13 Adjustment and Stress · 13.1 Adjustment and stress
13.1.1 Adjustment, frustration, conflict and sources of stress
Adjustment is the continuing process of balancing one's needs against the demands of the surroundings; when a need is blocked we feel frustration, when two incompatible motives pull at once we face conflict (Lewin's types), and any demand that exceeds our ability to cope is felt as stress, which comes from physical-environmental, psychological and social stressors, from big life events and from small daily hassles. Stress reactions, coping and stress management are in PSY-ST-02; appraisal, Yerkes-Dodson and Type A are in MAB-EI-02.
- APPSC Paper I
- Standard level
- 14 min read
- Free
Core facts
- Adjustment: the process by which a person tries to meet his or her needs while dealing with the demands of the environment (other people, work, rules), keeping a harmonious balance. It is continuous, not a one-time state.
- Maladjustment: a lasting failure to strike that balance; shows as persistent anxiety, poor relationships, failure at work or study, and unhealthy defences.
- Frustration: the feeling that arises when a motive or goal is blocked. Sources (Morgan and King):
- environmental: an outside barrier (a bus that does not come, a rule, a natural disaster);
- personal: one's own limits (lack of ability, a physical handicap, unrealistic aims);
- conflict: the blocking comes from another motive inside oneself.
- Frustration-aggression hypothesis: Dollard, Miller and colleagues (1939): frustration leads to some form of aggression. Other reactions to frustration: regression, withdrawal / apathy, fixation (repeating a failed response), displacement of anger, or constructive problem solving.
- Conflict: a state in which a person faces two or more incompatible motives (needs or goals) at the same time; satisfying one blocks the other. Conflict is a psychological stressor.
- Kurt Lewin described three basic conflicts (field theory, 1935); double approach-avoidance was added later by other researchers (Hovland and Sears, 1938):
| Conflict | Choice | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Approach-approach | two attractive goals | two good job offers |
| Avoidance-avoidance | two unpleasant goals ("devil and deep sea") | study for an exam or fail it |
| Approach-avoidance | one goal with good and bad sides | a well-paid post in a far-off place |
| Double approach-avoidance | two goals, each with good and bad sides | choosing between two colleges, each with merits and drawbacks |
- Stress (the definition APPSC used in 2023): the pattern of responses an organism makes to a stimulus event that disturbs its equilibrium and exceeds a person's ability to cope.
- Stressor: the event or demand that causes stress. Stress is the reaction.
- Hans Selye, the "father of stress research", defined stress as the non-specific response of the body to any demand. He split it into eustress (positive, useful stress, the level that energises and helps performance) and distress (harmful, excessive stress).
- Three types of stress / stressors (NCERT):
- Physical and environmental: physical demands (overwork, lack of sleep, poor diet, illness) and environmental conditions (noise, crowding, pollution, heat or cold, natural disasters).
- Psychological: generated in our own mind: frustration, conflicts, internal pressures, social pressures.
- Social: arise from interaction with others: death or illness in the family, strained relationships, trouble with neighbours, a break-up, social events such as parties.
- Three sources of stress (NCERT): life events, hassles and traumatic events.
- Holmes and Rahe (1967): Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS), 43 life events scored in life change units; death of a spouse is highest (100). Details and scoring are in MAB-EI-02.
- PSLES (Presumptive Stressful Life Events Scale): the Indian life-events scale, Singh, Kaur and Kaur (1984), 51 events rated for Indian adults; death of a spouse again stands at the top, and sudden accidents or trauma rate higher than routine events such as examinations.
- Daily hassles: small, everyday irritations (traffic, queues, misplaced things, quarrels at home). Hassles Scale: Kanner, Coyne, Schaefer and Lazarus (1981), who also listed uplifts (small pleasant events). Hassles predict health problems better than major life events.
- Traumatic events: extreme events (accidents, fires, violent crime, earthquakes) whose effects can last long and may lead to post-traumatic stress symptoms.
Explained
1. What a well-adjusted person shows
| Feature | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Awareness of own strengths and limits | realistic goals, accepts self |
| Flexibility | changes plans when the situation changes |
| Balance of needs and demands | meets duties without denying own needs |
| Good relations | gets along with family, peers, seniors |
| Problem-solving outlook | faces difficulties instead of escaping them |
Adjustment has two sides: changing oneself to fit the surroundings (accommodation) and changing the surroundings to fit oneself. Adjustment is judged against age, culture and the situation: behaviour that is adjusted in one setting may not be in another.
2. Frustration in daily life. A student who misses a rank by two marks (personal source), a farmer whose crop fails in a drought (environmental source), a young man who wants to marry by choice but also wants his parents' approval (conflict source). The feeling is the same (blocked goal), the source differs.
Reactions to frustration
| Reaction | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Aggression | attack on the barrier or someone else | shouting at the conductor |
| Displacement | anger turned on a safer target | angry at the boss, scolding a child |
| Regression | going back to childish behaviour | an adult sulking or crying like a child |
| Withdrawal / apathy | giving up, losing interest | dropping out after repeated failure |
| Fixation | repeating the same failed response | pushing a jammed door again and again |
The 1939 hypothesis was later softened (Miller, 1941): frustration creates a readiness for aggression, but other responses are possible, and aggression has causes other than frustration.
3. Lewin's conflicts, which is hardest?
- Approach-approach is the easiest to solve: once one goal is chosen, the other loses pull.
- Avoidance-avoidance is the most unpleasant: the person tends to vacillate or try to escape ("leave the field") instead of choosing.
- Approach-avoidance produces vacillation: as the goal gets near, the fear grows faster than the attraction, so the person moves forward and then backs off (Miller's gradients: the avoidance gradient is steeper than the approach gradient).
- Double approach-avoidance is the common real-life form: most choices carry gains and losses on both sides.
4. Psychological stressors in detail (NCERT's four)
| Stressor | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Frustration | a need or goal is blocked | failing an interview |
| Conflict | two incompatible needs or motives | career vs family wishes |
| Internal pressures | our own beliefs and expectations of ourselves | "I must top every exam" |
| Social pressures | demands from people around us | relatives pushing for marriage or a job |
Do not confuse "social pressures" (a psychological stressor: the pressure we feel inside) with "social stress" (a stressor from interaction: a death in the family, a quarrel with neighbours). Crowding and noise are environmental, not social.
5. Life events vs daily hassles
| Life events | Daily hassles | |
|---|---|---|
| Size | major changes, both good and bad | small, frequent irritations |
| Scale | Holmes-Rahe SRRS (1967); PSLES (India, 1984) | Hassles Scale (Kanner and others, 1981) |
| Logic | any change needs readjustment, so even marriage or promotion counts | the wear and tear adds up day after day |
| Health link | weaker than expected | stronger; hassles predict symptoms better |
Life-event scales add up the scores of events in the past year: the higher the total, the higher the risk of illness. Western scores do not fit every culture, which is why Indian researchers built PSLES with Indian events and ratings.
6. Stress is personal. The same event stresses people differently. What matters is how the person appraises it (a threat or a challenge) and whether he or she believes resources are enough to cope (Lazarus; see MAB-EI-02). This is why the definition says "exceeds a person's ability to cope", not "a bad event".
7. Example. "A probation officer has to choose between a transfer to Visakhapatnam with promotion (but away from family) and staying in Guntur without promotion." Which conflict? Solution. Each option has a gain and a loss: double approach-avoidance. If the question gave only "a promotion in a distant place", it would be approach-avoidance.
Common traps
- ✗ "Stress is the event that troubles us." ✓ The event is the stressor; stress is the pattern of responses to it.
- ✗ "Conflict arises from compatible needs or excessive social demands." ✓ Conflict arises from incompatible motives present at the same time.
- ✗ "Crowding is a social stressor." ✓ Crowding and noise are physical / environmental stressors; social stressors come from relationships (illness in the family, quarrels with neighbours).
- ✗ "Conflict is a social stressor." ✓ Conflict (like frustration, internal and social pressures) is a psychological stressor.
- ✗ "Approach-avoidance means choosing between two bad things." ✓ That is avoidance-avoidance; approach-avoidance is one goal with both good and bad sides.
- ✗ "Lewin gave four conflict types." ✓ Lewin gave three; double approach-avoidance was added later.
- ✗ "All stress is bad." ✓ Selye's eustress is positive; only distress harms.
- ✗ "Only unpleasant life events count on the Holmes-Rahe scale." ✓ Any change counts, including marriage and outstanding personal achievement.
- ✗ "PSLES is the American life-events scale." ✓ PSLES is the Indian scale (Singh, Kaur and Kaur, 1984); the American one is the SRRS (Holmes and Rahe, 1967).
- ✗ "Major life events predict health problems better than daily hassles." ✓ Daily hassles are the better predictor.
Quick revision
- Adjustment = balancing own needs with the environment's demands; maladjustment = lasting failure to do so.
- Frustration = blocked goal; sources: environmental, personal, conflict.
- Dollard and Miller 1939: frustration → aggression; also regression, withdrawal, fixation, displacement.
- Conflict = incompatible motives at the same time.
- Lewin: approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, approach-avoidance (+ double approach-avoidance later).
- Stress = responses to an event that disturbs equilibrium and exceeds ability to cope.
- Selye: eustress (good) vs distress (bad).
- Types: physical-environmental (noise, crowding), psychological (frustration, conflict, internal and social pressures), social (family illness, neighbours).
- Sources: life events, hassles, traumatic events.
- SRRS: Holmes and Rahe 1967; PSLES: Singh, Kaur and Kaur 1984 (India); Hassles Scale: Kanner and others 1981.
Go deeper: Deeper (beyond what APPSC Paper I usually asks)
Deeper Advanced
1. Lewin's field theory. Lewin saw behaviour as a function of the person and the environment, B = f(P, E), in a "life space" of forces. Goals have positive or negative valence; conflict is the meeting of opposing forces of about equal strength. N.E. Miller (1944, 1959) turned this into measurable approach and avoidance gradients, tested with rats in harnesses whose pull towards food or away from shock was measured (J.S. Brown, 1948): the avoidance gradient rises more steeply near the goal, which explains why people "get cold feet" just before a wedding or an exam.
2. Why life events predict illness only weakly. Correlations between SRRS totals and illness are modest (around 0.3). Reasons: the scale mixes desirable and undesirable events, ignores how the person appraises each event, and asks people to recall a whole year, which they do poorly. Later scales (Sarason's Life Experiences Survey, 1978) let people rate each event as good or bad and how strongly; negative events predict health better.
3. Chronic stressors. Long-lasting conditions (poverty, caring for a sick relative, an unsafe neighbourhood, discrimination) may never appear as a single "event" but keep the stress response switched on. Social workers and probation officers meet them in most clients' lives.
4. Optimal stress. Selye's eustress links with the inverted-U of Yerkes-Dodson (MAB-EI-02): too little stress leads to boredom and poor performance (hypostress), too much to breakdown (hyperstress).
Practise this topic. Questions on Adjustment, frustration, conflict and stressors, with answers explained.
All Adjustment and stress notes · APPSC Paper I syllabus · APPSC Paper I Mock 1 with answers · Start free
Medha AI writes its own notes and checks them against the sources listed. Medha AI is an independent preparation service. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to APPSC, TSPSC, MPSC, UPSC or any other commission or government body.