Health Psychology, 2nd Edition

66 STRESS AND HEALTH

SAMPLE ESSAY TITLES

• ‘Having a stressful life increases the likelihood of contracting disease’. Evaluate this
  statement with reference to examples from the psychological literature.


• Compare and contrast the transactional approach and the conservation of resources
  approach to stress.


• Why do some people get ill in response to stress and others do not? Discuss.


• Critically evaluate two approaches to measuring the effects of stress on health.

FURTHER READING

Books

Folkman, S. (ed.) (2011). Oxford Handbook of Stress, Health and Coping. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

Journal articles

Chida, Y. and Steptoe, A. (2010). Greater cardiovascular responses to laboratory mental stress
are associated with poor subsequent cardiovascular risk status: A meta-analysis of prospective
evidence. Hypertension, 55, 1026–1032.

Hobfoll, S. (2001). The influence of culture, community and the nested-self in the stress process:
Advancing conservation of resources theory. Applied Psychology: An International Review,
50, 337–421. (See also the subsequent articles in this journal by Lazarus, Schwarzer and
others.)

Kamarck, T.W. and Lovallo, W.R. (2003). Cardiovascular reactivity to psychological challenge:
Conceptual and measurement considerations. Psychosomatic Medicine, 65, 9–21.

Lazarus, R.S. (1990). Theory-based stress measurement. Psychological Inquiry, 1, 3–13.

McEwen, B.S. (1998). Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. New England Journal
of Medicine, 338, 171–179.

• Allostatic load


• Conservation of
  resources (COR)
  model


• Diseases of
  adaptation


• General adaptation
  syndrome (GAS)
  
  
  • Hassles and uplifts
    scale
  
  
  • Hierarchical linear
    modelling
  
  
  • Life events
  
  
  • Perseverative
    cognition
    
    
    • Social Readjustment
      Rating Scale
    
    
    • Stress
    
    
    • Stress diathesis
    
    
    • Stress reactivity
    
    
    • Stress recovery
    
    
    • Transactional theory
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

KEY CONCEPTS AND TERMS