Category-Specific Stress Mindsets: Beliefs about the Debilitating versus Enhancing Effects of Specific Types of Stressors among Young Adults

Abstract

Recently, research has shown that stress mindsets, or the degree to which people believe that stress is enhancing versus debilitating, impact the ways they process and react to stress. However, young adults encounter various forms of stress, which might elicit different stress mindsets. This study investigated (1) how much young adults think about specific types of stressors as they complete stress mindset measures and (2) how stress mindsets vary across stressor types. Method: Participants (n = 182) completed measures of general and category-specific stress mindsets (academic, interpersonal, identity-based, illness, societal, financial) and rated how much they thought of each category when completing the general mindset measure. Results: Academic stress was the most salient, and identity-based discrimination was the least salient as participants completed the stress mindset measure. Academic stress was perceived as the most stress-enhancing, and illness stressors were rated as the least stress-enhancing. Cisgender women reported stronger stress-is-debilitating mindsets for interpersonal and illness/injury-related stressors as compared with cisgender men. Conclusion: Stress mindset ratings in research studies might be weighted toward certain types of stressors. Further, young adults’ mindsets differ across different stressor categories. This nuance has implications for how we conceptualize stress mindset in interventions and research.