Seminar: New models in stress psychology and their personality and clinical references

intermediate

PS_K02

PS_K03

Classes will consist of a discussion based on the lecturer's presentations and English-language articles showing current research in the field of stress psychology, personality and emotion regulation.

Prerequisites: interest in the topic and English reading skills.

1. Review of stress psychology problems. The gap between stress psychology and clinical practice.

2. Defense mechanisms as forms of coping with stress. The role of defense mechanisms in stress transaction based on selected clinical cases.

3. The Coping Circumplex Model.

4. Helgeson's theory: agency, unmitigated agency, communion and unmitigated communion in relation to coping with stress and health.

5. Review of better and less known personality models. Comparison and critical discussion of selected personality models with particular emphasis on explaining variables related to stress and mental health.

6. Kuhl’s theory: action vs. state orientation.

7. Broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions by Fredrickson.

8. Differences and similarities in the concept of coping and emotion regulation.

9. The effectiveness of coping strategies depending on situational variables.

10. Emotion regulation in a stressful situation. What determines the effectiveness of particular strategies of emotion regulation? Various forms of positive reappraisal, humor, rumination, emotion expression as well as techniques of expressive writing will be analyzed.

11. Relationships between coping and emotion regulation with internalizing and externalizing disorders.

12. Associations between coping and emotion regulation with physical health indicators.

13. Psychological variables explaining differences in health (including physical health) between countries.

14. Summary.

15. Final test.

Appleton, A. A., Buka, S. L., Loucks, E. B., Gilman, S. E., & Kubzansky, L. D. (2013). Divergent associations of adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies with inflammation. Health Psychology, 32, 748–756.

Ben-Zur, H., & Zeidner, M. (1995). Coping patterns and affective reactions under community crisis and daily routine conditions. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 8, 185–201.

Compas, B. E., Jaser, S. S., Bettis, A. H., Watson, K. H., Gruhn, M. A., Dunbar, J. P., . . . Thigpen, J. C. (2017). Coping, emotion regulation, and psychopathology in childhood and adolescence: A meta-analysis and narrative review. Psychological Bulletin, 143, 939–991.

Coyne, J. C., & Racioppo, M. W. (2000). Never the twain shall meet? Closing the gap between coping research and clinical intervention. American Psychologist, 55, 655–664.

De Raad, B., Barelds, D.P.H., Levert, E., Ostendorf, F., Mlacic, B., & Di Blas, L. et al. (2010). Only three factors of personality are fully replicable across languages: A comparison of 14 trait taxonomies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 160–173.

Ebstrup, J. F., Eplov, L. F., Pisinger, C., & Jorgensen, T. (2011). Associations between the Five Factor personality traits and perceived stress: Is the effect mediated by general self-efficacy? Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 24, 407– 419.

Folkman, S. (2008). The case for positive emotions in the stress process. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 21, 3–14.

Fredrickson, B. L., & Branigan, C. (2005). Positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought–action repertoires. Cognition and Emotion, 19, 313–332.

Gabbard, G. O. (2009). Psychiatria psychodynamiczna w praktyce klinicznej. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.

Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 348–362.

Hampton, A. J. D., Hadjistavropoulos, T., Gagnon, M. M., Williams, J., & Clark, D. (2015). The effects of emotional regulation strategies on the pain experience: A structured laboratory investigation. Pain, 156, 868-879.

Helgeson, V. S., & Fritz, H. L. (1999). Unmitigated agency and unmitigated communion: Distinctions from agency and communion. Journal of Research in Personality, 33, 131–158.

Jokela, M., Pulkki-Raback, L., Elovainio, M., & Kivimaki, M. (2014). Personality traits as risk factors for stroke and coronary heart disease mortality: Pooled analysis of three cohort studies. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 37, 881– 889.

Kotov, R., Gamez, W., Schmidt, F., & Watson, D. (2010). Linking “big” personality traits to anxiety, depressive, and substance use disorders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 768-821.

Kuhl, J. (2000). A functional-design approach to motivation and self-regulation: The dynamics of personality systems interactions. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 111–169). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Lazarus, R. S. (1993). From psychological stress to the emotions: A history of a changing outlook. Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 1–21.

Low, C. A., Stanton, A. L., & Bower, J. E. (2008). Effects of acceptance-oriented versus evaluative emotional processing on heart rate recovery and habituation. Emotion, 8, 419–424.

Mackenbach, J. P. (2014). Cultural values and population health: a quantitative analysis of variations in cultural values, health behaviours and health outcomes among 42 European countries. Health & Place, 28, 116–132.

Skinner, E. A., Edge, K., Altman, J., & Sherwood, H. (2003). Searching for the structure of coping: A review and critique of category systems for classifying ways of coping. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 216–269.

Stanisławski, K. (2019). The Coping Circumplex Model: An integrative model of the structure of coping with stress. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1-23.

Strus, W., Cieciuch, J., Rowiński, T. (2014). The Circumplex of Personality Metatraits: A synthesizing model of personality based on the Big Five. Review of General Psychology, 18, 273-286.

Terracciano, A., Scuteri, A., Strait, J., Sutin, A. R., Meirelles, O., Marongiu, M., … & Schlessinger, D. (2014). Are personality traits associated with white-coat and masked hypertension? Journal of Hypertension, 32, 1987–1992.

Knowledge:

- the student knows the basic concepts and theories of stress psychology, emotion regulation and health psychology,

- understands the patterns underlying the relationships between particular emotion regulation strategies and recovering after a stressful event,

- knows how coping styles, emotion regulation strategies, and the configuration of personality traits are related to health.

Skills:

- when confronted with a research problem, the student can search databases for scientific articles and make a selection,

- is able to interpret the findings of research on stress, personality, emotion regulation and health.

Competences:

- the student is open to new knowledge and different points of view,

- notices problems and contradictions in the literature, can express them in the language of science,

- knows how to discuss scientific topics while maintaining distance and criticism toward one’s own position,

- is prepared to organize own research aimed at solving specific problems identified in the literature.

ECTS:

Participation in classes: 30 hours

Preparation for classes: 30 hours

Number of ECTS: 60 godzin/30 (25) =2

Conditions for passing the seminar:

1. Activity during classes: in the seminars, students will receive short articles in English or their fragments for individual presentation and joint discussion.

2. Passing the test.

Knowledge:

- Very good (5): the student explains all or almost all of the discussed relationships between coping styles, emotion regulation strategies and configuration of personality traits with health and recovery from a stressful event.

- Good (4): the student explains the most of the discussed relationships between coping styles, emotion regulation strategies and configuration of personality traits with health and recovery from a stressful event.

- Sufficient (3): the student explains the most important of the discussed relationships between coping styles, emotion regulation strategies and configuration of personality traits with health and recovery from a stressful event.

- Insufficient (2): the student cannot explain the relationships between coping styles, emotion regulation strategies and configuration of personality traits with health and recovery from a stressful event.

Skills:

- Very good (5): the student creatively interprets the results of research on stress and emotion regulation.

- Good (4): the student knows how to correctly interpret the results of studies on stress and emotion regulation.

- Sufficient (3): the student recognizes the basic relationships in the interpreted results of studies on stress and emotion regulation.

- Insufficient (2): the student is unable to interpret the results of research on stress and emotion regulation.

Competences:

- Very good (5): The student is open to new content and different positions. They easily notice numerous problems and contradictions in the literature, are able to express them in the language of science. The student can discuss scientific topics while maintaining criticism towards one’s own position. By choosing the optimal research plan, they can plan a simple study to solve a specific problem identified in the literature.

- Good (4): The student is open to new content and different positions. They notice many problems and contradictions in the literature, are able to express them in the language of science. The student can discuss scientific topics while maintaining criticism towards one’s own position. They can plan a simple study to solve a specific problem identified in the literature.

- Sufficient (3): The student is open to new content and different positions. They notice the most important problems and contradictions in the literature, are able to express them in the language of science. The student can discuss scientific topics and recognizes the most important limitations of one’s own position. They can plan a simple study to solve a specific problem identified in the literature.

- Insufficient (2): The student is not open to new content and different positions. They do not notice problems and contradictions in the literature, are not able to use the language of science. The student cannot discuss scientific topics and does not maintain criticism towards one’s own position. They cannot plan a simple study to solve a specific problem identified in the literature.