Please read the following essay carefully. What is the main idea of the following selection? Stress may occasionally promote positive outcomes. Motivated to overcome stress and the situations that produce it, we may learn new and adaptive responses. It is also clear, however, that stress involves a very unpleasant emotional component. Anxiety is a general feeling of tension or apprehension that often accompanies a perceived threat to one’s well-being. It is this unpleasant emotional component that often prompts us to learn new responses to rid ourselves of stress. There are a number of techniques, essentially self-deception, that we may employ to keep from feeling the unpleasantness associated with stress. These techniques, or tricks we play on ourselves, are not adaptive in the sense of helping us to get rid of anxiety by getting rid of the source of stress. Rather, they are mechanisms that we can and do use to defend ourselves against the feeling of stress. They are called defense mechanisms. Freud believed defense mechanisms to be the work of the unconscious mind. He claimed that they are ploys that our unconscious mind uses to protect us (our self or ego) from stress and anxiety. Many psychologists take issue with Freud’s interpretation of defense mechanisms and consider defense mechanisms in more general terms than did Freud, but few will deny that it defense mechanisms exist. It is true that they are generally ineffective if consciously or purposely employed. The list of defense mechanisms is a long one. Here, we’ll review some of the more common defense mechanism, providing an example of each, to give you an idea of how they might serve as d reaction to stress. The notion of repression is the most basic of all the defense mechanisms. It is sometimes referred to as motivated forgetting, which gives us a good idea of what is involved. Repression is a matter of conveniently forgetting about some stressful, anxiety-producing event, conflict, or frustration. Paul had a teacher in high school he did not get along with at all. After spending an entire semester trying his best to do whatever was asked, Paul failed the course. The following summer, while walking with his girlfriend, Paul encountered his teacher. When he tried to introduce his girlfriend, Paul could not remember his teacher’s name. He had repressed it. As a long-term reaction to stress, repressing the names of people we don’t like or that we associate with unpleasant, stressful experiences is certainly not a very adaptive reaction. But at least it can protect us from dwelling on such unpleasantness. In additions denial is d very basic mechanism of defense against stress. In denial, a person simply refuses to acknowledge the realities of a stressful situation. When a physician first tells a patient that he or she has a terminal illness, a common reaction is denial; the patient refuses to believe that there is anything seriously wrong. Other less stressful events than serious illness sometimes evoke denial. Many smokers are intelligent individuals who are well aware of the data and the statistic, that can readily convince them that they are slowly (or rapidly) killing themselves by continuing to smoke. But they deny the evidence. Somehow they are able to convince themselves that they aren’t going to die from smoking; that’s something that happens to other people, and besides, they could stop whenever they wanted. Rationalization also amounts to making excuses for our behaviors when facing the real reasons for our behaviors would be stressful. The real reason Kevin Failed his psychology midterm is that he didn’t study for it and has missed a number of classes. Kevin hates to admit, even to himself, that he could have been so stupid as to flunk that exam because of his own actions. As a result, he rationalizes: “It wasn’t really my fault. I had a lousy instructor. We used a rotten text. The tests were grossly unfair. I’ve been fighting the darn flu all semester. And Marjorie had that big party the night before the exam.” Now Susan, on the other hand,” really did want to Marjorie’s party, but she decided that she wouldn’t go unless somebody asked here. As it happens, no one did. In short, Susan rationalized that she “didn’t want to go to that dumb party anyway”; she needed to “stay home and study.” Furthermore, we might best think of compensation in the context of personal frustration. This defense mechanism is a matter of overemphasizing some positive trait or ability to counterbalance a shortcoming in some other trait or ability. If some particular goal-directed behavior becomes blocked, a person may compensate by putting extra effort and attention into some other aspect of behavior. For example, Karen, a seventh grader, wants to be popular. She’s a reasonably bright and pleasant teenager, but isn’t—in the judgment of her classmates—very pretty. Karen may compensate for her lack of good looks by studying very hard to be a good student, or by memorizing jokes and funny stories, or by becoming a good musician. Compensation is not just an attempt to be a well-rounded individual. It’s a matter of expending extra energy and resources in one direction to offset shortcomings in other directions. Finally fantasy is one of the more common defense mechanisms used by college students. It is often quite useful. Particularly after a hard day when stress levels are high, isn’t it pleasant to sit in a comfortable chair, kick off your shoes, lie back, close your eyes, and daydream, perhaps about graduation day, picturing yourself walking across the state to pick up your diploma—with honors? When things are not going will for us, we may retreat into a world of fantasy where everything always goes well. Remember that to engage from time to time in fantasizing is a normal and acceptable response to stress. You should not get worried if you fantasize occasionally. On the other hand, you should realize that there are some potential dangers here. You need to be able to keep separate those activities that are real and those that occur in your fantasies. And you should realize that fantasy in itself will not solve whatever problem is causing you stress.. Fantasizing about academic successes may help you feel better for a while, but it is not likely to make you a better student.
Read Details
