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Personal versus situational determination of anticipation and control of the occurrence of stressful life events
Author(s) -
Dohrenwend Barbara Snell,
Martin John L.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/bf00894386
Subject(s) - anticipation (artificial intelligence) , health psychology , situational ethics , psychology , public health , control (management) , social psychology , medicine , computer science , nursing , artificial intelligence
A wide variety of laboratory and clinical studies have indicated that stressful events are most harmful when they are perceived as uncontrollable. However, these studies diverge on the question of whether perceptions of control of stressful events are determined by environmental contingencies associated with the events or by a stable expectancy of the perceiver. In a community study 118 respondents were asked to report stressful life events experienced in the last year and were then asked to what extent they anticipated and controlled the occurrence of each event. Data were collected in two waves 1 year apart. Analysis of the reliability, within each wave, of perceptions of control does not indicate a strong personal expectancy effect. It does show some evidence of environmental determination of perceptions, but this result is not consistent on the two waves. These results are interpreted in relation to the issue of ways of reducing harmful effects of stressful life events.