The impact of stress on attitudes to change
The most commonly definitions of stress may be categorized into three types (Beehr
and Franz, 1987). The first type is stimulus-based which considers stress as a
situational or environmental based stimulus, impinging on the person. The second type
is response-based, defining stress as an individual’s psychological or physiological
response to environmental/situational forces. The third definition, which is adopted for
the purposes of the present study, applies an interactive approach often called the
stressor-strain approach. It brings together the concepts put forward in the first two
definitions in the sense that it defines stress as both the stimulus (source of stress or
stressor) and the response (outcome or manifestation of stress or strain). Theories
based on this definition are usually considered to be superior since they offer a more
“complete” view of the dynamics of stress and can account for documented differential
experiences within a single situation (Arnold et al., 1995).