Question

What’ is meant by a positive stressor? Explain any two situational causes and any two dispositional causes of stress. 

Answer 1

Positive stressors refer to any situation or circumstance that a person finds motivating and inspiring.
For example: Falling in love, meeting a star. The situations are enjoyable, yet accompanied by biochemical, physiological, cognitive and behavioral changes.

Two situational causes of stress are :

Stressful life events: These range from cataclysmic events such as the death of one’s spouse or being fired from a job. This also includes events such as childhood sexual abuse, rape, man-made or natural disasters such as world trade center attack.

Daily hassles: Daily hassles have a cumulative impact on health and illness such hassles include being stuck in a traffic jam, waiting in line, doing household chores, living in poverty, being in a bad relationship or maintaining a high-stress job.

Two disposition causes of stress are :

Negativity, Pessimistic explanatory style: Some people are predisposed by their personalities to experience stressful events as especially stressful. This line of research has focused on the psychological state called negative affectivity, i.e., a pervasive negative mood marked by anxiety, depression, and hostility.
While some people characteristically explain the negative events of their lives in terms of internal, stable and global qualities of themselves. This is known as a pessimistic explanatory style.

Psychological sense of control: This refers to the feelings that one can exert control over stressful events. Perceived control is the belief that one can determine one’s own behavior, influence one’s environment and bring about desired outcomes. Perceived control is more closely related to self-efficacy, i.e., one has the ability to enact the necessary actions to obtain a specific outcome in a specific situation. The more the psychological sense of control, the less stress is reported to be experienced and better coping occurs.