University PSY111: Health, Stress, and Coping Short Answer Exercise

This document provides a comprehensive solution for a PSY111 assignment focusing on health, stress, and coping mechanisms, including the theory of reasoned action and mental health challenges. The assignment is divided into two exercises. The first exercise explores the theory of reasoned action, examining how intentions and attitudes influence health behaviors, and discusses the limitations of this theory. The second exercise analyzes studies on psychological distress in university students, highlighting risk factors, protective factors, and limitations of the research. The assignment references key articles on the topic, including studies on dental hygiene, mental health prevalence, and the impact of financial stress and demographics on student well-being. It provides an in-depth analysis of the issues and offers a well-structured response to the assignment brief.

Running head: HEALTH, STRESS AND COPING
HEALTH, STRESS AND COPING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1HEALTH, STRESS AND COPING
Exercise 1:
Task 1:
Syrjälä, A. M. H., Niskanen, M. C., & Knuuttila, M. L. (2002). The theory of reasoned action in
describing tooth brushing, dental caries and diabetes adherence among diabetic
patients. Journal of Clinical Periodontology, 29(5), 427-432.
Toneatto, T., & Binik, Y. (1987). The role of intentions, social norms, and attitudes in the
performance of dental flossing: A test of the theory of reasoned action. Journal of
Applied Social Psychology, 17(6), 593-603.
Task 2:
The theory of reasoned action states that people always reflect on their actions before
performing any kind of behaviour. This theory explains that the behaviour of a person is
governed by their intent to execute that behaviour and that intention is dependent on the
individual’s attitude about that particular behaviour (Madden, Ellen & Ajzen, 1992). Health
behaviour is the action of maintaining a good health and preventing any kind of illness. People’s
motivation to maintain proper health depends on various factors. Health behaviours are
important in maintain a good quality and length of life. Health behaviours are influenced by both
subjective norms as well as the attitude towards it. When people are proactive in maintaining the
quality of life and have a positive attitude towards improving their health, they engage in
activities that promote healthy behaviours. A research by Syrjälä, Niskanen & Knuuttila (2002)
was conducted on analysing how the theory of reasoned action influenced the maintenance of
oral health hygiene among diabetic patients. The results indicated that a firm intention towards
brushing of teeth was connected to high frequency of tooth brushing in diabetic patients. Both

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the subjective norms as well as the attitude was found to be important in maintaining oral health.
Hence, it can be concluded that the theory of reasoned action influences health behaviours. For
example, if a person believes that smoking and drinking are the thrills of life without which life
would be meaningless, then he would indulge himself in such activities that would harm his
health.
Task 3:
It is not necessary that our good intentions will always result in action. An individual’s
intentions towards performing a behaviour might be strong; however, he might be constrained by
his variables such as limited time, his inability to perform that behaviour, environmental
constraints and other unconscious habits that restrict his freedom to act (Toneatto & Binik,
1987). The theory of restrained actions assumes that when a person has firm intentions of
performing an act, then he has all the freedom to perform it while disregarding the practicality of
the situation. People may have strong intentions of maintaining a healthy behaviour however,
they might be limited by their inability to invest proper time into it or they might not be under
perfect circumstances to carry on with their actions (Conner & Norman, 2017). For example, a
person might have strong beliefs towards investing his time in exercise for maintaining his
health, however, due to his extremely busy work schedule and lack of time he might not be able
to do so. Thus, his positive attitude and intentions might not be enough for him to engage in
action. Other drawback of the theory is that the intention of an individual might be different from
what he actually expects to achieve. For example, a person might want to start a healthy diet and
his intentions may be firm too however, his expectations of achieving a fit body in two weeks
would exceed those intentions. When intentions do not meet expectations, people are
demotivated.

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Exercise 2:
Task 1:
The article by Stallman (2010) is a discussion about how psychological distress has
become extremely common among the university students. The researchers intended to study
whether the university students were at a risk-population with regards to mental health. They
studied pupils from two Australian universities through an online survey. The K10 (Kessler,
2003) was used to measure anxiety mood disorders in those students who belonged to the same
sociodemographics state who belonged to the ages between 18 to 34 years (Stallman, 2010). The
rate of the mental health problem ranged from 19.2% to 67.4%, significantly higher than the
general population, which indicated that the university pupils belonged to a high risk-population.
The reason for their high distress involved their full time status, being female, financial stress
and being in the age range of 8 to 34 years. These were the indicators for the university to
include early interventions to prevent severe mental disorders among students.
Task 2:
In the article, residence, financial stress as well as year of study were highlighted as
protective factors. It was found that students who were staying in university accommodations,
with either their companion or kids and with their parents, had lesser levels of stress than those
who were staying unaccompanied or in any other housing facilities. Students who had financial
stress reported to suffer from mental illness than those who had no financial stress. Moreover,
those students who were in subsequent year of graduation reported to feel more stressed than the
first year students. The postgraduate students reported lesser levels of stress than both the first
and subsequent year students did.

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Task 3:
The article highlighted three limitations that must be considered while interpreting the
results. The first limitation was the limited approach of only assessing the anxiety and depressive
symptoms in students wherein the range of all mental illness were not assessed in students.
Secondly, the measure used was not equivalent to making diagnoses. Thirdly, the author speaks
about limitations related to generalization of the findings. The author states that the response rate
was low for this study. In other researches, it was observed that the students showed higher
levels of distress because the sample consisted of students who had higher GPAs. To balance out
this effect, the study used more female participants that may have increased the levels of distress
in findings (Stallman, 2010). Therefore, the author states that “caution should be maintained in
generalizing the findings of the data”.
Task 4:
Saleem & Mahmood (2013) conducted another study on the mental health of the
university students. They studied 1850 students aged between 19 to 26 years. They had
developed an “Indigenous Student Problem Checklist (SPCL)” that had 45 items as measured the
students along four dimensions: “Sense of Being Dysfunctional”, “Loss of Confidence”, “Lack
of Self-regulation” and “Anxiety proneness”. If the scores fell above 1 S.D. then the students
would be considered a having “severe” problems and if the scores were above 2 S.D. then they
would be categorized in the “very severe” category. The results found out that 31% of the
participants were in the severe category while 17% were in the very severe category. Moreover,
17 % participants fell in the category of “sense of being dysfunctional”, 16% in “loss of
confidence”, 14% in “lack of self-regulation” and 12 % in “anxiety proneness” (Saleem &

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Mahmood, 2013). In this study too, the female participants reported higher levels of distress and
anxiety proneness.
Task 5:
Saleem, S., Mahmood, Z., & Naz, M. (2013). Mental Health Problems in University Students: A
Prevalence Study. FWU Journal of Social Sciences, 7(2).
Stallman, H. M. (2010). Psychological distress in university students: A comparison with general
population data. Australian Psychologist, 45(4), 249-257.

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References
Conner, M., & Norman, P. (2017). Health behaviour: Current issues and challenges. Psychology
& Health, 32(8), 895-906.
Madden, T. J., Ellen, P. S., & Ajzen, I. (1992). A comparison of the theory of planned behavior
and the theory of reasoned action. Personality and social psychology Bulletin, 18(1), 3-9.
Saleem, S., Mahmood, Z., & Naz, M. (2013). Mental Health Problems in University Students: A
Prevalence Study. FWU Journal of Social Sciences, 7(2).
Stallman, H. M. (2010). Psychological distress in university students: A comparison with general
population data. Australian Psychologist, 45(4), 249-257.
Syrjälä, A. M. H., Niskanen, M. C., & Knuuttila, M. L. (2002). The theory of reasoned action in
describing tooth brushing, dental caries and diabetes adherence among diabetic
patients. Journal of Clinical Periodontology, 29(5), 427-432.
Toneatto, T., & Binik, Y. (1987). The role of intentions, social norms, and attitudes in the
performance of dental flossing: A test of the theory of reasoned action. Journal of
Applied Social Psychology, 17(6), 593-603.