Page 434 - Understanding Psychology

Reactions to Stress
Reader’s Guide
Exploring Psychology
Beating the Odds
As a child, Joel Block couldn’t recon- cile who he knew he was with how he was perceived by his teachers.
“Every week, tests were given,” he says. “The students were seated for the rest of the week according to their grades. I vied with another boy for the most weeks in The Dummy Row at the back. I remem- ber vividly when he spit across the room at the 100 percent papers posted on the wall. The teacher yelled at him. He threw a chair in her direction and walked out. He never came back, so I held the record for the longest stay in The Dummy Row.”
—from Resilency: How to Bounce Back by Tessa Albert Warschaw and Dee Barlow, 1995
s Main Idea
People react differently to life’s stressors. These reactions may be beneficial or harmful.
s Vocabulary
• anxiety
• anger
• fear
• social support
s Objectives
• Give examples of the psychological,
physical, and behavioral reactions to
stress.
• Identify stages of the stress reaction.
Aperson who encounters a stressor that is intense or prolonged will react to it. There is a wide variety of stress reactions, and their effects range from beneficial to harmful. Joel encountered stress throughout his educational career. Faced with sitting in “The Dummy Row” and not performing well on exams, Joel probably re- acted in various ways—acting out, pouting, and feeling bad. Eventually (in college) Joel discovered he had a natural aptitude for psychology. He became a straight-A student and earned a Ph.D. in psychology. His reactions to stress may have changed from negative to positive ones.
Many of the physiological responses to stress are inborn methods that probably evolved to cope with stress effectively. In addition, many responses to stress are automatic. Just as the body reacts to a cut by pro- ducing new tissue, it has methods to heal the wounds of stress—crying, for example.
420 Chapter 15 / Stress and Health