Psychology › Section N · Stress, lifestyle, and health › Topic N.1
What is stress?
Everyone says they are stressed, but psychologists have argued for decades about what the word actually means. This topic builds a working definition, separates helpful stress from harmful stress, and traces what the body does when a demand arrives.
In this topic
- A word everyone uses and nobody agrees on
- Stress as a process of appraisal
- Primary and secondary appraisal
- Worked example: two reactions to one email
- Good stress and bad stress
- How stress shows up, and who studies it
- Cannon and the fight-or-flight response
- Selye and the general adaptation syndrome
- Worked example: tracing the three stages
- What happens inside: two stress systems
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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