Social Psychology and Health (Stress) - Term Paper Example

It is analyzed that he has low measure of self efficacy and hardiness which should be treated with right clinical therapy , social support , yoga and meditation. Social psychology and Health (Stress) Here a situation is presented, where stress has played a main role in destabilizing the life of a close friend of mine. Andrew was naturally a cheerful person with high energy and spirits and was much friendly with me. Suddenly, one day Andrew’s wife informed me that he started displaying a very negative attitude towards her and his kid by shouting and yelling at them for no reason.

She said that he frequently remaining silent and was not communicating with her in a peaceful manner and was displaying a sign of restlessness and loss of appetite. Due to concern, I called one of our common friends to enquire about the matter and found out that he was given ultimatum from his office and was in fear of losing his job. Moreover, Andrew himself confessed to me that, he experienced less sleep and used to leave for office often earlier than normal. Gradually, I realized that Andrew showed sign of negativism in the way he communicated, and also was smoking more than before.

When I probed more in to Andrew’s problem, I found out that Andrew faced high level of pressure from his senior authorities towards the accomplishment of his sales targets and was encountering terrible stress. Here it can be observed that Andrew is not a Type A personality and considerably lacks competitive mentality and passion for work. Only if a person is highly ambitious, competitive, and has obsession for work he can work challengingly and attain success in life. Moreover, the self awareness of Andrew is not intense and he is unable to measure his performance and values to perform a particular task.

He lacked perceived control and is unable to control his boss, and fell victim to desperation and frustration. Moreover, the self efficacy measure of Andrew can also be partially blamed for the stress he is experiencing. His self –efficacy measure also seems to be average and hence, he has less confidence on his abilities and is unable to visualize or picture success in risky situations. People with low self –efficacy tend to give up easily whereas, those with high self – efficacy try harder and persist more in case of failure and thereby are more likely to succeed in the long run.

In addition to this, self efficacy operates like a self prophesy, the more you believe that you can accomplish a task, more are the chances of your success. Here we can also observe an element of internal attributions in Andrew’s case, as he concluded that he is unable to perform up to the expectation of his boss, due to lacking in his personal abilities and skills. He is also depicting stable attribution as he acts as if his situation is unchangeable or stable. Andrew is considerably stressed for the fear of losing job, and being a family man he possess a high financial and social responsibility.

Here, we can evaluate that he has less ability to cope up with an adverse situations and his learned helplessness is making things even more worse. He being pessimistic, is unable to finds a better way to solve the dilemma he is in. Unlike Andrew, some people have strong sense of coherence and have high resistance to internal and external pressures from social atmosphere, hence