Stress:  The effect of anything in life to which people must adjust. Stress requires us to adjust our attention and behavior and makes demands on our energy.

 

Stressor: Anything that has the effect of causing stress.
 
Stress Capacity: The amount of stress a person can carry, since each person has some stress in their lives.

 

Stress Load: This refers to the amount, or quantity, of stress a person has in their lives.
                                                Red Cross, 2002

 

 

Constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of a person (Folkman & Lazarus, 1984, p. 141)

 

 ...anything people do to adjust to the challenges and demands of stress… any adjustments made to reduce the negative impact of stress (Red Cross: Community-based Psychological Support, p. 87)

 

 

A pattern of positive adaptation in the context of past or present adversity

Wright & Masten, 2005

 

 

Adversity:  Environmental conditions that interfere with/threaten the accomplishment of age-appropriate developmental tasks

 

Risk:  An elevated probability of an undesirable outcome

 

Risk Factor:  A measurable characteristic in a group of individuals or their situation that predicts negative outcome on a specific criteria

 

Cumulative Risk:  Increased risk due to (a) multiple risk factors present; (b) multiple occurrences of same risk factor; (c) accumulating effects of ongoing adversity

 

Vulnerability:  Individual susceptibility to undesirable outcomes

 

Proximal Risk:  Risk factors experienced directly by the child

 

Distal Risk:  Risk related to a child’s ecological context, but mediated via proximal processes

 

Asset/Resource/Compensatory Factor:  A measurable characteristic in a group of individuals or their situation that predicts general/specific positive outcomes

 

Protective Factor:  Quality of a person/context or their interaction that predicts better outcomes

 

Cumulative Protection:  Presence of multiple protective factors

 

Psychosocial Competence:  The adaptive use of personal and contextual resources to accomplish developmental tasks

 

Developmental Tasks:  Expectations of a society for child’s accomplishments according to stage of development