The core concept of “threat” is crucial to the so-called Transactional models of stress. These models are the most recent and sophisticated. They consider stress results from interactions between the person with their environment. Transactional models consider stress to be a perceptual phenomenon. Read and think about the two accounts of an earthquake.

In all situations it is important for a person to be able to estimate what the potential for harm is. In most cases, physical harm will be negligible for two main reasons. First, many immediate hazards have been removed or are not relevant (there are almost never earthquakes in Hong Kong, thank goodness!). Second, many of the less severe hazards are considered avoidable or otherwise manageable. In other words, there are fewer hazards nowadays and those that remain we feel we can control (avoid or manipulate directly) so the risks they pose are not perceived as threatening to us. After a while we stop thinking about or even noticing them.

However, some potential for harm remains. In these cases, the harm is not physical harm, such as being killed, but is social (loss of face), financial (loss of money, particularly in Hong Kong), emotional (loss of loved ones), psychological (loss of confidence, control, esteem), and occupational (loss of job, promotion, pay, etc) harm.

Each moment of each day we are evaluating situations automatically. Some situations are perceived to pose potential harm to us. We perceive other situations as placing a demand on us to respond to reduce or avoid the threat. This process of evaluating how demanding a situation is and if it can be managed is called Primary Appraisal. The responses we make are collectively called coping.

The availability of perceived resources varies from time to time and place to place, and perceived demands also vary. A simple “beam balance” model can account for much of the variation in research findings on stress over the past 50 years. Alternatively you can think of a simple financial management model. If you have $100 and you have a bill for $200, you will not have enough money to pay the bill. If you have $200 and the bill is only $100, you can pay. The first situation illustrates a situation where stress is likely to be experienced. The second situation, where it is not.