Moderating factors explaining stress reactions: comparing chronic-without-acute-stress and chronic-with-acute-stress situations.
The author compared patterns of moderating factors explaining stress reactions during 2 states: chronic-without-acute-stress and chronic-with-acute-stress. She hypothesized that personal dispositions would contribute more to understanding stress reactions during a prolonged stress state than during an acute state. The participants were Israeli Jewish adolescents living in West Bank settlements during the prolonged (chronic-without-acute-stress) state of the intifada (the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation) and during the chronic-with-acute-stress state, immediately after the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. The author examined 5 variables as moderating factors--trait anxiety, sense of coherence, cognitive appraisal of the political situation, family sense of coherence, and sense of community--and measured 2 stress reactions--state anxiety and psychological distress. Data were collected from 266 8th-grade students during the chronic-without-acute-stress state and 448 students at the same grade level at the chronic-with-acute-stress state. The overall magnitude of variance explanation was different at each state: The author found a relatively high explained variance of state anxiety and psychological distress in the chronic-without-acute-stress situation but not in the chronic-with-acute stress state. These data support the value of developing a model that would recognize the different types of stress situations for moderating the effects of stress.
Sagy
Shifra
S
Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. shifra@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
D000293:Adolescent; D002960:Civil Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006708:Homicide / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*; D013997:Time Factors