# Stress and the Emotional Response

Psychology I · Learning and Emotion · https://tryals.app/learn/psychology-i/stress-and-the-emotional-response

## When Stress Becomes Chronic

Stress and emotion are deeply intertwined: the appraisal of a threat shapes which emotion follows, and that emotion shapes coping. Unrelenting stress reshapes baseline emotional functioning over time.

One major outcome of chronic work stress is **burnout**, formalized by **Christina Maslach** as a three-component syndrome distinct from ordinary stress or fatigue.

| Component | What it feels like |
|---|---|
| **Emotional exhaustion** | Drained, overextended, nothing left to give |
| **Depersonalization** | Detached, callous, cynical distancing from others |
| **Reduced personal accomplishment** | Diminished sense of competence and effectiveness |

## Burnout vs. General Adaptation

**Burnout** is distinct from Selye's **General Adaptation Syndrome** (GAS).

| Concept | Scope | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| **GAS** | Broad | General **physiological** stress response |
| **Burnout** | Specific | **Psychological and emotional** syndrome tied to social or occupational roles |

> **Common pitfall:** Treating burnout as simply being very tired. Emotional exhaustion is only one piece; depersonalization and reduced accomplishment do not track raw fatigue.

## Practice questions

8 of this lesson's 12 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Select every statement that is TRUE about stress and burnout.

A. Burnout is most tied to chronic stress in emotionally demanding roles.
B. Appraisal shapes which emotion accompanies a stressor.
C. Burnout is simply a synonym for ordinary daily stress.
D. Burnout has three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced accomplishment.
E. Depersonalization is a diminished sense of one's own competence.

**Answer:** A. Burnout is most tied to chronic stress in emotionally demanding roles.; B. Appraisal shapes which emotion accompanies a stressor.; D. Burnout has three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced accomplishment.

**Why:** The three components, appraisal shaping emotion, and burnout's tie to demanding roles are all true. Burnout is not ordinary daily stress, and depersonalization is cynical detachment toward others (not a sense of one's own competence, which is reduced accomplishment) - those two are false.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stress-and-the-emotional-response/select-every-statement-that-is-true-about-stress-and-burnout

### 2. A worker scoring high on emotional exhaustion alone meets the definition of burnout.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** False. Burnout is defined by exhaustion, depersonalisation *and* reduced accomplishment together; exhaustion alone is exhaustion. Requiring all three is what keeps the construct distinct from ordinary tiredness and from depression, and it is why the Maslach inventory scores the three separately.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stress-and-the-emotional-response/a-worker-scoring-high-on-emotional-exhaustion-alone-meets-the

### 3. Controlled exposure to **manageable** stress can leave people coping better with later stressors. Why would stress ever build resilience rather than deplete it?

A. It does not, the finding contradicts the General Adaptation Syndrome
B. Because it raises the threshold at which stress is detected, so later events register less
C. Because it exhausts the stress response, leaving less available for later threats
D. Because a stressor that is survived teaches that it can be

**Answer:** D. Because a stressor that is survived teaches that it can be

**Why:** A stressor you get through is evidence about your resources, which is exactly what secondary appraisal is estimating, and recovery itself gets practised. Manageable is load-bearing: the same logic run past capacity produces sensitisation rather than inoculation, which is why the dose matters more than the exposure.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stress-and-the-emotional-response/controlled-exposure-to-manageable-stress-can-leave-people-coping

### 4. Order the stages by which a demanding job produces burnout in a committed worker, from the conditions to the outcome.

**Answer:**

1. Chronic workload, low control and thin rewards persist over months.
2. Emotional resources are depleted faster than they can be replenished.
3. Exhaustion sets in: there is nothing left to bring to the work.
4. Withdrawal follows as a defence: patients become cases, people become problems.
5. The sense that any of it accomplishes anything collapses.

**Why:** The sequence puts the conditions first deliberately, because that is where the evidence puts them. Burnout is predicted by workload, control, reward, fairness and community at work - features of the job rather than weaknesses of the person - and the people it takes hardest are frequently the most committed, who had the most to deplete.

Depersonalisation appearing after exhaustion is the part worth understanding rather than memorising. The withdrawal is not indifference arriving from nowhere; it is what someone does when they no longer have the emotional resources to engage and must find some way to keep turning up. Distance is a defence against a demand that cannot be met.

Reduced accomplishment comes last and is often the least accurate: the work may still be objectively good while the person doing it can no longer see any value in it. That ordering also explains why interventions aimed at the individual - resilience training, self-care advice - address the end of a chain whose beginning is untouched.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stress-and-the-emotional-response/order-the-stages-by-which-a-demanding-job-produces-burnout-in-a

### 5. The General Adaptation Syndrome and burnout are competing theories of the same phenomenon.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** False. Selye's GAS is a general physiological response to any prolonged stressor; burnout is a specific occupational syndrome with three named components. They describe different levels and are compatible, which is why physiological markers accompany burnout without defining it.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stress-and-the-emotional-response/the-general-adaptation-syndrome-and-burnout-are-competing-theories-of

### 6. Two nurses on the same ward face identical caseloads. One is deep into burnout; the other, equally busy, is not. Why does that difference not show the first nurse is less resilient?

A. Because resilience is a fixed trait, so any difference between the two must come from their genetics.
B. Because burnout is entirely random, so no explanation of the difference between them is possible.
C. Because the second nurse is certainly burnt out too, and is concealing it.
D. Because caseload is only one of the conditions that predict burnout.

**Answer:** D. Because caseload is only one of the conditions that predict burnout.

**Why:** Identical caseloads are not identical working conditions — say over shifts, recognition, a fair rota, colleagues to turn to — and each independently predicts burnout. The resilience framing also gets the direction wrong, since burnout takes the committed hardest. The two accounts point at different remedies, and only one of them is an invitation to fail.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stress-and-the-emotional-response/two-nurses-on-the-same-ward-face-identical-caseloads-one-is-deep

### 7. Burnout is not simply a synonym for exhaustion. What does Maslach's model add?

A. A physiological marker that distinguishes it from ordinary fatigue
B. Two further components: depersonalisation and reduced accomplishment
C. A required duration, below which tiredness does not qualify
D. A restriction to the caring professions, where it was first identified

**Answer:** B. Two further components: depersonalisation and reduced accomplishment

**Why:** Three components, only one of which is exhaustion. That is why rest alone does not resolve burnout, the detachment and the loss of efficacy are separate axes.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stress-and-the-emotional-response/burnout-is-not-simply-a-synonym-for-exhaustion-what-does-maslachs

### 8. Sort each feature by whether it belongs to Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) or to Maslach's burnout.

**Answer:**

- General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): Shows up the same way whether the stressor is cold, injury or fear, Describes alarm, resistance, and exhaustion body stages
- Burnout: A three-component PSYCHOLOGICAL/EMOTIONAL syndrome, Emerges from months of unrelenting demand in a particular role

**Why:** GAS is a general physiological stress response (alarm-resistance-exhaustion) to almost any stressor; burnout is a specific psychological/emotional syndrome of chronic role stress with three components. The distinction is bodily-and-general versus emotional-and-role-specific.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/psychology-i/stress-and-the-emotional-response/sort-each-feature-by-whether-it-belongs-to-selyes-general-adaptation