March 18
Personality and Stress Management
Topics: What is stress? The hidden value of stress. Eustress and distress. Stages in the management of stress. Three things to know about managing stress. Six stress-management mistakes to avoid.
What is stress?
A stressor is an external event, situation, or stimulus that produces the internal response of stress. Stress is primarily a physiological response but it often associated with the psychological correlate of anxiety.
According to Selye's classic model, there are three stages of response to chronic stressors:
1. The alarm stage, in which there is a temporary reduction in the body's capacity to cope with the stressor.
2. The resistance stage, in which the body marshals defenses against the stressor and becomes, for a time, more able to cope with it than would otherwise be the case.
3. The exhaustion stage, in which the body's resources have been depleted, and the capacity to cope drops precipitously and (unless the stressor is removed) irreversibly.
Acute stress reactions are normal, but when they become chronic responses (the generalized adaptation syndrome or GAS), a psychosomatic illness often results.
Not all stressors are negative. We can distinguish between eustress (responses to a positive life change) and distress (responses to a negative life change). Both have physiological stress impacts, but because the cognitive component is different, distress is obviously more debilitating. This suggests that cognitive reframing (e.g., focusing on the opportunity versus the threat side of change) can be a helpful coping technique.
Uncontrollable stressors are, of course, more stress inducing than controllable stressors (although there are some complicating factors too technical to mention here). Hence, the illusion of control, even if not objectively warranted, may be adaptive: sometimes, a little bit of denial is a good thing! (Beyond a certain point, of course, denial is usually maladaptive. But being slightly more optimistic than the facts warrant is probably conducive to mental health.)
Coping with stress
Want to learn how to manage stress better in your own life? Here are three pieces of self-knowledge that will help you:
1. What are your stress triggers -- the kinds of people, events, tasks, situations that tend to push your "hot buttons"?
2. What are your usual stress responses? Often there is a difference between early-stage responses (in which your usual style tends to be exaggerated) and later-stage or "meltdown" responses (in which there is often a paradoxical, extreme reversal of your usual style).
3. What are effective stress recovery behaviors for you?
The Big Five model of personality suggests that the answers to these questions may depend on your temperament. To take one example, if you are an introvert (E-),
1. Situational demands to "act like an extravert" likely stress you: public speaking, networking, cold calling, superficial socializing, insufficient private time.
2. Early-stage stress behaviors probably involve your acting more introverted than usual (drawing within yourself to marshal resources, recharge, think things through). Later-stage stress behaviors probably involve a sudden shift to extraversion (e.g., the normally quiet person who suddenly "explodes", the normally deliberate person who suddenly moves to catastrophically impulsive action).
3. You'll want to regain balance through introverted activities (reading, gardening, watching reruns of My Mother, The Car).
See if you can apply this same model to a different Big Five dimension. If you're O+, what would you expect about stress triggers, stress responses, and stress recovery? Click here to see if you're right!
The so-called Type A personality (no connection to factor A on the Big Five!) involves four basic behavioral characteristics:
1. Impatience and time urgency -- constantly having a sense of deadline pressure, which probably produces a prolonged emergency reaction or GAS
2. Competitiveness and ambition, which when blocked leads to high levels of frustration
3. Aggressiveness and anger, which even when suppressed suggests high levels of underlying hostility
4. Perfectionism and high needs for control, which when not possible can lead to a sense of profound helplessness
In one famous study of the workplace, people who had low decision latitude (couldn't make autonomous choices on the job) and high job demands (requirements for high quality and quantity of output, excessive work hours, or the like) were 20 times more likely to suffer a premature heart attack than those with opposite work characteristics:
Job Demands
Low Med High
Decision High 1% 2% 3%
Latitude Med 4% 4% 5%
Low 7% 13% 20%
Where does your job fall on these two dimensions, by the way?
Stress management styles
Workplace consultants Mary Dempcy and Rene Tihista suggest six mental styles that add unnecessary stress to life. Here is a quick overview of them.
The basic idea behind this model is that of six "dysfunctional styles" of thinking and responding to life situations. Each involves some unrealistic or irrational thinking -- usually, exaggerations of what might be reasonable at a less extreme level. (Many counselors call this "awfulizing" -- all-or-none thinking that falsely presumes that anything less than a "perfect" outcome is unendurable.) Can you spot which of the "thought trends" below best characterize your own style? What "antidotes" can you think of that might help to counteract each style?
Striver: I might not always be a complete success at everything I try. That would be terrible. Therefore, I have to aim for absolute perfection and work myself to death.
Worrier: There might be some circumstances in life that are beyond my control. That would be terrible. Therefore, I have to brood and agonize over everything, in order to delude myself into thinking that this reduces my risks.
Pleaser: Some people might not like me or might not be pleased with who I am and what I do. That would be terrible. Therefore, I have to try to meet everyone else's expectations of me, especially when they are unreasonable or self-contradictory.
Sabertooth: Some people might not do exactly what I want them to, or might act in ways that are different from how I might choose to act. That would be terrible. Therefore, I must try even harder to intimidate and control them.
Inner Con Artist: I might not always be able to have everything I want exactly when I want it, or might have to endure some delayed gratification. That would be terrible. Therefore, I should indulge in whatever I most want right now in order to cope with that awful reality.
Critical Judge: I might not always achieve standards of absolute perfection, and might sometimes look foolish in the eyes of others. That would be terrible. Therefore, I should be a very harsh self-critic in order to beat the others to the punch, putting myself down first before they can get to it.