Risk Behaviours as Stress-Coping Strategies: Implications for Intervention

Abstract

Psychological and behavioural outcomes of stress may take different forms and manifest themselves with varying intensity. Sometimes they remain hidden. At other times clearly observable and even dramatic emotional and behavioural expressions break through. The understanding of these reactions is based on a recognition of three crucial components in the gradual development of the stress process, namely: perception of the threat, efforts to cope and occasional failure of coping. The last two points will be discussed in this paper.