Verification of the Three-Stage Stress Model

Research Proposal Title: Verification of the Three-Stage Stress Model Author: Hirotaka Kawasaki Mail : [email protected] Date: 2025/11/14 21:30 Background Stress is a psychological and physiological phenomenon deeply connected to individual emotions and behaviors, reflecting the process of adaptation to external environments (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Selye, 1956). Traditional stress theories, such as Lazarus & Folkman’s (1984) cognitive appraisal model and Selye’s (1956) General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS), have systematically explained the process from stress occurrence to coping. The cognitive appraisal model demonstrates that stress responses arise during the process of evaluating external events as threats or challenges and judging coping resources (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). On the other hand, Selye (1956) organized the nonspecific reactions of the organism to external stimuli as “General Adaptation Syndrome,” providing a framework for understanding stress from both physiological and psychological perspectives. Problem However, these theories rarely focus on the “flow” or “circulation” of stress, and they do not sufficiently explain how stress accumulates within an individual and how it manifests (Gross, 1998; Damasio, 1999). Furthermore, they do not adequately address how stress propagates or is shared within interpersonal relationships and social contexts (Kataoka et al., 2020). Purpose This study aims to complement and reconstruct theoretical understanding of stress, providing new perspectives on temporal and dynamic aspects, as well as on stress expression and propagation. Significance By capturing the flow of stress more dynamically and structurally, this research seeks to theoretically organize the mechanisms of internalization and externalization of stress and connect them to social aspects such as stress propagation and sharing. It attempts to build a theoretical framework with practical applicability, contributing to psychological and social understanding of stress. Proposed Solution Human experience is considered to follow a stepwise process: receiving external stimuli, internal processing, and expressing through behavior or language. This “receive → internalize → express” three-stage model is widely supported in psychology and neuroscience and serves as a basic framework for understanding emotion generation and expression (Gross, 1998; Damasio, 1999) (hereafter referred to as the Three-Stage Model). Stress may also be applicable to this model. If stress is conceptualized as “feel → accumulate → release” (hereafter referred to as the Three-Stage Stress Model), new possibilities for dynamic understanding and intervention design may emerge.