‘exhaustion’, which was reached when the individual had been repeatedly exposed to the
stressful situation and was incapable of showing further resistance. This model is shown
in Figure 10.1.
Problems with Cannon’s and Selye’s models
Cannon’s early fight/flight model and Selye’s GAS laid important foundations for stress
research. However there are several problems with them.
i) Both regarded the individual as automatically responding to an external stressor and
described stress within a straightforward stimulus–response framework. They there-
fore did not address the issue of individual variability and psychological factors were
given only a minimal role. For example, whilst an exam could be seen as stressful for
one person it might be seen as an opportunity to shine to another.
ii) Both also described the physiological response to stress as consistent. This response
is seen as non specific in that the changes in physiology are the same regardless of
the nature of the stressor. This is reflected in the use of the term ‘arousal’ which has
been criticized by more recent researchers. Therefore, these two models described
individuals as passive and as responding automatically to their external world.
Life events theory
In an attempt to depart from both Selye’s and Cannon’s models of stress, which
emphasized physiological changes, the life events theory was developed to examine stress
and stress-related changes as a response to life experiences. Holmes and Rahe (1967)
developed the schedule of recent experiences (SRE), which provided respondents with an
extensive list of possible life changes or life events. These ranged in supposed objective
severity from events such as ‘death of a spouse’, ‘death of a close family member’
and ‘jail term’ to more moderate events such as ‘son or daughter leaving home’ and
‘pregnancy’ to minor events such as ‘vacation’, ‘change in eating habits’, ‘change
in sleeping habits’ and ‘change in number of family get-togethers’. Originally, the SRE
was scored by simply counting the number of actual recent experiences. For example,
Fig. 10-1 Selye’s (1956) three-stage general adaptation syndromeSTRESS 235