Studies of Stress on the Body

Stress is a physiological reaction that happens in the body. Stress occurs when the body finds certain situations stressful and feels as if there is no way of coping with them. Various stressors cause the body to react in the same way. Stress exhausts the body and leads to various illnesses. Selye investigated the effect of stress on the body. He created the General Adaptive Syndrome model of stress or GAS model. Selye was curious as to how stress affected the boy. He put rats under various stressors and found that the rats all reacted in the same way. The GAS model has three stages. The first stage is the Alarm stage: during this stage the body first displays signs of stress such as raised pulse, and the release of cortisol into the blood stream. This is also when the fight or flight response is activated. After around a day or two, if the body is still under stress the second stage starts. During the resistance stage the body seemingly returns to normal, however, the cortisol levels in the blood stream increase to a dangerously high level and causes the immune system to weaken. The body then continues into the third stage, called the exhaustion stage. By this point the body can no longer function properly. The body becomes weak and exhausted, suffering from hair loss and stomach ulcers. Although Selye’s research is a valid hypothesis for the physical symptoms of stress, he does not take into account the cognitive thinking process humans have.
Cox et al, however, did take into account the cognitive thinking process. He called this the transactional model of stress. This states the stress occurs as a result of a transaction, or interaction of two things: perceived demands from the environment, and the individuals perceived abilit...

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...t greater electrical conductivity in the skin. After the task participants were asked to solve 4 puzzles, 2 of which were unsolvable in order to create frustration. Participants who had taken part in the random noise conditions displayed the highest levels of stress. Those who had taken part in the predictable noise conditions had the second highest levels of stress and those with no noise condition had the lowest level of stress. Glass et al suggested that random noise is particularly difficult because we ‘tune out’ constant stimuli, but unpredictable stimuli require continued attention, and that this reduces our ability to cope with stress.
The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of a mild stressor on a specific biological response. Using previous studies, the candidates who are being stressed should leave with elevated pulses, and should be sweating.