Definition
H. Selye (1936) defined stress as “non-specific responses that be resulted from a variety of different kinds of stimuli.” However, Selye’s stress theory has only focused on physiological stress, and psychological factors have not been considered. Research on life stress examined the relationship between diseases and life events. Many studies were conducted for clarifying the psychological factors related to stress, and the results revealed that psychological factors play a significant role in the occurrence of physiological and psychological stress responses. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) proposed that stress occurs when people perceived that the demands from external situations were beyond their coping capacity. Today, the definition “stress is the process of interaction from resolution requests from the environment (known as the transactional model)” is widely accepted.
From the perspective of psychological stress research, the...
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References and Readings
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer.
Selye, H. (1936). A syndrome produced by diverse nocuous agents. Nature, 138, 32.
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Suzuki, Si., Ito, D. (2013). Psychological Stress. In: Gellman, M.D., Turner, J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_421
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_421
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
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