College Students and Stress - A Basic Overview
Different adverse consequences of experiencing stress in young individual's life raise the question of identifying the critical period during which the young individuals become more vulnerable towards stressors than individuals belonging to the other phases of development. Different psychologists and theorists conclude that there is a strong correlation between college students and stress on the basis of increasing evidence of violence and homicide prevalent mostly among college students from first and second year.
Prevalence of Violence during College Years
In recent years, there is an increasing evidence of high school violence around the nation including shooting sprees, which, as explained by different thinkers and psychologists, is a by-product of experiencing negative life events. Following these catastrophes, researchers become ever more interested to know whether these young individuals overreact in terms of breaking into anger, anxiety or depression in contrast to old peers. Violence of college students and experience of stress are directly linked up with each other in many aspects, leading to form a reciprocal relationship between large numbers of dependable factors.
Effect of Stress over Mental Health
Researchers like Pamela Jackson, a social psychologist from the Duke University, argue that negative life events and psychological distress are the most common variables, contributing to the association between violence of college students and stress experience. During her research, she conducted a survey with 863 undergraduate students. In the survey, the students need to indicate their degree of anger or hostility, anxiety and depression corresponding to 50 life events by using sub-scales, measuring the quantitative value of their mental health status.
The study reveals several sub-factors such as close or romantic relationship, racial identity, school events, academic performance, physical assault, and peer attention categorized under negative life events and psychological distress. In addition, affinitive opportunity and being physically approached are two significant variables that lead to experience intense stress and college students sometimes lack the mastery to cope up with it, eventually leading towards violence.
Freshman at Higher Risk
The findings from the research conducted by Pamela Jackson also affirm that the freshman college students and stress experience as well as reaction to stress events have more significant correlation than that of senior college students. The freshman reported about the negative events much more emotionally distressful than it was reported by older students in college. In addition, the findings also suggest that the sophomores and juniors are also affected profoundly with stressful life events; however, the risk is always higher with the freshman.
Anger or Hostility - The Most Common Reaction to Stress
Research findings also suggest that the anger and hostility are the most common reaction to stress experienced as a result of negative life events by the college students. In fact, the degree of anger and hostility are much higher compared to other indicators such as depression and anxiety as the primary mode of reaction to stress. Affinitive opportunity leads the young individuals experience different negative life events that consequently turn them to react violently. In this context, we can recall the shooting extravaganza in 1997 by Luke Woodham at Pearl High School, which happened following a breakup with a girlfriend.
