Felt Anxiety

Beth Howard’s article from the U.S. News and World Report talks greatly about how mental health and anxiety is becoming a big issue on university campuses. For many decades, U.S. News and World Report has been a well known news source because of it’s impressive ranking and annual reports of colleges and graduate schools. Howard outlines what certain prestigious colleges around the nation are doing to combat the issue; such as Harvard, Cornell, and Columbia, as well as many state universities. She reiterates ideas like meditation, counseling and even playing with dogs that are helping students cope with stress and anxiety. Howard also brings up many important factors that play a role in students’ anxiety levels and incorporates them together

The participants in this study consist of 100 college undergraduates participating in Social Psychology 242 of Chadron State College. These students are full time students taking at least 12 college credits to +18 college credits. These students were picked at random, because this study uses random sampling. The students were not limited on basis of participation in clubs, work field, major, or years of college completed. Each student gave a self report of whether or not time management and organization are factors in their stress.

Secondary appraisal is a perception regarding our ability to cope with an event that follows primary appraisal. He needs to decide if he can cope or not. If he decides he cannot cope he will experience too much stress which is not good for him. If he decides to cope he can do so in different ways. He could choose to deal with problem focused coping (a strategy in which we tackle life’s challenges head-on) or emotion-focused coping—a strategy in which we try to place a positive spin on our feelings or predicaments and engage in behaviors to reduce painful memories (Pearson

Children and adolescents are faced with developmental tasks at many points as they grow up, but there are a few stages in life when young people meet multiple challenges all at once. The transition from high school to college is one of those critical developmental periods. It is an exciting time that typically leads to considerable gains in maturity, but it is also a time during which many adolescents experience difficulties. This transition is an important event for families as well, because the family unit must navigate significant changes in relationships between family members. Again, although most families manage the transition well, it is quite common that they experience difficulties along the way.

Psychological Review, 107(3), 411-429. Turton, S., & Campbell, C. (2005). Tend and befriend versus fight or flight: Gender differences in behavioral response to stress among university students. Journal of Applied Biobehavioral Research, 10(4), 209-232. Wang, J., Korczykowski, M., Rao, H., Fan, Y., Pluta, J., Gur, R. C., McEwen, Bruce S., & Detre, J. A. (2007).

It can be one of the best experiences in a person’s life, but it is a major adjustment from the life that most people live prior to it. With this adjustment comes many types of stress that a college student will face. Whether it is taking out a loan, trying to make my parents proud, or relearning how to make friends, there will always be some sort of stress that comes along with being a college student. The stress that the average college student will endure can seem to be overwhelming at times, but these stresses are part of the learning experience of college and overcoming them will teach us valuable lessons that will help us in whatever we

Theoretical Background This study is anchored on Folkman & Richard Lazarus’ cognitive appraisal approach. Cognitive appraisal means to focus more on psychological stress that develop to our mind and body in a build of cognitive psychology (Ciccarelli & White, 2012). Richard Lazarus defined stress as a two-way process; it involves the production of stressors by the environment, and the psychophysiological response of an individual subjected to these stressors.

The concept on emotion focus coping examines the emotional response to the stressor. This, strategies used to relieve or regulate emotion impact of stressful situation. Everyone faces stress at some point in their lives or in their job. With the help of coping strategies, or a conscious effect to resolve these personal or impersonal issues that may overcome or minimizes the way to calm our minds and bodies after the stressor has taken its toll on us. In the above question we looked on emotional focused coping where these changes can affect a person's emotional response to the stressor.

Students face various challenges throughout their college career. Thus, the problems that students have can range from balance, new lifestyle, to financial problems. Therefore, finding a balance between being a student, possibly working, and keeping up with their social life is a necessity. Similarly, others are away from home for the first time thus, they have a new responsibility with being on their own and findings ways to deal with homesickness. Likewise, being exposed to new financial situations is yet another challenge college students will need to learn how to cope with.

Theories on Stress Stress has generally been viewed as a set of neurological and physiological reactions that serves an adaptive function (Franken, 1994). Traditionally, stress research has been oriented toward studies involving the body 's reaction to stress and the cognitive processes that influence the perception of stress. However, social perspectives of the stress response have noted that different people experiencing similar life conditions are not necessarily affected in the same manner (Pearlin, 1982). There are societal and cultural influences of stress. Hans Selye (1982) points out that few people define the concept of stress in the same way or even bother to attempt a clear-cut definition.

A situation in which I had a challenging communication interaction was with my sister. The issue was concerning her personal finances and how to proceed in assisting her with her finances. The communication breakdown came as result of us having a difference of opinion about how to approach her finances particularly as it relates to her living situation. Although we were raised in the same household, we hold differing opinions on many issues particularly when it comes to dealing with finances. She is currently an undergraduate student living on her own with a roommate paying about half of the rent.

Which is one of the Lazarus and Folkman’s two kinds of group of strategies in Transactional theory that people use when they came face to face with stress: Concentrating on emotions or concentrating on the problems (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Problem focused coping consists of the particular behaviors, using instrumental support, and the plans to end the stress that derived from the problem. In emotion focused coping, the concentration is on the reappraisal of the stress factors, using some cognitive strategies and applying friends or family to take emotional support. Differences in the locus of control may predict the preferred coping styles.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The results of the study are presented in Table 1. Table 1 revealed that the coping strategies in each academic challenge have been ranked and were given verbal interpretation.

individual differences final issue addressed concerns the role played in the coping process .There are two ways to think about how might influence individual differences in coping. The first, there are stable coping "styles" or "dispositions" that students bring with them to the stressful situations that they encounter. According to this view, students do not approach each coping context anew, but rather bring to bear a preferred set of coping method that remains relatively fixed across time. it locks the person into one modality of responding rather than allowing the person the freedom and flexibility to change response with changing fortune, because Such a view suggests that the development of a coping style would at best be counterproductive.

Thus, stressors affecting students can be categorized as academic, financial, time or health related, and self- imposed (Goodman, 1993). Academic stressors include the student’s perception of the extensive knowledge base required and the perception of an inadequate time to develop it ((Carveth et al, 1996). Students report experiencing academic stress at predictable times each semester with the greatest sources of academic stress resulting from taking and studying for exams, grade competition, andthe large amount of content to master in a small amount of time (Abouserie, 1994). College students have many obstacles to overcome in order to achieve their optimal academic performance. It takes a lot more than just studying to achieve a successful college career.