How Individual Differences Affect Stress
One of the most significant problems involved in stress management is the fact that it always starts as a personal experience. Many individual differences affect the extent to which an individual begins those experiences (Matthiesen, & Einarsen, 2015). Also, it is worth mentioning that people’s stress experiences differ from individual to individual, meaning managing them must take an individual dimension. An individual has no control over when to experience these differences. Therefore, they can come at any stage of an individual’s life. Recognizing the fact that these differences have the potential to cause stress is an excellent opportunity to identify and manage them at their onset.
Many individual differences exist that affect stress. They fall under four fundamental categories: life stages, main personal events, daily grind, and personal resilience. Stages in a human being’s life start childhood to adulthood, and all these stages are associated with pressures in an individual’s life. For instance, when an individual wants to find his/her identity at an adolescent stage, or when an individual wants to deal with the adjustments in his life after retirement, they may experience stressful situations. According to Van Deursen et al. (2015), there are several stages in an individual’s life, including births, deaths, redundancies, divorce, among many others. Worse of all is the fact that these events go beyond an individual’s control, and as a result, they become difficult to manage.
Concerning the daily grind, Matthiesen & Einarsen (2015) argue that two people cannot have the same experience in a day. Necessarily, some small happenings may happen, and in the long run, their collective effect on an individual’s life may be grave to cope up. Lastly, personal resilience is another difference for consideration. According to Van Deursen et al. (2015), people’s ability to manage a stressful experience differs from one person to another. The better they manage their tension and energy, the lesser they can face stress.
References
Matthiesen, S. B., & Einarsen, S. (2015). Perpetrators and targets of bullying at work: Role stress and individual differences. Perspectives on Bullying: Research on Childhood, Workplace, and Cyberbullying, 22(6), 135. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stale_Einarsen/publication/13752685_Harassment_in_the_Workplace_and_the_Victimization_of_Men/links/55f6cd3a08aeba1d9eed7f52/Harassment-in-the-Workplace-and-the-Victimization-of-Men.pdf
Van Deursen, A. J., Bolle, C. L., Hegner, S. M., & Kommers, P. A. (2015). Modeling habitual and addictive smartphone behavior: The role of smartphone usage types, emotional intelligence, social stress, self-regulation, age, and gender. Computers in human behavior, 45, 411-420. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Piet_Kommers/publication/271041232_Modeling_habitual_and_addictive_smartphone_behavior_The_role_of_smartphone_usage_types_emotional_intelligence_social_stress_self-regulation_age_and_gender/links/59e669fcaca2721fc227a977/Modeling-habitual-and-addictive-smartphone-behavior-The-role-of-smartphone-usage-types-emotional-intelligence-social-stress-self-regulation-age-and-gender.pdf