Section 3
Stress and Individuals
Objectives
䊳
Quick Quiz How many of the following statements accurately
describe how you think or behave?
1
I need to be the best at everything I do.
2
If something doesn’t go as planned,
I feel like a failure.
3
I tend to expect the worst in most situations.
4
I want to be liked by everyone.
5
I really enjoy competition.
Explain how individuals
can have different
responses to the same
stressor.
䊳
Describe two ways that
personality affects stress.
䊳
Identify the key factor in
resilience.
Vocabulary
•
•
•
•
optimism
pessimism
perfectionist
resilience
Your teacher walks into class and says, “Okay, everyone, put away your
books. We are going to have a surprise quiz now.” How would you react?
Now look around the classroom and imagine your classmates’ reactions.
Would their reactions be the same as yours? Your teacher’s announcement
might bring on a wide range of reactions—mild stress, extreme stress,
confidence, and indifference are just some reactions you could predict.
Why does one person remain calm when faced with a stressor while
another becomes anxious and tense? The answer to this question points
out an important fact about stress—it is a highly personal experience.
How you react to a stressor depends on how you assess the situation.
As you assess the situation, you are answering two important questions:
Is this situation a threat to my well-being?
Do I have the necessary resources to meet the challenge?
1. Focus
Warm-Up Quick Quiz
2. Teach
L3 EL Reading/Note Taking 3-3
L2 Adapted Reading/Note Taking 3-3
Responses to Stress Vary
Managing Stress 65
L1 Special Needs
Before class begins, write the objectives
on the board. Have students copy the
objectives into their notebooks at the
start of class.
Teaching Transparency W10
Time, energy, skills, and experience are resources. Situations that cause the
most distress are those in which you answer no to the second question.
You might see a surprise quiz as a threat if you need to maintain a
certain grade to be eligible to play on a team. If you did poorly on previous quizzes, you might not be confident of doing well on this one. Your
past experiences have a lot to do with how you respond to new situations.
Provide students with a concrete example
of the key idea of the section: How you
react to a stressor depends on how you
assess the situation. Tell students that
knowing that you are able to deal with a
situation usually makes the situation less
Objectives
Give students a few minutes to do
the quiz. Then point out that the
statements reveal ways of thinking
that are likely to increase stress. For
example, no one can be the best at
everything, so needing to be the best
is likely to cause stress. Discuss how
differences in ways of thinking might
influence how much stress different
people feel. You may want to revisit
this quiz after students read about
avoiding negative thinking.
Responses to Stress Vary
䊳
Stress and
Individuals
Use the
clickers
to survey student responses.
Review your responses. Then explain why you
might be more or less likely to be under stress than others.
䊳
Section 3
stressful. Describe a potentially stressful situation with which most students can identify, such as missing the bus after school.
Discuss how having a plan for dealing with
this situation (e.g., knowing who to talk to
at school or how to contact a parent at
work) would affect their response.
L2 Teacher Demo
Announce a surprise quiz. Give students
a few moments to react before telling
them you are not serious. Then ask students to write what they thought or
how they felt when you announced the
quiz. Have them hand in (anonymously)
what they wrote, and read aloud some
of their responses. With the class, discuss how the responses vary.
Managing Stress
65
Chapter 3, Section 3
Stress and Personality
L2 Visual Learning: Figure 8
Have students read the traits listed for
the two football players in Figure 8.
Ask: Based on their traits, which player
is optimistic and which player is pessimistic? (Player A is optimistic, and
player B is pessimistic.) What might
player A be thinking? (Accept any relevant optimistic responses, such as “I
know we can beat these guys.”) What
might player B be thinking? (Accept any
relevant pessimistic responses, such as
“We’ll never score against this team.”)
Caption Answer Sample answer: Player
A’s positive thoughts and feelings may
help him perform better than player B.
Player A is...
Player B is...
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Confident
Eager
Calm
Focused
Optimistic
Figure 8 Personality can affect
how two people respond to the
same situation. Predicting How
could these players’ thoughts and
feelings affect their ability to
perform?
L3 Class Discussion
Explain that procrastination, or the delaying of tasks, is a common trait, characterizing one in five people most of the time,
and the majority of people some of the
time. Describe an example, such as not
starting to work on a term paper until
the night before it is due. Encourage students to describe other examples. Ask
students to discuss how stressed out they
would feel if they were in each situation.
Explain that aiming for perfection is one
cause of procrastination. Review the
time-management skills of prioritizing
tasks and breaking down large tasks into
smaller ones. Discuss how the skills can
help people deal with procrastination.
Uncertain
Hesitant
Nervous
Distracted
Pessimistic
Stress and Personality
Your personality also has a lot to do with how you respond to stressors.
For example, a friend invites you to a party. The only person that you will
know at the party is your friend. How you respond to the situation will
depend on your personality. If you are outgoing and confident, you might
look forward to the opportunity to meet new people. However, if you are
shy, you might feel threatened by the thought of meeting so many
strangers. Your personality influences your assessment of a situation.
Optimism and Pessimism Carla and Joan play on a softball
team. Their team is about to face the best team in the league. Carla is
looking forward to the challenge. She likes competing against the best
opponents. Her response reflects her optimism. Optimism is the tendency to focus on the positive aspects of a situation. Joan is threatened by
the situation. She assumes that she will play poorly and that the other
team will win by a wide margin. Her response reflects her pessimism.
Pessimism is the tendency to focus on the negative and expect the worst.
Aiming for Perfection A perfectionist is a person who accepts
nothing less than excellence. If you are a perfectionist about your appearance, for example, you may spend hours getting ready to go to school. If
you are a perfectionist about your work, you may spend hours agonizing
over each sentence in a paper and still not be satisfied.
Because perfectionists set goals that are impossible to attain, they are
never satisfied with what they have accomplished. This can lead to a
vicious cycle of trying harder, not being satisfied, and trying harder still.
There are ways to break the cycle and reduce your stress.
Connect to Allow students to answer
YOUR LIFE this question in their
private journals.
For: Updates on stress and
personality
Visit: www.Scilinks.org/health
Web Code: ctn-1033
L3 Content Update
Use the Web Code to
access up-to-date information about
stress and personality. Have students
complete the Web activity.
66
䊳
Accept that you cannot be perfect.
䊳
Take pride in the things you do well.
䊳
Don’t focus on your mistakes.
Connect to
YOUR LIFE
Are the goals that you set for yourself easy to
reach, difficult to reach, or impossible to reach?
Chapter 3
TEENS Are Asking . . .
Q:
I’m not happy unless I do everything just also enjoy doing. Use the list to assess your
right. How can I stop being a perfectionist? strengths and set realistic goals. Focus on
your achievements instead of on what you
It may not be easy to change, but the
see as shortcomings. To overcome your fear
rewards will be worth it. You will have more
of making mistakes, try making some mistime to achieve and to relax if you spend
takes that don’t matter on purpose. Send an
less time worrying about mistakes. Accept
e-mail with a typo, or wear a pair of socks
the fact that nobody is perfect, including
that don’t match.
you. Make a list of activities that you do
well. These are likely to be things that you
A:
66
Chapter 3
Resilience
Resilience
L4 Active Learning
Some people seem to tolerate high levels of stress. They
tend to view stressful events as challenges rather than as
threats. For example, they might view the loss of a job
as an opportunity to pursue a new career. Also, they
believe that they are in control—that they can
influence the outcome of a stressful event.
Even stress-hardy people will face a catastrophe or major life change that they are unable to
control. They need to find a way to adapt to an
extremely distressful situation. The ability to
recover, or “bounce back,” from extreme or prolonged stress is called resilience. Many factors
contribute to resilience. The key factor in resilience
is having the support of family and friends. These
relationships offer encouragement, reassurance, and love.
People with resilience share other characteristics.
Have students bring in articles from
newspapers or magazines about people
who have shown resilience in the face
of extreme challenges. Ask students to
find and read aloud sentences that
show traits of resilience, such as the
support of family and friends. Discuss
how these traits helped the people
tolerate high levels of stress.
3. Assess
Evaluate
䊳
They know their strengths and have confidence in their abilities.
䊳
They make realistic plans and take the steps to carry out those plans.
䊳
They have good communication and problem-solving skills.
䊳
They are able to recognize and control their feelings.
Answers appear below.
䊳
They recognize that change is a normal part of life. They are able to
put life changes in perspective.
Teaching Resources
FIGURE 9 People may use a
“group huddle” to encourage
one member of the group or the
group as a whole.
These assignments can help you assess
students’ mastery of the section content.
Section 3 Review
• Practice 3-3
• Section 3-3 Quiz
In the next section, as you study ways to cope with stress, you will learn
how to build your resilience.
L2 Reteach
Section 3 Review
Key Ideas and Vocabulary
1. Why might two individuals have different
responses to the same stressor?
2. How does personality affect a person’s response to
stress?
3. Define the term resilience.
4. What is the key factor in determining whether a
person has resilience?
Critical Thinking
5. Applying Concepts The weather report says there
is a 50 percent chance of rain. How might your
optimism or pessimism affect how you interpret
this report?
Health at School
Resilience Interview a guidance counselor, school
nurse, or social worker. Ask the person you
interview to describe those factors that make it
easier for a student to recover from an extremely
stressful situation. Summarize what you learn in a
paragraph.
L4 Enrich
6. Predicting Impatience is a common personality
trait. Predict how impatience could affect a
person’s level of stress.
7. Classifying After Kenny completes his math
homework, he checks his answers to see if they
make sense. Based solely on this behavior, do you
think Kenny is a perfectionist? Explain.
Managing Stress 67
Section 3 Review
1. They assess the situation differently.
2. It affects assessment of a situation.
3. Resilience is the ability to recover from
extreme or prolonged stress.
4. the support of family and friends
Make a general outline of the section.
Then match students with partners, and
have partners work together to add
vocabulary definitions, boldface key
ideas, and examples to the outline. Ask
partners to use their detailed outlines
to quiz each other on section content.
Teaching Resources
• Enrich 3-3
Health at
School
Resilience Arrange for students to
interview a school guidance counselor,
nurse, or social worker. Have students
work in small groups to write a list of
questions in advance. Then have a person from each group conduct the
interview. Make sure each student individually writes a paragraph summing
up the interview.
6. An impatient person is more likely to feel
frustrated by events such as traffic jams
and long lines.
7. No, because checking answers to see if
they make sense is recommended behavior.
5. Optimism: it probably won’t rain;
pessimism: it probably will rain.
Managing Stress
67