Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 491
Same news, different threat
The Transactional Model explains stress through changing appraisals of stakes, control, resources, and coping options rather than through the event alone
Premise
The same organizational event can be threatening, challenging, or largely irrelevant to different people. The Transactional Model of Stress and Coping locates stress in the evolving relation between person and environment: what is at stake, what resources appear available, what can be done, and how those judgments change as the encounter unfolds.
A restructuring announcement therefore cannot be classified as a uniform “stressor” simply because it is consequential. One employee may see career opportunity and influence; another may anticipate identity loss and have no credible information about role security. Communication changes stress partly by changing what the situation means and which options appear possible.
What the model is: Transactional Model of Stress and Coping in Knowledge →
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainRisk, Crisis & Safety
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.
- KnowledgeTransactional Model of Stress and Coping
- Key conceptEmotion-focused coping
- Key conceptPrimary appraisal
- Key conceptProblem-focused coping
- Key conceptSecondary appraisal