Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Sympathomedullary System (SAM)
- ACUTE STRESS
- General Outline: When faced with acute stress it activates the sympathomedullary
pathway
- our hypothalamus is activated
- It sends a signal to the autonomic nervous
system
- This causes the adrenal meduallar to release adrenaline and
noradrenaline
- When this is released, we experience physiological changes to our bodies such as
sweating or an increase on our blood rate. This is so that blood is pumped to areas in our
bodies to prepare us for a fight or flight response to the stressor
- Limitations
- Individual Differences
- Taylor et al
- Look at gender - individual difference
- found that men usually react with 'fight or flight' response
- women respond by protecting and nutruing young & seeking support from other
females
- Therefore, gender is a factor that may cause people to react differently to stress
- Glaser et al
- found that women show more adverse hormonal and immunological
changes in the way they react to marital conflict
- therefore shows that gender affects how people respond to stress & this example shows that men and
women may respond in different ways
- Strengths
- it is an objective measure
- the levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline can be measured in the
bloodstream easily
- suggests quantitative methods can be used reliably
- research supports it
- Brady's monkey research
- found that stress affected the production of digestive hormones
causing stomach ulcers that resulted to death
- supports the idea that stress is being governed by the release of hormones