Question: The Nature of Stressful Experiences Think about the last significant stressful experience you had on the job or at school. For the experience you have chosen, do the following:
1. Describe the experience and the surrounding circumstances.
2. Explain whether the experience was stressful because it entailed an opportunity or a threat. What was the opportunity or threat?
3. Describe your feelings when you first encountered the source of stress.
4. Describe the
(a) physiological,
(b) psychological, and
(c) behavioral consequences of the stress.
5. Describe how you actually coped with the stressor in a problem-focused manner.
6. Describe how you actually coped with the stressor in an emotion-focused manner.
7. Describe how your employing organization or university helped you cope with the stressor. If your employing organization or university did not help you cope with the stressor, do you think it should have? How?
8. Describe the extent to which your coping efforts were successful in helping you deal with the source of stress and with your stressful feelings and emotions.