Stress in the Workplace and how personality modifies the effects of stressors

We covered Workplace Stress last week - make sure you can explain how research has shown a variety of aspects of the workplace to be stressful, including social isolation, lack of control, work overload and environmental factors e.g. noise and temperature.

There are two key studies - Marmot et al's 'Whitehall' study (actually two studies) of high- and low-grade civil servantes, and Johannson's Swedish saw-mill study.

Here is the presentation.

Yesterday we introduced how personality modifies the effects of stressors. The key ideas here are Type A / Type B - Friedman and Rosenman's classic study into Coronary Heart Disease, and Kobasa's concept of the 'Hardy' personality. You don't need to revise this for the mock on Thursday.

Here is the presentation.

Yesterday's work

Many apologies for failing to put work here as promised while I was moving house yesterday.

In tomorrow's lesson we will be looking in some more detail at stress in the workplace, and at how personality modifies the effects of stressors. This means how people with different personality 'types' respond with a bigger or smaller stress response to the same thing.

Read and make notes on Type A, Type B and the 'Hardy' personality.

Revise your notes on stress in the workplace and Life Changes / Daily Hassles for a quick test on Thursday.

Theories of attachment

Why do babies become attached to their parents? How does this process happen? Is it only the mother who is important for attachment?

We have now looked at two very important theories of attachment that seek to answer these questions. These are the learning theory and Bowlby's evolutionary theory. You need to make sure you can define the following concepts/terms:

Learning theory:

Classical conditioning

Operant conditioning

How each form of conditioning can lead to attachment

Two research studies that challenge the learning theory

Bowlby's theory:

Adaptive

Social releasers

Elicit

Monotropy

Primary caregiver

Internal working model

Imprinting

Critical period

Temperant hypothesis

Continuity hypothesis

The powerpoint on the learning theory is here and the one on Bowlby's theory is here. The list of questions on Bowlby's evolutionary theory is here.

Psychology book club

Psychology book club meets next on Monday 21st Jan (postponed from Mon 14th). We have been reading 'Bad Science' by Ben Goldacre - I have a few copies left so see me if you want to join in this week.

Our next book will be 'Opening Skinner's Box' by Lauren Slater, an investigation of the twentieth century through a series of ten fascinating, witty and sometimes shocking accounts of its key psychological experiments. These include classics from the AS and A2 course, Milgram, Zimbardo, Harlow & Rosenhan, and many more. Well worth a read for any A'level psychologist.

1.30pm, Monday 21st Jan, R23, tea & cake provided.

Mrs Watson

Sources of Stress: Life Changes

Today we spent some time reviewing our work on stress as a bodily response and stress and the immune system from last term. The sympathomedullary pathway and the pituitary-adrenal system are tough things to learn if you are not a natural at biology, but you need to be able to describe each one in detail. Make sure this features regularly in your revision over the coming months - you will eventually fix it in your LTM if you keep coming back to it!

Our new topic in stress is Life Changes - positive and negative events which require us to 'socially readjust' and which can lead to stress and illness.

You need to be able to:
Define and recognise Life Changes.
Describe how the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) was created by Holmes and Rahe.
Describe and evaluate Rahe et al's (1970) study of Life Changes and stress in US Navy Personnel.

Completing this is homework for Thursday.

Here is the presentation from the lesson.

Attachment

Attachment is a reciprocal emotional bond between two people that endures over time. We looked at behaviours that characterise attachment in all ages, but you need to know the characteristic behaviours shown in infancy. We looked at three videos showing separation anxiety, stranger anxiety and reunion behaviour - make sure you are familiar with all these terms. These are signs of a healthy attachment relationship.
Schaffer & Emerson (1964) thought that babies formed their main attachment at around 7 months of age. Schaffer & Emerson also proposed a stage-based theory of attachment formation. You need to make notes on the different stages for homework:

• Asocial stage
• Indiscriminate attachments
• Specific attachments
• Multiple attachments

I handed out schedules for the attachment topic today. These are vital in keeping on top of the work and show homework tasks for every week as well as the main essay questions that we will be working through. An electronic version is here.

Today's ppt is here with lots of info on the Schaffer & Emerson study that I didn't get time for in class.