Psychology In The News: Stress And Stress Relievers

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July 18, 2017
Stress and Stress relievers
In the study presented in the article Psychology in the News, the researcher tried to understand how pets could help in relieving the stress levels of people. He based his hypothesis, that pets have a positive emotional impact towards the people who see them, from the introduction of therapeutic dogs aimed at providing emotional support for nursing homes, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities which are usually bombarded with high-stress activities. According to him, if the use of these therapeutic dogs in these situations proves to be successful, then this practice should be used more often to relieve stress. In order to arrive at a conclusion, the researcher used the conceptual variable “stress” defined as the “physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation” (Merriam-Webster.com). As for his operational variable, the researcher utilized a measurement tool of “perceived stress levels”, which is based on the Perceived Stress Scale as used in many other studies of the same topic. Nevertheless, the research was oriented towards solving the issue (applied research) of high-stress levels that are experienced by almost anyone in the world, through a very simple method of caring and bringing our household buddies. In the end, the author was able to conclude that bringing pets indeed have a strong correlation with reducing stress levels. Although in my opinion, more information about the sampling method and research methodology should have been included in the paper since there are a number of factors that could affect a person’s perception of the emotional and mental tension that he/she is experiencing, such as death of a loved one, a financial crisis, or any such events. The sampling method is also important because in order to reach a conclusion that would be applied at the societal level, a proper representative population, must be employed. Going back to the case presented above and being able to recognize that other external factors could affect a person’s perception of stress, another interpretation of this could be: “Only children with pets, measured lower on a measure of perceived stress, while those who do not have measured lower”.
As seen in the stated above, the lack of information about the representation could lead to the interpretation could “only” to children and not to adults. And, since this research is an applied research, then the main goal which is to find an answer that cou...