just what is meant by the experience of stress? Does an individual have a stress
experience without being conscious of making a stress appraisal, as identified by
having a physiological stress response? This harkens back to the difficulty in
defining stress in a precise manner. Perhaps the best we can do is state that an
individual is under stress when her physiology reacts as such, and that this may or
may not be labeled as a stress by the individual, depending on her experience and
what she has been taught to label as stressful.
Stress responses evolved under conditions quite different from that experienced
by people in contemporary times. Physiological changes for“fight orflight”(or
freeze) are not always appropriate when the uncertainties of modern life trigger a
stress response. However, the underlying conditions for triggering the general stress
response—involving appraisals of threat and coping—remain the same. What have
changed are the conditions that we interpret as threatening and/or within our ability
to cope. The conditions of confrontation with a charging bear or preparing for an
oral examination are quite different, but both constitute threats—either to one’s life
or to one’s goals—which may go beyond our ability with which to cope easily.
Because general stress responses remain tied to these appraisals, the presence of the
physiological responses indicative of stress are useful tools for understanding how
people perceive their circumstances. Thus, biological markers of stress can be a
window into the perceptions, and experiences, of people as they face conditions that
they may interpret as threatening and beyond their routine coping ability.
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