Use this CAIE Psychology objective to explain approaches to preventing and managing stress, supported by examined Paper 3 questions and mark schemes.
Describe what psychologists have discovered about:
- biofeedback to manage stress, and
- stress inoculation training to prevent stress.
Use Table A: AO1 Knowledge and understanding to mark candidate responses to this question.
Candidates must discuss both biofeedback and stress inoculation training, but they do not need to use the Budzynski et al. example from the syllabus.
Answers may include:
Syllabus content
- psychological therapy: biofeedback, e.g. Budzynski et al. (1969)
- preventing stress: three phases of stress inoculation training
Biofeedback -
A medical device monitors physical processes (such as heart rate, blood pressure, etc.) and immediate feedback is given to the patient. The patient can then learn to do relaxation to reduce the physical processes and therefore hope to reduce the experience of stress. Budzynski found this technique was effective in helping to reduce tension headaches.
Budzynski carried out an experiment on 15 patients who experienced tension headaches. Randomly allocated to one of three conditions. After connected to the device all told to relax their forehead muscle as deeply as possible. Experimental group told the tone would vary with the level of tension in the muscle. Told to keep the tone as low as possible. The constant low tone, irrelevant feedback group was told to relax deeply, especially the forehead muscle, and were also told that the monotonous tone would help them to relax. The silent group was told to relax as deeply as possible, especially the forehead muscle. Mean level of muscle tension measured over five sessions. Participants in the experimental group (feedback group) had significant reduction in muscle tension compared to the other two groups.
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Award up to 4 marks where the response has described only part of the question even
if the response otherwise meets the criteria for level 3.
12(a)
Preventing stress
Stress inoculation therapy - a form of CBT. Three phases
1 Conceptualisation - discussing the nature of the problem with the therapist. Taught about stressors and how they affect the body.
2 Skills acquisition and rehearsal - taught relaxation and problem-solving techniques and practice in the session.
3 Application and follow through - the client practices between sessions and they discuss with the therapist how it is going and make alterations as necessary.
Other appropriate responses should also be credited.
Evaluate what psychologists have discovered about:
- biofeedback to manage stress, and
- stress inoculation training to prevent stress, including a discussion about determinism versus free-will.
Evaluation in your answer can include strengths, weaknesses and a discussion of issues and debates.
Use Table B: AO3 Analysis and evaluation to mark candidate responses to this question. A range of issues could be used for evaluation.
These include:
- Named issue - determinism versus free-will - Both involve some free will. The patient chooses to do the therapy. The patient will practice relaxation/stress inoculation problem solving techniques during the therapy session and can then apply these techniques in their everyday life. The experience of stress/stress related illness is outside of the control of the patient, but they can use their free will to both manage this stress.
- Application of psychology to everyday life - Very useful treatments for both managing and preventing stress. Both have been shown to be effective through research. The studies are all done in the everyday life of the patients, so they are looking at genuine reduction in experiences of stress.
- Individual and situational explanations - Biofeedback is situational as the patient hears the biofeedback (the situation) and then applies the relaxation techniques. SIT is both situational and individual. The therapist helps the patient with each stage of the process and also identifies stressors in their life (situational). The patient discusses problem solving techniques which will be unique to each person based on their stress (individual).
- Generalisability from findings - 15 participants in Budzynski study all suffering from tension headaches (lacks generalisability to other types of stress conditions and very small sample size).
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12(b)
- Ethics - Good ethics in Budzynski study as all ethical guidelines can be met and patients experience a reduction in tension headaches. However, the two non-experimental groups did not experience as much reduction in their headaches. SIT can be a stressful therapy as the patient has to talk about their life stressors and practice techniques to solve these stressors. This can be upsetting for the patient and some of the techniques may not work. However, the long-term goal of SIT is to reduce their stress, so it is ethical.
Other issues could include:
- evaluation of quantitative data
- evaluation of self-reports used
- evaluation of experiments
- reliability
- reductionism versus holism
Other appropriate responses should also be credited.