Managing & Coping with Stress (AQA A Level Psychology): Exam Questions

In a study into the effectiveness of a new drug therapy for stress, researchers gave one group of patients the new drug and another group of patients a placebo (a pretend drug).

The researchers were concerned that the outcome of the study might be influenced by the problems of demand characteristics and investigator effects.

Explain what the researchers could do to eliminate or reduce demand characteristics and investigator effects in this study.

Researchers studied therapies for stress. They assessed the mood of two groups of participants before the participants received therapy. The same participants were assessed again after four weeks of receiving therapy.

Group 1 (Drug therapy group) received drug therapy alone.

Group 2 (Combined therapy group) received a combination of drug therapy and stress inoculation therapy.

The researchers assessed mood using a standardised test of mood. A low score indicated negative mood and a high score indicated positive mood. Scores ranged from 0 to 100. The lowest score was 24 and the highest score was 83.

Table 3 shows the results of the study after four weeks of therapy.

Table 3 Mean mood scores for Group 1 (Drug therapy group) and Group 2 (Combined therapy group) after four weeks of therapy

Explain why the data in Table 3 does not enable the researchers to draw proper conclusions about the effectiveness of therapy for the two groups. What should the researchers do about this?

In this study, the mood scores were assumed to be an interval level of measurement because the test of mood was standardised.

Explain how you could convert the mood scores from this study into:

i) ordinal data

and

ii) nominal data.

Nadine has a busy job and is very stressed most of the time. When she thinks about work at night she feels her heart pounding very fast. She often feels anxious and is experiencing frequent headaches.

Explain how a biofeedback therapist might help Nadine manage her stress.

A psychologist is interested in gender differences in the use of two different types of social support in coping with stress. Using a questionnaire to test responses to a range of stressful situations, he obtains data from 100 males and 100 females. These results are shown in the Table below:

Using your knowledge of gender differences in types of social support, explain the findings in Table 3.

Evaluate drug therapy as a way of managing stress.

Beth and Oscar both experience stress. Beth worries a lot about her family whereas Oscar thinks about how to solve problems at work. Each of them has developed strategies for managing and coping with their stress. Oscar asks his friends for practical help, whereas Beth relies on her friends to cheer her up with positive comments.

Discuss gender differences and the role of social support in coping with stress. Refer to Oscar and Beth in your answer.

Wally worries about work. He lies awake at night worrying that he is not good enough for the job and does not want to go to work in the morning. He thinks that his workmates laugh at him and gets embarrassed when they try to talk to him. He avoids his supervisor because he thinks that his supervisor will tell him off for not working hard enough.

Describe stress inoculation therapy as a way of managing stress and explain how Wally’s stress could be managed using stress inoculation.

Briefly discuss one strength and one limitation of stress inoculation therapy as a way of managing stress.

Drug therapy, stress inoculation therapy and biofeedback are methods used to cope with stress.

Discuss two of these methods of coping with stress.