| Course | HLTH 4360 Stress Management and Wellness |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 1 |
| Paper type | Discussion post |
| Length | About 590 words, 4 pages |
| Format | Discussion post, APA 7 citations |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | BS in Public Health |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HLTH 4360 Week 1
Week 1 Discussion: Defining Stress
Stress as a Relationship, Not a Thing: The Transactional Definition, Its Two Rivals and a Lease Renewal Split Into Stressor and Response
The definition I am using comes from Lazarus and Folkman (1984), who describe psychological stress as "a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being" (p. 19). I chose it because it places stress in neither the event nor the body alone. It sits in the fit between what a situation demands and what a person judges they have available to meet it.
That choice matters because two older traditions use the word differently. The stimulus tradition treats stress as something that happens to a person. Holmes and Rahe (1967) built their Social Readjustment Rating Scale on that view, assigning each life event a fixed weight, so that the death of a spouse scored 100 and a change in residence 20, whoever experienced it. The response tradition treats stress as what the body does. Selye (1936) described a common pattern of bodily changes that followed many different harmful agents in rats, and later writers took the response itself as the meaning of stress. Each tradition is internally consistent, but a sentence such as "work is my biggest stress" uses the first sense, while "stress raised my blood pressure" uses the second.
Epel et al. (2018) argue that population studies often measure only one piece of this chain, such as a count of exposures or a single biomarker, and then report the result as "stress." Their point supports keeping the parts named separately even when a study cannot measure all of them.
Here is a worked example, labeled. A tenant receives a lease renewal letter raising her rent by 18%. The letter is the stressor: an event in the environment. Her judgment that the increase threatens her ability to pay for her son's daycare, and that she has no savings to cover the gap, is the appraisal. Her sleeplessness that week and the tight feeling in her chest when she opens her banking app are the response. A neighbor who receives the same letter, but who was already planning to move in with a partner, may appraise it as an inconvenience and show little response at all. On the transactional view, the two tenants faced one stressor and experienced different degrees of stress.
Question for the board: which of the three senses does your assigned textbook use in its glossary entry for stress?
Reply to Tomasz
Tomasz, you defined stress as "the body's alarm reaction." That sentence belongs to the response tradition, and it leaves out the event that set the alarm off. If two people have the same heart rate rise, one after a near miss on the highway and one after climbing stairs, does your definition count both as stress? Selye (1936) described the bodily pattern, but he did not claim that every rise in arousal is stress in the psychological sense. Which source did your definition come from?
Reply to Grace
Grace, you used the Holmes and Rahe scale to show that moving house is stressful. The scale gives moving the same weight for everyone, which is exactly the assumption the transactional view rejects. Your own example, a move you chose for a better job, might be appraised as a challenge rather than a threat. Would you keep the fixed weight, or would you adjust it for how the move was appraised?
References
Epel, E. S., Crosswell, A. D., Mayer, S. E., Prather, A. A., Slavich, G. M., Puterman, E., & Mendes, W. B. (2018). More than a feeling: A unified view of stress measurement for population science. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 49, 146-169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yfrne.2018.03.001
Holmes, T. H., & Rahe, R. H. (1967). The Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11(2), 213-218. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-3999(67)90010-4
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer.
Selye, H. (1936). A syndrome produced by diverse nocuous agents. Nature, 138(3479), 32. https://doi.org/10.1038/138032a0
HLTH 4360 Week 1 instructions, in plain terms
Week 1 of this course poses a deceptively plain question: what is stress? The prompt wants a definition drawn from published research, attributed to its authors, and it expects the stressor kept separate from the response it provokes. Most strong posts name the tradition they are working in, since the word is used in at least three senses across the literature. An example is welcome, provided its parts are labeled so a reader can see which piece is the event and which is the reaction. Sources should be scholarly: the original book or article behind a definition, or a peer-reviewed review of stress measurement. Replies to classmates follow on a later day and should place each classmate's definition in its tradition or test it with a case. Nothing in the thread asks for tips on relaxing, and a post that offers them answers a question nobody set. Quoting the definition with a page number shows it came from the source itself.
Inside the HLTH 4360 Week 1 example
The opening paragraph quotes the transactional definition from the 1984 book, page 19, and explains in two sentences why it places stress in the fit between demands and resources. A second paragraph contrasts it with the stimulus tradition, using the Social Readjustment Rating Scale's fixed weights of 100 for a spouse's death and 20 for a change in residence, and with the response tradition traced to Selye's report on rats. Two sample sentences show how ordinary speech slips between those senses. Epel et al. (2018) then supply the population-science argument for measuring exposure, appraisal and response separately. The worked example follows a tenant whose rent rises 18%, labels each part and adds a neighbor who appraises the same letter as minor. The post ends on a question about the course textbook's glossary entry. The reply to Tomasz tests his definition with stair climbing; the reply to Grace asks whether a chosen move deserves a fixed weight.
Where the marks sit in the HLTH 4360 Week 1 rubric
Discussion grading in Walden courses usually splits the work into how well the initial post is built, the evidence it draws on, the substance of replies and writing mechanics. In a definitional week the first row turns on attribution and precision. A quoted definition with its authors and page earns more than a paraphrase from memory, and a post that names its tradition shows the conceptual grasp graders look for. Evidence credit goes to the primary sources behind each tradition, so citing the original rating scale and Selye's own report is stronger than citing a website that summarizes them. The labeled example is often where marks are won, because it proves the student can apply the distinction rather than restate it. Replies earn their row when they place a classmate's definition or test it with a case it cannot sort. Mechanics include APA entries for a book, a journal article and a one-page letter.
Common HLTH 4360 Week 1 mistakes, and how to avoid them
A frequent problem with this first post is the dictionary opener, which gives a meaning but no research tradition and no author. Another is blending the stressor with the response, as in "stress is when work makes your heart race," which leaves the grader unable to tell which sense is meant. Some posts list every theory in the textbook without choosing one to work from. Choose one definition, quote it exactly and say why you chose it. Set it against at least one rival tradition in a sentence or two. Build an example from ordinary life and label each part in brackets or in plain words. Check that a page number accompanies every direct quotation. When replying, identify the tradition behind your classmate's definition before you question it. A custom post can be built around a different definition, such as a biological one from your assigned reading, keeping the same labeled structure.
Get a HLTH 4360 Week 1 example written to your instructions
Hand over the thread prompt and the rubric, note how many replies the section wants, and a drafted initial post with its replies lands back within 24 to 48 hours. There is no fee for a first custom sample. A required definitional source, named in the request, anchors the draft where an instructor expects it.
More HLTH 4360 papers and BS in Public Health samples
- HLTH 4360 Week 2: Stress Response Mechanism Brief
- HLTH 4360 Week 3: Appraisal Comparison Paper
- HLTH 4360 Week 4: Coping Categories Brief
- HLTH 4360 Week 5: Perceived Stress Scale Note
- HLTH 4360 Week 6: Chronic Stress Literature Summary
- HLTH 4360 Week 7: Job Strain Discussion Post
- HLTH 4360 Week 8: Stress Record Analysis
- HLTH 4360 Week 9: Expressive Writing Evidence Appraisal
- HLTH 4360 Week 10: Bus Operator Setting Analysis
- HLTH 4360 Week 11: Slow Breathing Wellness Paper
- HLTH 4340 Week 1: Fitness Components Post
- HLTH 4320 Week 1: Dietary Reference Intakes Post
- HLTH 4300 Week 1: Personal Risk Narrative
- HLTH 4200 Week 1: Case Definition
HLTH 4360 Week 1 questions, answered
Where can I find a free HLTH 4360 Week 1 sample paper?
A full Week 1 initial post defining stress with the transactional view, a labeled rent-increase example and replies to two classmates appears on this page with four APA references.
What definition of stress does the HLTH 4360 Week 1 example use?
It quotes Lazarus and Folkman's 1984 definition of stress as a relationship between person and environment that the person appraises as taxing or exceeding their resources and endangering well-being.
What is the difference between a stressor and a stress response?
A stressor is the event or demand, such as a rent increase. The response is what the person feels and what the body does afterward, such as poor sleep or a racing heart.
Why does the Holmes and Rahe scale give fixed weights?
It belongs to the stimulus tradition, which treats events as stressful in themselves, so each event carries the same weight for everyone regardless of how the person appraises it.
Did Selye study stress in people?
His 1936 report described a common pattern of bodily changes in rats exposed to many different harmful agents; later writers extended his response-based idea to human stress.