The reciprocal relations between experiential avoidance, school stressor, and psychological stress response among Japanese adolescents

Kenichiro Ishizu; Yoshiyuki Shimoda; Tomu Ohtsuki

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0188368

The reciprocal relations between experiential avoidance, school stressor, and psychological stress response among Japanese adolescents

PLoS One. 2017 Nov 22;12(11):e0188368. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0188368. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Kenichiro Ishizu¹, Yoshiyuki Shimoda², Tomu Ohtsuki³

Affiliations

¹ University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan.
² Saga University, Saga, Japan.
³ Waseda University, Saitama, Japan.

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the reciprocal relations between experiential avoidance, stressor, and psychological stress response (which consist of anger, depression, anxiety, helplessness, and physical complaints). In this study, 688 Japanese junior high school students (353 boys, 334 girls, 1 unidentified; mean age 13.28 years) completed three waves of questionnaires on experiential avoidance, stressor, and psychological stress response, with one-week intervals between measurement waves. Results from cross-lagged panel analyses showed that experiential avoidance predicted subsequent stressor and psychological stress response. Furthermore, the stressor and psychological stress response influenced by prior experiential avoidance affected subsequent occurrence of experiential avoidance. The findings suggest that reciprocal relations exist among the variables, and that the interaction between experiential avoidance and psychological stress was possible in adolescents.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Asian People*
Avoidance Learning*
Female
Humans
Male
Models, Psychological
Schools*
Stress, Psychological / psychology*

Grants and funding

This work was supported JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP26380875. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.