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Stress self assessment test
Assessment of stress management
Assessment of stress management
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Effect of Stress on Decision Making
Stress must be present to ensure our very being. One may wonder about the validity of this statement, but it is quite true. Stress plays a vital role in the way we make decisions (Massa et al, 2002, pg 1). “Problem solving and decision making in demanding real-world situations can be susceptible to acute stress effects which manifest in a variety of ways depending on the type of decision. The negative effects of an overload of acute stress include attentional tunneling, working memory loss, and restrictions in long term memory retrieval, with simple strategies being favoured over more complicated ones. The underlying assumption is that stress can lead to errors, poor performance and bad decisions. However, acute stress does not necessarily always have a detrimental effect on decision making, rather stress may affect the way information is processed.
Some of those changes in strategy in response to stress are in fact adaptive. They reduce and select the information being attended to and processed, in response to high time pressure and reduced cognitive capacity” (Flin, 2004, pg 42). Flin has said so much about stress and decision making in this little space. To have a better understanding, we are going to elaborate in this essay and analyze the evidence that there is an effect of stress upon thinking and decision making ability.
Stress can be defined in many different ways, but in relation to decision making, stress may be best defined from a scientific view describing the thought process of the brain.
When the sensory organs perceive information, they send it to the thalamus of the brain, which deals with sensory perceptions. The information is then transmitted to the cerebral cortex where the process of conscious thinking and decision making takes place.
In starting the process of conscious thinking, the cerebral cortex processes large amounts of information and judges what information can be dealt with automatically without our conscious awareness and what information must be consciously assessed. At this point emotions, feelings, character traits, and behavior are not part of the decision making process. Thus, the limbic system, which is directly responsible for these emotions and feelings, is activated by the cerebral cortex. Following the technicality of the stimulus, the stress response begins. The stres...
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Flin, R. (1997). Sitting in the Hot Seat. Leaders and teams for Critical Incident Management.
Klein, G. (1998).Sources of Power How People Make Decisions. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Massa, P., Watkins, C., Partridge, B (2002). Decision Making Under Stress. Available from: http://web.umr.edu/~bpart/eman313/DMUS.htm [accessed 16/05/05]
Walker, K., Nayda, I.T., Turner, J. (2003b) Make-Up Your Mind -- Improving Your Decision-Making Skills. Available from: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ [accessed 16/05/04]
“Thinking and Decision Making Under Stress”. Avalaible from:
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0123421/thinking.htm [accessed 18/05/04]
Shambach, A. (1996) Strategic Leadership Workshop: "Strategic Decision-making in the Information Age," U.S Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania
Thompson, Leigh, L. (2001). The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Walker, K., Torres, N.I and Turner, J. (2003a): Make-Up Your Mind: Improving Your Decision-Making Skills: Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville. Available from: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/HE691 [accessed 18/05/04]
One way that Thoreau urges his readers to find their true selves is making one's self the most important aspect of one's life. He does this by disregarding public opinion in favor of private opinion. He says, "Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself that it is which determines, or rather indicates his fate (110)." In other words, soci...
...he notion of hegemony to alert the proletariat of their oppression, he did not view hegemony as fundamentally negative. The rise of the proletariat in Brazil requires a new hegemony that may indeed have positive social effects.
Henry Thoreau uses specific rhetorical strategies in Walden to emanate his attitude towards life. With the use of many strategies Thoreau shows that life should be centered around Nature. People live their lives not ever taking a second glance of what Nature does and has done for humanity and Thoreau is trying to prove his point. Humanity owes Nature everything for without it humans would be nothing.
Drugs have largely been viewed with fear and disgust by society, and rightly so. Certain drugs do horrible things to people. They can make one lose their self control, see things that aren’t there, damage the mind, deteriorate the body, and cause a dependency in the user that utterly consumes them. But while this is the case for many drugs, it is in no way universal. This is the case of Marijuana, which has long been subject to the same treatment as other, illegal, drugs and, despite it’s many benefits, is currently illegal in The Greater United States. Marijuana is not only less dangerous than other drugs, legal or otherwise, but provides many medical benefits. And yet, someone in The United States found using or possessing the substance can face harsh jail time. Marijuana should be legalized because it would provide medical benefits, help the economy, and it is no more harmful than other legal substances.
For years the United States of America has been waging a war against drugs. The U.S federal government has spent well over fifteen billion dollars annually on combating illegal drugs. Marijuana in this day and age seems to be one of the most controversial drugs, and is at the forefront of the discussion boards on whether or not one should legalize the drug. Marijuana should be legalized not only because the government could tax it while reducing the national deficit, but also because some patients need it for medicinal purposes, and this will lead to a reduction in the crime rate by removing the taboo from the drug itself.
To conclude, Thoreau believed that people should be ruled by conscience and that people should fight against injustice through non-violence according to “Civil Disobedience.” Besides, he believed that we should simplify our lives and take some time to learn our essence in the nature. Moreover, he deemed that tradition and money were unimportant as he demonstrated in his book, Walden. I suggested that people should learn from Thoreau to live deliberately and spend more time to go to the nature instead of watching television, playing computer games, and among other things, such that we could discover who we were and be endeavored to build foundations on our dreams.
Vine, S. J., Freeman, P., Moore, L. J., Chandra-Ramanan, R., & Wilson, M. R. (2013). Evaluating stress as a challenge is associated with superior attentional control and motor skill performance: Testing the predictions of the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 19(3), 185-194.
Jones, F, Bright, J, Clow, A (2001). Stress: myth, theory and research. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. p. 10.
The word Marijuana also known as cannabis, pot, weed, herb and green stuff has been universally criticized since the beginning of the century. According to (Fitzgerald, K. T., Bronstein, A. C., & Newquist, K. L. 2013) “the term "marijuana” typically refers to tobacco-like preparations of the leaves and flowers” (Fitzgerald et al., (2013). (McGuinness, Teena M, PhD,P.M.H.-N.P., B.C. (2009) stated that “Cannabis cigarettes are also called joints, nails, and reefers; pipes for smoking are also known as bongs and bowls” (McGuinness et al., 2009) The truth is that the legalization of Marijuana has positive effects on both society and the wellbeing of individuals and should be legalized. The government can monitor and tax Marijuana thus helping the economy. Secondly Marijuana can be used as medical therapy; thirdly there would be less youth and adults in jails and prisons. Conversely the use of Marijuana can be proven highly addictive among individuals in our society; Marijuana is more harmful that cigarettes and Marijuana is known as the (Gate Way) drug to harsher drugs. The benefits of legalization Marijuana outweigh the cons.
Inevitably, as humans we encounter numerous events that have a significant amount of discomfort and tension, also known as stress. These occurrences oftentimes have negative effects on us giving us physical and emotional symptoms that can be unbearable. In order to manage our stress, we must learn how to identify the sources. We can do this by using Lazarus and Folkman’s cognitive stress theory which helps identify the stressful event, primary appraisal, secondary appraisal, and stress response. For example, if a friend lost his job that allowed him to pay college tuition, the stressful event is losing their job, primary appraisal is deciding if the event is harmful, secondary appraisal is how they will deal with it, and stress response is
Lazarus, R. S. (1966). Stress as a Psychological Problem. Psychological stress and the coping process (p. 3). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Virgil is a Roman author of several books in Roman history. Virgil’s shade represents the spirit that guides man from committing sin and in our case Dante represents mankind. Virgil and Dante begin a series of travels in which they encounter many things. Dante’s journey through
This paper will focus on stimulus response theories to stress, it will touch upon the controversy surrounding this theory and will look at other explanations to stress in comparison.
Jaffe-Gill, M. E., Segal, M. R., & Melinda, S. (2010, October). Stress Management. Retrieved February 13, 2011, from HelpGuide.ord: http://www.helpguide.org
Langdon, K. (2001). Smart things to know about decision making. Retrieved December 9, 2007, from eResourse.