What are the moderators of the stress response? What portions of the integrated model of stress do the moderators affect? How? Discuss each moderator and relate it to yourself.

Moderators

Several personal characteristics act as moderators of perceptions and behavioral responses to stressors. The moderators include coping responses; personality; skills, abilities, and experience; family health history; demographics such as age; family responsibilities; diet; and physical fitness. Such moderators can change the relationships shown in Figure 16.1. A physically fit person, for example, may have a less severe response to perceived stress than a person who is not physically fit. Senior executives with the high political skill described in Chapter 15, “Power and Political Behavior,” might have a less negative response to their job’s stressors than an executive with low political skill. People’s coping responses to a stressor can affect their reaction to the stressor. A coping response changes the stressor or how the person interprets the stressor. The two broad types of coping response are problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping changes the reason the stressor exists. For example, a person can change lighting in a work area to reduce glare. Emotion-focused coping changes a person’s perception or interpretation of a stressor. For example, a person can attribute a coworker’s negative comments to that person’s experienced stress. Stress researchers have identified eight coping responses. The following defines each response and gives a brief example:

Confrontive coping: The person makes aggressive efforts to change a situation, often with anger. Confrontive coping includes risky behavior such as taking an action that has uncertain results. Example: Fighting for what you want.

Distancing: The person psychologically detaches from or adds positive meaning to a situation. Example: Trying to forget the situation.

Self-control: The person takes steps to manage her actions and feelings. Example: Keeping feelings inside.

Seeking social support: The person goes to other people for emotional support or more information about the situation. Example: Talking to friends.

Accepting responsibility: The person highlights her role in creating the situation and tries to make it better. Example: Apologizing and then taking a positive action.

Escape–avoidance: The person tries to get away from the stressor, coupled with wishful thinking. Example: Staying away from people.

Planful problem solving: The person analyzes the situation and takes steps to improve it. Example: Developing a plan to fix the situation and then taking action.

Positive reappraisal: The person focuses on personal improvements from addressing the situation. Example: Feelings of personal growth because of the situation.

People use most of the coping responses in stressful situations. If the person decides that she can fix the situation, there is a tendency to use a problem-focused approach, such as planful problem solving. If the person decides that she cannot affect the situation, there is a tendency to use an emotion-focused approach, such as positive reappraisal or escape–avoidance. Stress researchers have associated two personality types with differences in perceptions of stressors and responses to them. Low hardiness personalities assess stressors pessimistically. They view stressful life events as unchangeable disruptions to the normal course of their behavior. Their reaction follows from their alienation from events, a feeling of having little control over events, and a view of stressors as a threat. Low hardiness personalities try to escape from stressors, not change them.

High hardiness personalities assess stressors optimistically. They view stressful events as challenges to overcome. Their reaction comes from goal commitment, a feeling of control over events, and a view of stressors as a challenge. High hardiness personalities take decisive action to change the stressors, not escape from them. Research evidence points to commitment and control as consistently related to positive stress responses.

For example, students typically face many stressors toward the end of a semester or quarter. Research papers are due as finals week approaches. Low hardiness personalities will likely see these events as threatening and try to avoid them for as long as possible. Such delays make the stressors worse, because the students meet their deadlines by working long, weary hours. High hardiness personalities will likely see the same events as a challenge and try to organize their schedules to meet deadlines in a timely way. The response of the high hardiness personality can help reduce the amount of distress she experiences.

The second personality type studied by stress researchers is the Type A described in Chapter 5, “Perception, Attitudes, and Personality.” A Type A personality is aggressive, can quickly become hostile, focuses excessively on achievement, and has a keen sense of time urgency. Type A personalities like to move fast and often do more than one activity concurrently. Some aspects of the Type A personality predict coronary heart disease; other aspects predict high performance. Hostility is strongly associated with coronary heart disease. Striving for achievement is strongly associated with performance.

The opposite personality type is the Type B personality. Such people feel less time urgency, often stopping to ponder their achievements and reflect on where they are headed. They have high self-esteem, a characteristic that distinguishes them from Type A personalities. They are even-tempered and are not bothered by everyday events. A Type A’s hurried approach to life can lead to a perception of stressors as constraints and not opportunities. Type A personalities want accomplishments and can readily perceive blockages even when no constraints are present. A Type B’s more even-tempered approach lets the person see more opportunities than constraints. Type A personalities can also increase the demands made on them. In short, the Type A personality is more likely to feel distress than a Type B personality. Some research results also suggest that Type A personalities with low hardiness have the greatest risk of suffering the ill effects of distress. Other moderators include skills, abilities, and experience. A person experienced with similar stressors will have less distress than a person for whom a stressor is new.

A family health history often can suggest whether a person is predisposed to the negative health effects of distress. Medical histories of hypertension, high serum cholesterol levels, and ulcers point to a chance of experiencing the ill effects of stress.

Some demographics point to a greater likelihood of experiencing certain stressors or experiencing distress. Working people with family responsibilities often feel many work and nonwork stressors simultaneously. They often feel pressures to get ahead in a career while also raising children, maintaining social relationships, and managing a home. Work stress can spill over into the nonwork domain, and the reverse. This form of “stress contagion” can have harmful effects on everyone involved.