Je vertrek voorbereiden of je verzekering afsluiten bij studie, stage of onderzoek in het buitenland
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Besides the fact that adolescent girls report more stress compared to boys, they may also be more vulnerable to the negative effects of stress, such as anxiety and depression. This is due to processing stress differently. Even though this is known, little is known about how adolescent girls experience stress. This is partly due to problems with the definition of stress in health-related research. Stress tends to be conceptualized and operationalized broadly. This broad range of definitions and operations of the term weakens the internal and external validity of the concept. Because the concept of stress is individualized and ambiguous, the research requires a qualitative approach.
Besides the fact that adolescent girls report more stress compared to boys, they may also be more vulnerable to the negative effects of stress, such as anxiety and depression. This is due to processing stress differently. Even though this is known, little is known about how adolescent girls experience stress. This is partly due to problems with the definition of stress in health-related research. Stress tends to be conceptualized and operationalized broadly. This broad range of definitions and operations of the term weakens the internal and external validity of the concept. Because the concept of stress is individualized and ambiguous, the research requires a qualitative approach.
To describe all of the study’s findings, four categories were identified, namely:
The experience of stress is characterized by three themes:
The girls also talked about how they responded to stressful experiences. Three themes were identified:
The three most discussed stressors were relationships, school, and meeting expectations.
When the girls were talking about previous stressors, one way they had adapted was that they had grown out of it. They did not always know why a previous stressor was no longer a stressor. They said that the situation had changed, or they themselves had changed. They just felt like they had grown out of it. In addition to descriptions of fitting in and feeling more comfortable, most of the teens gave examples of stressors that simply got better, became easier, or no longer bothered them. Adaptation to stress for most girls was about finding their social network, spontaneous changes that resulted in the stressor no longer being stressful, and feeling more comfortable with a former stressor.
Although not many girls said this specifically during their interviews, it was a pervasive theme that seemed to encompass many of the girls’ quotes about their stress. They often made it clear that they were unable to change the stress and they described stress as an external and unavoidable force. They also described their internal physical and emotional reactions to stress as out of their control. The girls did not say that they had learned strategies or techniques that helped them manage stress. Also, when the girls were asked why something was no longer stressful, none of them said it was because they participated in the reduction of the stressfulness or the stressor. This could explain why so many girls choose to escape as a response to stress. Feeling powerless in relation to stress during the adolescent years may contribute to learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is seen as a cognitive process to uncontrollable events in which an individual learns to expect outcomes to be uncontrollable.
Je vertrek voorbereiden of je verzekering afsluiten bij studie, stage of onderzoek in het buitenland
Study or work abroad? check your insurance options with The JoHo Foundation
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