Stress as a Psychological State of the Individual under Social Tension

The concept of "stress" encompasses a broad range of psychological and physiological states of the individual that arise in response to social tension or extreme influences.

Stress is a state of psychological tension that arises in a person under the influence of strong stimuli.

Under the influence of stress-inducing factors, the balance of the person-environment system may be disrupted in the subject, and an insufficiency of psychological or physical resources for meeting current needs may be revealed; a psychological state then arises that is described by the concepts of "anxiety" and "fear." With the emergence of this state, features of the person's behavior may change.

The diagnostic signs of stress include:

• • disturbances of all types of memory in various combinations;
• • scattered and easily distracted attention;
• • speech difficulty or hyperactivity;
• • an accelerated experience of time;
• • a change in sensitivity thresholds within various ranges;
• • yawning, causeless tears or laughter, paling or reddening of facial skin, finger tremor, itching, and so on.

Under conditions of social tension, the so-called anxiety continuum is characterized by the following stages:

• • a sense of inner tension — has no pronounced tinge of threat, serves merely as a signal of its approach, and creates an oppressive mental discomfort;
• • anxiety proper — manifests itself as a sense of undefined threat, when it is impossible to determine its nature or predict the time of its occurrence;
• • fear — anxiety becomes attached to specific objects, which may not actually be its cause, but the subject forms an impression that the anxiety can be eliminated through certain actions;
• • a sense of the inevitability of an approaching catastrophe — the intensity of anxiety disorders increases, leading the subject to conclude that the coming events cannot be prevented;
• • anxious, fearful agitation — the disorganization caused by anxiety reaches its maximum, and the possibility of purposeful activity disappears.

The Canadian scientist H. Selye, the founder of stress theory, identified the following stages in its development:

• 1. The alarm stage — the mobilization of the organism's adaptive resources takes place. At this stage the person is in a state of some tension and heightened alertness. Physically and psychologically the person feels well and is in an elevated mood. At this phase, illnesses classified as so-called psychosomatic often disappear: gastritis, colitis, stomach ulcers, migraines, and others. It is true, however, that by the third stage they return with tripled force.
• 2. The resistance stage — occurs when the stress-inducing factor is too strong. At this stage the person develops optimal energy, adapting to the changing circumstances. He feels reasonably well, though without the emotional uplift characteristic of the first stage. However, accumulated fatigue grows.
• 3. The exhaustion stage — the person's energy is depleted, and their physiological and psychological defenses have collapsed. They no longer have the means to defend themselves, nor do any internal resources of the organism remain. In this case help can come only from outside, either in the form of support or through elimination of the stressor.

The degree of a person's stress reaction depends not only on the strength and duration of the external impact of the stressor, but also on the individual characteristics of the person, the strength of their nervous system, their past experience, and their level of training. For example, for a personality unable to set clear priorities for themselves, a severe stressful situation may arise from the need to reconcile the roles of employee and family member (when time pressures and demands at work come into conflict with demands placed by the family, and vice versa).

As factors contributing to susceptibility to stress, researchers also cite individual character traits such as authoritarianism, rigidity, emotional instability, emotionality, excitability, psychological stability, and the need for achievement, among others. However, the greatest attention has been devoted to the so-called type A character. Specialists in cardiovascular disease began studying various character types and the corresponding behavioral patterns as early as 1950, with the aim of predicting the likelihood of heart attacks. In the late 1960s, cardiologists M. Friedman and N. Rosenman, in their work "Type A Behavior and Your Heart," described character types from the standpoint of susceptibility to stress. They defined the type A personality as "a combination of actions and emotions that can be observed in any person engaged in a chronic, incessant struggle to accomplish more and more in less and less time and, if necessary, against the efforts of other people and circumstances." Initially, on the basis of the research conducted, it was concluded that type A individuals were the most susceptible to stress and to one of its most serious consequences — heart attacks. However, some more recent studies do not confirm these findings. Such results may be explained by the fact that type A, people, who often "construct" stressful situations for themselves, also tend to know how to release their stress and cope with it better than type B. people do. There is a view that susceptibility to stress is fostered not so much by the impatience characteristic of type A, people as by anger, hostility, and aggressiveness.

To analyze stress it is important to consider the following factors.

The nature of the stressor — one of the most important situational factors determining people's reactions. The fear of losing one's job is probably a greater stressor than, for example, being assigned to an undesirable shift. But this factor does not represent some exceptional threat that alone brings on stress; a combination of various factors can just as readily lead to stress. Small everyday annoyances, piling up on one another, can produce the same result as a single serious event.

The combination of stressors present and absent is also important in determining individual reactions. Poor relationships with colleagues at work, for example, are a potential source of stress, but at the same time it has often been noted that good relationships can help reduce negative reactions to other stressors.

The duration of exposure to the stressor — is another situational factor affecting individual sensitivity.

A daily lack of ability to influence the demands placed by one's job is more likely to lead to stress than a temporary overload at work caused, for instance, by a colleague's illness. Finally, as researchers point out, the predictability of the stressor also matters: unpredictable stressors are more likely to provoke negative reactions.