Individual and social approaches to stress

In her article on stress and wellbeing, Anne Beckham takes an individual approach to stress, locating it firmly within the individual. This is a traditional approach in psychology, and is closely linked to theoretical perspectives including the cognitive, biological, behavioural, humanistic and psychodynamic. Individual approaches to treating and managing stress are based to a greater or lesser extent on these approaches. Whether it’s cognitive reappraisal (taking a different attitude to stressful situations) or interventions at the biological level like meditation or relaxation, we are responding to stress within an individual.

There is nothing wrong with that. It’s all standard, respectable psychology. However, it is interesting to contrast this approach to stress and wellbeing with the social identity approach taken in the article you have just read by Boen and Fransen on wellbeing in athletes. As the authors say, most sport psychology has traditionally taken a very individual approach, but this may now be changing, and there is growing awareness of the role of other people in providing social support for those in stressful situations. In particular, those with shared social identities can powerfully inf luence the wellbeing of group members under stress. So, stress exists in the social environment as well as the individual, and can be tackled on that level too, probably not just in sport but in any stressful context, such as exams.