Stress Overview - Concepedia

Principles

Definition

Stress is a fundamental concept across various academic disciplines, particularly psychology, biology, and medicine, referring to the physiological and psychological responses of an organism to internal or external demands, challenges, or threats (stressors); it investigates the mechanisms by which these responses occur, their impact on health and performance, and strategies for their management and mitigation.

Ontological type

Physiological Mechanisms

Interventions and Coping

Theoretical Models

Key developments

Key Figures

Arousal and Process Measurement era

Mardi J. Horowitz [1] was a central figure in the Arousal and Process Measurement era, with affiliations at University of California, San Francisco [2] and University of California, Berkeley [3]. His landmark contribution, the Impact of Event Scale: A Measure of Subjective Stress [4], provided a standardized instrument to quantify subjective stress and enabled cross-study comparability in this era. Horowitz [1] advanced the era's measurement infrastructure by promoting integration of behavioral and physiological indices across cohorts at University of California, San Francisco [2] and University of California, Berkeley [3]. The Impact of Event Scale [4] approach, as detailed in Horowitz's 1979 work, became a cornerstone for psychophysiological measurement and cross-disciplinary integration in the era.

Biopsychosocial Integration era

Sheldon Cohen[1], associated with the University of California, San Francisco[3] and Washington University in St. Louis[4], emerges as a leading figure in grounding stress as an interaction among cognition, biology, and social context in the Biopsychosocial Integration era. His key contribution was developing a global measure of perceived stress, as captured in the 1983 paper A Global Measure of Perceived Stress[7], which provided a standardized instrument enabling cross-context assessment and linking subjective appraisal to physiological and behavioral outcomes. Avshalom Caspi[2], associated with Harvard University[5] and Cornell University[6], stands out in this era for illustrating how life stress interacts with genetic variation to shape vulnerability and resilience. His 2003 paper Influence of Life Stress on Depression: Moderation by a Polymorphism in the 5-HTT Gene[8] demonstrates gene–environment interplay in stress-related depression, underscoring the era’s emphasis on linking neural and social pathways to explain individual differences.

Allostatic Multimodal Framework era

Scott J. Russo[1], affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology[3] and Stanford University[4] during this era, contributed to shaping the allostatic multimodal framework. His key contributions in this era derive from the paper A standardized protocol for repeated social defeat stress in mice[7], which provided a standardized method for inducing social stress in rodents and established benchmarks crucial for comparing allostatic load across studies. Gordon J. G. Asmundson[2], affiliated with the University of British Columbia[5] and the University of Guelph[6] during this era, contributed to stress measurement in health psychology. His work on the COVID Stress Scales paper Development and initial validation of the COVID Stress Scales[8] offered a validated instrument for assessing pandemic-related stress and informing prevention and policy within the allostatic multimodal framework.