STRESS

Conceptualizations and Types of Stress

The study of stress has a long and rich history, which is characterized by diverse perspectives on how to examine stress and its impact on people's lives. In one early definition from 1974, Hans Seyle conceptualized stress in terms of external events that elicited certain distress responses, called the general adaptation syndrome. This approach proved valuable in elucidating the effects of the environment on physiological functioning, but it created the difficulty of disentangling the stressor itself from individuals' responses to stress. Two other perspectives have received more attention in the investigation of stress in children. The first "stimulus-based" approach, pioneered in 1967 by Thomas H. Holmes and Richard H. Rahe, viewed stress in terms of exposure to disruptive or demanding environmental circumstances. This definition emphasized that stress can be defined based on objective characteristics of one's environment. The second "transactional" approach, advocated in 1984 by Richard S. Lazarus and Susan Folkman, incorporated not only environmental events and conditions but also individuals' subjective appraisals of these circumstances. According to this perspective, individual perceptions of events may determine their stressfulness.

Regardless of whether the definition focuses on objective events or on the transaction between external events and internal appraisals, several types of stress may emerge in the lives of children. Daily hassles and minor life events involve everyday occurrences—such as interpersonal conflicts, pressures at school, or minor physical illnesses—that may accumulate over time to pose a threat to well-being. Chronic strains involve ongoing stressful conditions, such as family adversity (e.g., marital conflict, mental illness in a parent), relationship problems (e.g., social isolation), or economic hardship. Acute, severe stressors involve traumatic events such as the death of a close family member, victimization, or exposure to a natural disaster. Finally, normative stressors involve events or situations that occur as a part of typical development, such as starting school or moving away from home for the first time.

Stress across Development

Research has suggested that children experience increasing stress as they move through adolescence. Some research has focused on the entrance into adolescence itself as one type of normative experience that accounts for higher levels of stress during this stage. This transition is characterized by both biological challenges associated with puberty, as well as social challenges such as moving into middle school and developing cross-sex relationships. Moreover, there is an accumulation of other types of stressful events during adolescence that exceed those experienced prior to this period. Interestingly, some studies have suggested that the nature of stress during adolescence may differ in girls and boys. For example, Karen D. Rudolph and Constance Hammen found that adolescent girls experience particularly high levels of interpersonal stress, such as conflicts with parents and friends, whereas adolescent boys experience particularly high levels of noninterpersonal stress, such as school-related difficulties.

Interactions between Stress and Development

A large body of evidence links a variety of stressors to poor psychological and physical health in children. For instance, cumulative and chronic stresses have been found to be associated with heightened emotional distress (e.g., anxiety, depression, low self-esteem), behavior problems (e.g., aggression, delinquency), and physical illness. Traumatic stressors, such as physical or sexual victimization, may lead to severe disturbances such as posttraumatic stress symptoms. Even stress ensuing from normative events may interfere with children's adjustment. For example, work by Jacquelynne Eccles and Carol Midgley demonstrated that school transitions may undermine achievement and emotional well-being in some adolescents, particularly girls. Importantly, many of these studies have demonstrated that exposure to stress predicts increases in adjustment problems over time, suggesting that stress exerts a potentially long-term influence on children's developmental course rather than merely a temporary disruption.

Protective and Risk Factors

Although research consistently has documented problematic consequences of stress, all children do not respond to stress in the same way. Hence, it is critical to understand when stress is likely to impair psychological and physical well-being and when stress may contribute to less adverse, or even positive, outcomes. This issue has been addressed through efforts to identify characteristics of children and their environments that either heighten (risk factors) or attenuate (protective factors) the adverse effects of stress.

A range of personal and environmental characteristics play a role in determining how children react to stress. In terms of psychological characteristics of youth, children's views of themselves and their competencies may influence their responses. For instance, children who attribute negative events in their lives to internal, stable, and global characteristics (e.g., "I failed a test because I am stupid"), and who feel a lack of control over important outcomes in their lives show increased vulnerability to depression in response to stress. In contrast, high levels of academic and social competence, high self-esteem, and adaptive coping styles may help children to deal effectively with stress, thereby protecting them against negative consequences. External resources, such as the presence of a supportive family environment or strong friendships, also may buffer children from the harmful effects of stress, but this possibility needs to be explored further before definitive conclusions can be drawn.

Children's responses to stress also may differ according to their gender and their age. Some research has shown that girls and boys display different types of vulnerability. In particular, girls may be more likely to respond to stress with emotional distress, such as feelings of anxiety and depression, whereas boys may be more likely to respond to stress with behavior problems, such as aggression. So far, little consistent evidence has emerged regarding the impact of particular types of stress across development, but it is possible that certain stressors may be more or less salient at different life stages. For instance, school-related stress may become particularly important during middle childhood, whereas friendship-related stress may become particularly important during early adolescence.

An area that has received little attention concerns the positive consequences of stress. It has been said "whatever does not kill us makes us stronger." This statement reflects the rather counterintuitive idea that, under some circumstances, the experience of stress actually may promote healthy development. For instance, encountering stressful situations may enhance children's strategies for coping with future stress or may strengthen social bonds as children seek support or advice from friends and family. Moreover, successful coping experiences may foster a sense of self-efficacy and increase children's self-esteem. An interesting direction for future research will be to distinguish when stress acts as a threat that undermines healthy development and when stress acts as a challenge that stimulates mastery or growth.

Remaining Questions and Implications

Despite well-established linkages between stress and adjustment across development, the field of life-stress research in children is still in its infancy. Additional research is needed to address several unanswered questions concerning the role of stress in development and to help guide the design of appropriate interventions. For example, the premise underlying the majority of life-stress research is that exposure to certain environmental demands overwhelms children's coping abilities, thereby precipitating psychological and health-related problems. Nevertheless, this focus on how stress affects children's development is somewhat limited. Instead, Rudolph and Hammen argued in a 1999 article that a more complete understanding of the developmental context of stress requires consideration of not only how children react to external events and circumstances but also how they construct and contribute to their environments. This stress-generation approach highlights the importance of studying characteristics of children that lead them to create stressful conditions, which then interfere further with their development.

Also, researchers have only begun to examine the processes through which stress undermines children's development. Thus, researchers need to learn more about how and why different types of stress create emotional, behavioral, and physical problems in children, as well as why some children are more likely to generate stress in their lives.

A more in-depth understanding about the complex linkages between stress and developmental outcomes is essential for the creation of effective intervention programs. Identifying personal qualities of children or environmental contexts that either exacerbate or dampen the negative effects of stress will provide essential information about how health professionals, teachers, and parents can promote effective coping strategies. Moreover, discovering which types of stress create a risk for particular problems and exploring how these effects occur will facilitate the development of targeted intervention programs that are tailored to the needs of the individual. Finally, identifying which children may be at highest risk for exposure to, or generation of, stress will lay the groundwork for early intervention programs designed to prevent the onset of the complicated cycle linking stressful life experiences and unhealthy development.

See also: RESILIENCY; VIOLENCE

Bibliography

Eccles, Jacquelynne S., and Carol Midgley. "Stage-Environment Fit: Developmentally Appropriate Classrooms for Young Adolescents." In Russell E. Ames and Carole Ames eds., Research on Motivation in Education. New York: Academic Press, 1989.

Hammen, Constance. "Life Events and Depression: The Plot Thickens." American Journal of Community Psychology 2 (1992):179-193.

Holmes, Thomas H., and Richard H. Rahe. "The Social Readjustment Rating Scale." Journal of Psychosomatic Research 11 (1967):213-218.

Lazarus, Richard S., and Susan Folkman. Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. New York: Springer, 1984.

Rudolph, Karen D., and Constance Hammen. "Age and Gender as Determinants of Stress Exposure, Generation, and Reactions in Youngsters: A Transactional Perspective." Child Development 70 (1999):660-677.

Seyle, Hans. Stress in Health and Disease. Woburn, MA: Butterworth, 1976.

Karen D. Rudolph