistance, exhaustion.

Question 45

Research following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States found that emotions of anger, sad, glad, hopeful, and content were statistically significant in relation to

A) defense mechanisms.
B) resilience.
C) the parasympathetic system.
D) feelings of sympathy.

Question 46

The general adaptation syndrome is a

A) general coping strategy for dealing with stress.
B) severe stress-related psychological disorder.
C) set of nonspecific bodily responses to stress.
D) physiological-based solution for stressful problems.

Question 47

The sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system

A) conserves bodily resources.
B) arouses sympathy for those in stressful circumstances.
C) mobilizes bodily resources for emergencies.
D) calms the body after the fight-or-flight response.

Question 48

Optimal level of arousal is related to

A) level of self-esteem.
B) the complexity of the task.
C) personality type.
D) optimism of the individual.

Question 49

Selye exposed lab animals to various stressors and found that

A) each individual animal responded to stress differently.
B) each type of stress caused a particular physiological response.
C) patterns of physiological arousal were similar, regardless of the type of stress.
D) patterns of physiological arousal seemed to depend on the intensity of the stress.

Question 50

Being followed when walking home late at night or narrowly escaping a car accident are experiences that would activate the

A) resistance reaction.
B) alarm reaction.
C) non-sympathetic nervous system.
D) exhaustion reaction.

Question 51

Research suggests that positive emotional reactions to stress may have the adaptive quality of enhancing

A) recovery from psychological trauma.
B) creativity and flexibility in problem solving.
C) avoidance strategies.
D) use of defense mechanisms.

Question 52

New research on gender and the fight-or-flight response indicates that

A) fighting may be more adaptive for females than males because females need to fight off predators from their offspring.
B) fighting and fleeing may be less adaptive for females because both responses may endanger offspring.
C) men are more likely to fight and women are more likely to flee.
D) men and women are equally likely to expend a lot of effort on the care of offspring in times of stress.

Question 53

____ is credited with formulating the theory of stress reactions called the general adaptation syndrome.

A) Hans Selye
B) Neal Miller
C) Walter Cannon
D) Michael Scheier

Question 54

Sometimes anxiety helps us by motivating us to study for a test, but if we become too anxious, we pass our optimal level of arousal and spend too much time worrying instead of studying. This type of correlation is described as

A) a downward spiral.
B) the inverted-U hypothesis.
C) negative.
D) positive.

Question 55

The fight-or-flight response occurs in the

A) cerebral cortex.
B) parasympathetic division of the limbic system.
C) sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system.
D) synaptic vesicles in the brain.

Question 56

In humans the fight-or-flight response is less adaptive than it is in animals because

A) our stresses are usually of short duration.
B) social evolution has surpassed biological evolution.
C) most modern human stresses can't be managed with these strategies.
D) humans don't have adequate equipment to fight or flee from threats.

Question 57

Hans Seyle's work was important because it showed

A) how prolonged physiological arousal that is meant to be adaptive could lead to diseases.
B) how ambient stress could lead to a traumatic stress response.
C) that positive change is just as stressful as negative change.
D) that children do not react to stress the same way that adults do.

Question 58

The inverted-U hypothesis was proposed to explain the relationship between ____ and ____.

A) test anxiety; coping strategy
B) level of arousal; task performance
C) level of arousal; physiological changes
D) familiarity of event; effectiveness of coping strategies

Question 59

In the ____ stage of the general adaptation syndrome, the body attempts to adapt to continued stress.

A) alarm
B) exhaustion
C) resistance
D) extinction

Question 60

An alternative to the fight-or-flight response that may be present for females is the

A) tend-and-befriend response.
B) lock-and-load response.
C) freeze-and-free-up response.
D) cat-and-mouse response.

Question 61

____ involves active efforts to master, reduce, or tolerate the demands of stress.

A) Coping
B) Adjustment
C) Stress tolerance
D) General adaptation

Question 62

Which of the following was not cited in your text as a disruptive effect of severe stress on cognitive functioning?

A) a dazed, confused state
B) an emotional numbness
C) inability to deal with interpersonal issues
D) difficulty maintaining a coherent train of thought

Question 63

You hate mathematics and you feel a knot forming in your stomach when you read in the college catalog that Calculus I is required for your chosen major. You are in the ____ stage of the general adaptation syndrome.

A) alarm
B) exhaustion
C) resistance
D) extinction

Question 64

Seyle's general adaptation model has been criticized because

A) it ignores cultural influences on stress.
B) the order in which the stages occur may vary between individuals.
C) it ignores individual differences in the appraisal of stress.
D) there is no link between stress and physical illness.

Question 65

Research findings indicate that on a cognitive task, stress may increase one's tendency to

A) systematically review options.
B) jump to conclusions too quickly.
C) consider a variety of options.
D) organize information into categories.

Question 66

After barely squeezing through Anatomy with a passing grade, you sleep 16 hours a day for the first 10 days of summer break and refuse to see any of your friends. You are in the ____ stage of the general adaptation syndrome.

A) alarm
B) exhaustion
C) resistance
D) extinction

Question 67

The "master gland" of the endocrine system is the

A) pituitary.
B) adrenal cortex.
C) adrenal medulla.
D) hypothalamus.

Question 68

Physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion due to work-related stress is called

A) burnout.
B) reaction formation disorder.
C) the general adaptation syndrome.
D) posttraumatic stress disorder.

Question 69

Posttraumatic stress disorder involves

A) immediate reaction to stressful war experiences.
B) stress reactions in anticipation of a traumatic event.
C) psychological disturbance due to the experience of a major traumatic event.
D) psychotic reactions to chronic stress, which emerge after one leaves the stressful environment.

Question 70

Mounting evidence from research indicates that stress may ____ the functioning of the immune system.

A) stimulate
B) destroy
C) suppress
D) enhance

Question 71

By definition, coping efforts are

A) not necessarily adaptive or maladaptive.
B) necessarily healthy.
C) permanent.
D) effective.

Question 72

Signs of burnout in the workplace include

A) decreased production.
B) increased health problems.
C) increased absenteeism.
D) all of these.

Question 73

Recent research on the effect of pressure on task performance in "normal" subjects suggests that

A) choking under pressure is fairly common.
B) choking under pressure is just an excuse.
C) choking under pressure is a phenomenon unique to amateur performers.
D) normal people are less likely to choke under pressure than are professional athletes.

Question 74

Pressure to perform may disrupt attention to task performance by

A) making one feel self-conscious.
B) making one focus on the task.
C) encouraging one to focus on the source of the pressure.
D) overemphasizing the importance of the task.

Question 75

Which of the following is least likely to have a negative impact on the immune system?

A) caring for an elderly parent
B) receiving long-term disability following an automobile accident
C) remaining in a hostile work environment while waiting for a better job opportunity to come along
D) spending the weekend with hostile family members

Question 76

You realize that no matter how much you hate psychology you will not be able to drop out of class this semester if you want to graduate. You hunker down for a miserable semester of hard and studious labor. You are in the ____ stage of the general adaptation syndrome.

A) alarm
B) exhaustion
C) resistance
D) extinction

Question 77

____ are hormones that help mobilize the body for action.

A) Amphetamines
B) Immunosteroids
C) Catecholamines
D) Neurotransmitters

Question 78

Your friend Terry, who has been practicing free throw shots in the backyard, just won the chance to shoot a half court basket for a $10,000 prize at a professional basketball game. Research indicates that Terry is

A) more likely to make the shot in front of a large crowd than in the backyard, because the added pressure increases the ability to filter out distractions.
B) less likely to choke under the pressure than a professional athlete, because professionals have their job on the line.
C) very likely to choke under pressure.
D) likely to catch a cold just before the game because of a reduced immune system from the acute stress.

Question 79

Which of the following is not a characteristic of burnout?

A) lowered self-efficacy
B) immediate traumatic stresses
C) cynicism
D) emotional exhaustion

Question 80

According to Leiter and Maslach, what causes burnout?

A) traumatic experiences in the workplace
B) ongoing job stressors
C) personal weakness
D) being recognized for one's work