ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the health psychologist's role in addressing stress and coping. It briefly reviews the seminal works of Walter Cannon and Hans Selye that established a physiological basis for stress. The chapter discusses the body's physiological response to stressful stimuli, examining the components of the nervous system and the hormones responsible for activating the system when detecting a stressful stimulus to explain Cannon's and Selye's models of stress. It provides an overview of R. S. Lazarus and S. Folkman's transactional model. The transactional model provides another theoretical explanation of stress, but one that focuses on the psychological and the physiological process. The chapter describes the role of biological determinants, specifically illnesses, social environmental determinants, and psychosocial factors. In addition to exacerbating pre-existing health concerns, some research suggests that stressful life experiences can precipitate or contribute to new physiological illnesses. Stress can have both direct and indirect effects on health.
