Clarification of Psychological Change and Development in Stressful Situations

Abstract

Previous studies about stress suggested that stressors are associated with positive feelings when they are regarded as “challenge”. In such cases, the stressors can contribute to one’s mental health as eustress related to positive feelings and healthy physical states. This study conducted a questionnaire in the form of free description focusing on people’s awareness of stress and mental and physical stress responses. The purpose of this study is to clarify characteristics of stressful situations which lead to positive psychological change and development by analyzing descriptive data. Free description acquired from the questionnaire was analyzed by means of co-occurrence network and self-organizing maps. The analysis of the free-description revealed the characteristics of eustress and distress, stress regarded as threat or challenge, and thoughts, behaviors, and situations in the process of changing the evaluation of stress. From the results of analysis, it can be said that even in a stress situation that feels like a “threat”, the situation can be re-evaluated as a “challenge” by causing a positive psychological transformation that raises confidence in problem sol-ving.