Showing papers on "Stressor published in 1981"

Stress, coping and development: some issues and some questions.

Abstract: SUMMARY The concept of psychosocial stress is reviewed in relation to empirical findings on the effects of different types of life, events in childhood and adult life. It is concluded that the concept is unhelpfully broad and that the events need to be subdivided according to their characteristics and meaning. In considering all types of, stimuli, individual differences in response are crucial; so-called stressors may have no effect or may be cither beneficial or harmful in their sequelae, The elements involved in these individual differences include personal characteristics, vulnerability and protective factors, a person's cognitive appraisal of the event and his process of coping with it. The various ways in which stress events may influence later development are discussed with particular reference to the possibility of altered sensitivities to later stress.

Stress and the Environment

Abstract: This paper presents an overview of the literature on stress and the environment using a basic attitude change paradigm. The stress literature is organized around characteristics of source, transmission, and audience variables. Prominent models of stress are reviewed, along with classifications of stressors themselves. The appraisal of stressors is considered as a transmission variable, affected by such factors as attitudes towards the stressor, perception of risk and danger, and perceived control. Research on dispositional variables is also reviewed and the stress response is discussed.

The Impact of Role Loss Upon Coping Resources and Life Satisfaction of the Elderly

Abstract: A stress is developed to explore the impact of role loss upon the lives of the elderly. The proposed model conceptualizes role loss as a stressor having an impact upon both the coping resources and life satisfaction of the elderly. A cumulative data set from the National Opinion Research Center (General Surveys, 1974, 1975, 1977) was used to test the model separately for men and women. The authors conclude that role loss does have an indirect and direct effect on coping resources and life satisfaction, especially for men. Men and women may also use different coping resources in mediating stress. The adequacy of the stress model in aging research is than discussed.

Stress, Social Supports, and Schizophrenic Disorders: Toward an Interactional Model

Abstract: The present article proposes an interactional model of schizophrenic disorders in which three parameters of stressors (e.g. stressor category, stressor content, stressor descriptors) interact with four parameters of social networks/supports (e.g. structure, interactional properties, qualitative properties, functional indices) to produce a stress state characterized by positions along three orthogonal dimensions: overload-underload, positive-negative affect, high arousal-low arousal. The stress state, it is speculated, is reciprocally related to various clinical dimensions, functional system impairments, quantitative response parameters, and qualitative response parameters which constitute the "schizophrenic" disorder. The basic point of the model is that the formative, precipitative, expressive, and maintaining forces of schizophrenic-type disorders are influenced by the simultaneous interaction of stressors, supports, and stress states.

Children in Sport: Participation Motives and Psychological Stress

Abstract: Recent research on children's sport participation motives is examined to provide insight about potential sources of stress in organized youth sports. It is concluded that affiliation, skill development, success and status, excitement, and fitness represent the most important general motive factors for young athletes. A four-stage model of stress is outlined, extant empirical literature on stress in youth sports is briefly reviewed within this framework, and implications of these findings with regard to the stressfulness of athletic competition for children are discussed. It is proposed that future stress research in youth sports examine coach-player and parent-player interactions, the antecedents of competitive trait anxiety, other sources of stress in addition to performance-and success-related demands, and the role of participation motivation as a moderator variable in players' responses to various stressors. The need for research with younger children and participants in individual sports also is addre...

The assessment and remediation of dysfunctional stress in medical school.

Abstract: This paper describes an ecosystem approach to the management of dysfunctional stress in a medical education setting. An assessment of the student-perceived environment was conducted in three phases: (a) brainstorming to identify potential sources of stress; (b) design and use of the Medical School Environmental Stress Inventory (MSESI) to measure student-reported stress; and (c) follow-up interviews to validate these findings and to identify specific factors contributing to the stressful situations, consequences resulting from the stress, coping strategies used, potential solutions to the stressful situations, and aspects of the environment perceived as supportive. Students described the major stressors as information-input overload, short-age of time, inadequate feedback regarding performance, and poor quality of interpersonal relationships. The authors, committed to an action-research model, used the results to design appropriate interventions.

Stress among air traffic controllers: Occupational sources of coronary heart disease risk

Abstract: SUMMARY This study attempts to assess the sources of occupational stress on air traffic controllers. It is based on data collected from a maj ority of air traffic controllers at a large U.K. airport. There are two unique methodological features described in this article. First, the use of the repertory grid technique as a method of generating work stressor variables, and second, the use of the multiple logistic equation as a coronary heart disease risk index.

Job-Stress Worker-Strain Relationship Moderated by Off-the-Job Experience

Abstract: Summary.-The present study examined the role that off-the-job stressors play in the job-stress worker-strain relationship. A sample of 72 managers was administered a social readjustment scale for life-stress off the job, a jobstress rating scale, and measures of job satisfaction, depressed mood, psychosomatic complaints, and sweriry of physical illness. Analysis indicated that stressors combine in a multiplicative fashion to produce strain for workers; only the combined and interacting pressures of nonwork stress and work stress created strain in the worker. The application of these findings in the industrial setting is discussed; suggestions are made concerning the possibility that some factors in off-the-job experience buffer tbe individual from stress at work. Considerable attention has been focused on the negative outcomes of stress on the job. The effects of occupational demands, i.e., role conflict, work load, responsibility for others, to mention just a few, become manifest in such forms of workers' reactions to strain as job dissatisfaction, anxiety, depression, and in some cases serious mental and physical disabilities ranging all the way to coronary heart disease (1, 7, 8, 15). In addition, the individual's level in the organization ( 17, 18), size of work force ( 18, 22 ) , and shift work (6) have been shown to relate significantly with various health-outcome measures. While such linkages between stress on the job and negative outcomes have been documented extensively, less attention has been given to the factors which account for variations in workers' reactions to strain. A few researchers have tested personality characteristics as moderators of the job-stress workerstrain relationship (9, 14, 16), but previous investigators have not seriously considered the possibility that the negative effects of work stress may be conditional upon the nature of the employee's nonwork experiences. Recently, a number of studies have been reported on the relationship between a broad range of nonwork life events and a variety of physical illnesses and psychological symptoms. The development of the Social Readjusunenc Scale by Holmes and Rahe (12) has provided the basis for studying stressful life events relating to nonwork areas such as marriage, residence, finances, and social activities. The greatest variety of correlates of life events has been described (11, 24). These investigators cite studies showing specific correlates in myocardial infarction, sudden cardiac death, major and minor health changes as well as psychological conditions such as anxiety, depression, neuroticism, and social maladjustment.

Stress, Strain, Coping, and Defense

Abstract: Discussions of stress, especially as this is relevant to aging, have been confused because of lack of uniformity in terminology. The history of stress research is briefly sketched to develop the concept of stress as an external event. Strain is proposed as a suitable term for the affective, physiological, and cognitive changes induced by stress. Although stress is always external, the degree of strain is moderated by the individual's perception of the stressor. Thus, "objective" lists of life-stress units have limited value. Coping has also been used in a variety of ways. It is proposed that coping be conceptualized as voluntary activity directed against the external stress or protecting the individual against the stress. Defense would then be restricted to unconscious changes which reduce the immediate strain without modifying the person-stressor relation-ship. Use of relaxation and desensitization as coping tactics for the elderly is evaluated favorably.

Effect of physical stress and time-pressure on performance

Abstract: Several aspects of the inverted U-model regarding the relation between activation and performance were tested in an experiment in which activation was manipulated both by increasing metabolic demands and by varying psychological demands. Psychological stress influenced performance but the direct manipulation of activation by increasing physical stress had no effect on performance. From these results we conclude that it is very unlikely that activation is causally related to performance. A better explanation seems that a stressor influences both activation and performance and that the effect of a stressor is highly specific and depends on the kind of stressor and the kind of task.

A pilot study of some associations between behavioural stressors and physiological processes in healthy men

Abstract: A study was made of the physiological effects of smoking, psychological stressors, heat, exercise, and fat ingestion on 12 healthy men. Repeated measurements were made of cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, enzyme, lipid, and other variables in all stressor situations. The main findings were that psychological stressors and exercise were associated with more and larger physiological changes than the other stressors, and widespread response differences in addition to those in lipids were identified between subgroups of seven normolipidaemic men and five hypertriglyceridaemic men.

Different Patterns of Stress in Patients with Internal Diseases

Abstract: This study was designed to find differential patterns of stressors characterizing different chronic diseases. As this workshop deals with coronary heart disease, only data directly relevant to this disease will be presented.