Summary an article and give a conclusion

Literature Review 2 Documents (Group)

Simin (Chicco) Liang

Dezheng Yuan

Department of Business, San Francisco State University

BUS 300GW: Business Communication for Professionals

Dr. Sue Leong

June 29, 2020

Literature Review 2 Documents (Group)

It is reported that 12.9% to 52.8% of Chinese college students have sleep problems (Li et al., 2019, p. 1). As a matter of fact, this problem not only occurs in Chinese college students but also occurs in college students around the world. Firstly, for many college students, attending college is a challenging time. Traditionally, they are young and rely on economic support from their parents (Pedrelli, Nyer, Yeung, Zulauf, & Wilens, 2014, p. 503). Hence, apart from stress related to schoolwork, they may also bear more duties that are similar to adults’ responsibilities. However, they usually do not have the skills and cognitive maturity of adults. Moreover, they may confront potential stressful experiences, including work, an important relationship that probably leads to marriage, or cultural/religious differences (Pedrelli, Nyer, Yeung, Zulauf, & Wilens, 2015). Also, CDC claims that college students are taking other forms of “exams”, apart from the academic exams in class. For example, social and sexual pressure. Accessibility of alcohol, and the appeal of drugs and unhealthy foods (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). The challenge of insufficient sleep and the pressure to strike a balance between class, friends, homework, work, sports, and leadership (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). As the understanding of youth psychological health problems increases, the number of young adults with psychological health problems in college increases significantly. For example, 88% of the consultancy center reported that the number of serious psychological problems increases, including learning obstacles, incidents of self-harm, eating disorders, drug use, and sexual assault (Saleh, Camart, & Romo, 2017, p. 1). The term “stressful event” refers to the things that force people to change their on-going lifestyle (Li et al., 2019, p. 1). The term “stress” can be defined as “inability to cope with perceived (real or imagined) threats to a person's mental, physical, emotional, and mental health, resulting in a range of physiological responses and adaptations” (Oswalt & Riddock, 2007).

Current Research

Evidence is clear that college students experience different types of stress and they do not possess the necessary coping strategies to deal with the stress. Most college students are in the adolescence stage between 12 and 25 years and they are transitioning into adulthood. This is where most of their education takes place. They develop psychological issues because of the various physical changes taking place in their bodies. In college students, the levels of stress are high because they face stress as a result of family issues, relationship issues, school issues, and social issues. This stress if not well managed can lead to physical, psychological, and emotional problems. Li et al. (2019) indicates that it is even hard for students to sleep when they are under stress. From their results, “High scores of stressful life events predicted worse sleep quality”.

A study conducted by Chiu et al. (2019) indicates that positive social support is essential to help university and college students cope with stress. The social support is even more effective when it comes from close friends. During adolescence, it is easy for one to develop high levels of stress and develop depressive symptoms especially when they are exposed to negative life events. Mathew (2017 asserts that interactions and social relationships matter a lot during the time of stress. This is why positive social support is important.

Positive thinking is also essential as a mechanism of coping with stress. A research conducted by Rastogi (2018) to find out how positive thinking helps in managing stress in college students indicates that positive thinking has a positive effect in reducing the level of stress and increases the level of problem solving among adolescents.

Article2 “Social Support from Friends Predicts Changes in Memory Specificity Following a Stressful Life Event”

Stress is present in day to day life and results in negative emotions that affect the nature of retrieval of memories. The exposure to the negative life stressors and failure to address the issues is greatly linked to the difficulty in retrieving memories, especially for specific autobiographical events. Also, the available stressors if allowed to thrive for a long time could result in adverse effects such as the acquisition of emotional disorders that could lead to worse outcomes for the individuals. The failure to retrieve memory is very disadvantageous especially for students since they need the ability to perform well in school and that can only be possible if memory retrieval is unobstructed. Consequently, it is imperative to review the intervention of having social support and positive self-image as a means of protecting against the effects that result from negative life events which could be beneficial for students in dealing with stress to avoid the resultant memory retrieval problem that is very bad for an individual engaging in the learning process.

The exposure to negative life events or stressors has a high probability of resulting in difficulty in retrieving a memory, an analysis that has been viewed as present especially for individuals who get exposed to traumatic events such as assault. Those exposed reveal the presence of reduced autobiographical memory specificity compared to those with little or no exposure. In the educational sectors, studies on student's retrieval rate revealed that the students who were facing stress and reacted to them negatively indicated that their rate of retrieval for specific memories was quite low. Memories are directly associated with the emotions that accompanied them, in this regard, most people tend to avoid memories linked to negative events with the aim of avoiding the emotions they possess (Chiu, Ma, Boddez, Raes, & Barry, 2019). Such behaviors of avoiding the bad memories if used for a long period results in the adoption of a rigid style of avoidance that could be adopted by the system and be applied to all autobiographical memories. Therefore, it is essential to deal with the memories other than avoid them.

Support systems are great reference points when faced with stressful life events as they help in dealing with the stressor. Also, the social support one has is essential in processing the stressful life events and negative emotions associated with them for better handling of the stressor. Similarly, this support enables for better interventions into the life stressors which results in better overall wellbeing and offers protection from the negative effects that may result from these life events. Since the student life is faced with numerous stressors the adoption of a strong social support system could come in handy when trying to get through a negative life event. Therefore, these social systems not only protect the psychological well-being but also mental health and offer a buffer from the negative outcomes that could result from these life events.

The reduction of memory specificity is a very problematic issue that could result in bad outcomes for students, these effects need working interventions that could help deal with the embedded negative effects from stressors before the issue escalates to serious ones. The study conducted was meant to gain insight into the social factors that could be essential in helping avoid the reduction of memory specificity (Chiu, Ma, Boddez, Raes, & Barry, 2019). In this case, social support seems to be very beneficial in the memory specificity for individuals faced with stressful situations. For instance, students perform better in their exams if they are exposed to a social support system when exposed to a stressor compared to those with no support system. Therefore, the rate of retrieval is reinforced when the support system aids in the successful handling of stressors than when the student prefers to avoid these memories.

The perceived social support systems exist in different forms ranging from informational, tangible, emotional, network, and esteem. The support systems offer different perceived supports depending on the nature of support one desires. In this regard, the type of support system referenced should be directly linked to the type of need an individual has for it to be effective. The support that is specific to the stressor is needed, in this scenario performance related socialis recommended in order to issue support to students faced with educational or examination performance-related stressors for them to avoid chances of a decrease in their memory specificity (Chiu, Ma, Boddez, Raes, & Barry, 2019). Also, general support is essential in handling stressors that are not linked to education since stressors may originate from different sources and they result in an effect on also their memory retrieval which is needed for them to have good educational outcomes. Furthermore, the attitudes towards self-play a great role in determining the outcome from stress-related encounters for students, those with positive attitudes handle stress better compared to those with negative attitudes.

Additionally, the support systems present include family, and social friends, the perceived social support depends on the type of support system one believes to have. Every individual has the preferred social support which depends on the level of closeness and the ones that the individuals views as helpful during stressful encounters. For instance, some may believe that family will always be there to guide them while others may believe in their close friends as a source of this support. From the study, it was evident that the specificity of memory retrieval increased when the students under study acquired support from their friends during stressful or negative life events that could affect them. Also, individuals with perceived access to good social support systems that are relevant to the life stressors they experience have a low probability of having problems with the retrieval of specific memories. Similarly, if social support is acquired after experiencing a traumatic or stressful life stressor, the chances of avoidance are low and it is easier to handle the subsequent stress resulting in protection from the acquisition of emotional disorders or reduced memory specificity. Consequently, the presence of social support is crucial in enabling the better processing of negative life events experienced for a better retrieval ability for students.

In summary, the research was conducted to review the effect perceived social support systems had on reduced autobiographical memory. According to the authors, negative life stressors have a profound effect on the retrieval of specific memory on certain life events. The retrieval is affected by the tendency of individuals to avoid memories of these negative stressors other than deal with them resulting in failure of retrieval of other memories, an effect that is very bad for students. The research findings reveal that perceived social support helps individuals better cope with stressors thus avoiding profound effects such as memory disorders. Also, the adoption of a positive self-image allows for better coping thus reducing the effects of the stressors on memory. Social support has a high chance of increasing memory specificity for students facing an exam stressor as compared to those with no perceived social support. Therefore, students should be encouraged to acquire positive support systems and a positive self-image for them to effectively handle life stressors to avoid affecting the specificity of the memory retrieval system.

Article 3 Relationship Between Stressful Life Events and Sleep Quality: Rumination as a Mediator and Resilience as a Moderator (college student, stress, and resilience)

This article investigates the relationship between stressful life events and sleep quality and the role of rumination and resilience in the relationship. Sufficient recovery sleep is critical to physical and mental health. Bad sleep quality is viewed as a predictive symptom of many diseases and closely relates to life quality. In particular, college students are in an essential life period so good sleep quality is significant for them. Driven by this understanding, the authors conducted this study.

To reach this goal, the authors utilized Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Checklist (ASLEC), Conner-Davidson Resilience Scale, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) among 1,065 college students. After they got data, they utilized Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) 20.0 and SPSS Macro process to evaluate complex models including mediators and facilitators to analyze the data. The students came from Jiangsu Province, China, and their psychological health status is good. ASLEC includes 27 items, which can be categorized into six factors: interpersonal relationship, pressure out of learning, punishment, loss, health adaptation, and others (Li et al., 2019, p. 4). Ruminative Responses Scale (RRS) is used to evaluate rumination and includes brooding reflection, and depression-related (Li et al., 2019, p. 4). PSQI is used to evaluate sleep quality, and include seven factors: sleep duration, sleep disturbances, sleep latency, daytime dysfunction due to sleepiness, sleep efficiency, overall sleep quality, and sleep medication use (Li et al., 2019, p. 5). With these methods, the authors distributed questionnaires to the students and avoided periods when students are more likely to encounter stress. For example, the start of a semester, middle semester, and final semester.

The results of the study indicate that highly stressful life events can positively predict bad sleep quality of college students. Rumination partially accelerates the relationship between stressful life events and sleep quality. On the contrary, resilience relieves the impacts of stressful life events on sleep quality by influencing the direct and indirect channels (Li et al., 2019, p. 5).

Based on the results, the authors draw to the conclusion that stressful life events can directly impact the sleep quality of college students and can indirectly influence sleep quality by rumination. On such occasions, the improvement of psychological adaptation may weaken the direct and indirect influence of stressful life events on life quality. Also, the study suggests that four primary emotions (fear, anger, happiness, and sorrow) are related to three core effects (reward, punishment, and pressure) (Li et al., 2019, p. 7). Moreover, the authors prove that people with a higher level of rumination have more negative comments for the past, which may increase cognitive arousal. Cognitive arousal may play an important role in sleep fluctuation (Li et al., 2019, p. 7). Hence, this kind of person is easier to encounter bad sleep quality. As for resilience, under high-level resilience, the influence of daily stressful life evens and rumination on sleep quality can be reduced. In contrast, under low-level resilience, the influence will increase. Moreover, it is evidenced that resilience plays the role of coordinator in college students (Li et al., 2019, p. 7). If resilience is strong enough, the negative impacts of stressful life events will be eliminated. In other words, resilience can be seen as a cushion in the relationship between sleep quality and rumination/sleep problems.

Article 4 Stress and Coping Strategies among College Students – By Dr. Mathew C.P.

The target population in the research is college students. A lot of researches indicate that high levels of stress are common among college students. students encounter different kinds of stress such as the pressure to pass their exams, financial stress, and uncertain future. All these stressors originate from social emotional, physical, and family problems that the students encounter, and in turn affects their academics. 100 undergraduate college students participated in the study. The study extended both theoretical and conceptual literature on stress coping strategies and skills in young Americans in college. The main issue under study is stress coping skills and strategies among college students. according to the author, the way a student handles stress is determined by their stress coping strategies and skills. With the increased stress in college students, it is good to understand their coping strategies they use to manage stress to determine whether they are effective or not. This is the reason this research was conducted to find out students’ level of stress and their coping patterns.

The time or duration of the study are not measured by the researcher. This is an implication that there could have been a potential regency effect by some respondents. However, data was collected using two sets of questionnaires and the duration of the questionnaires is also not provided. The study was conducted in the Colleges of Bangalore city in India and the study involved all undergraduate students between the age of 18 and 21 years. According to the researcher, each college students suffers from various types of stress and they do not have appropriate mechanisms or strategies to cope with the stress. The study was conducted in the Colleges of Bangalore city in India and the study involved all undergraduate students between the age of 18 and 21 years. According to the researcher, each college students suffers from various types of stress and they do not have appropriate mechanisms or strategies to cope with the stress.

This research was conducted because of the increasing levels of stress among college students. evidence shows that among all populations, college students are the ones experiencing high levels of stress and their coping mechanisms are low. The researcher asserts that stress in college students affects different aspects of their life the main one being their academic success. By understanding their stress, it will be easy to develop effective coping strategies that will help the students deal with their stress. There are different researches which have been conducted with the aim of understanding stress levels of college students and the methods they use to cope with stress. Therefore, the researcher conducted this study to find out stress and coping patterns of college students. The researcher used descriptive research method to find out college students’ stress levels and coping mechanisms or patterns. purposive sampling method was used to select the samples used in the study. Students were picked from five colleges in the city. Stress levels were collected through the Perceived Stress Scale implemented by Cohen, Kamarck, and Mermelstein, (1983). Coping levels were collected through the Brief Coping Scale. Data was collected through two sets of structured questionnaires. The first set was meant to understand the levels of stress, and the second pone was meant to understand the coping strategies of students. The findings of the study indicated that the level of stress was at 26.94 which is average and implies that the participants had moderate level of stress. Coping level was scored 48.40 which is an indication that participants had an average level of coping strategies.

Intervention

To relive the first-year students’ stress, SFSU can launch a weekly Drive-in Theater Day campaign. On the one hand, due to the pandemic, first-year students rarely have opportunities to establish a close relationship with their classmates, teachers, and colleges. On the other hand, as newcomers of colleges, first-year students are easier than other students to experience stress. As mentioned, young adults in college are experiencing a critical period in their lifetime and are transiting from teenagers to adults. On such occasions, this is also a critical period for their socialization because their mindset and thinking patterns are shaped. Movie, as a form of media, is a part of socialization agents. Family, peer group, mass media, and school are the major agents of socialization (Macionis, 2016, p. 136). In other words, movies are a good tool to help first-year students to better respond to stressful life events and tackle stress in life. As Li et al. indicate, rumination accelerates the negative impacts of stressful life events on sleep quality while resilience can reduce the negative impacts (Li et al., 2019, p. 2). If students can be guided to develop to acquire more resilience and abandon rumination, their stress level will be lowered down or even drop to zero. Therefore, the weekly Drive-in Theater Day campaign is more effective for this group of students.

The campaign will be held every Tuesday when the stress level is the highest among all weekdays (Herman, 2015). Specialists agree that Tuesday is the most stressful day in a week. Even though Monday is a stressful day because it is the beginning of weekdays, the stress level on Tuesday climbs as most tasks are started from this day. Moreover, there is a long way to go before students reach Friday. Hence, the weekly Drive-in Theater Day should occur in the time when first-year students need them the most.

The theme of some movies should teach first-year students to identify stress and stressful events. Recognizing a problem is the first step to solve it. In this case, it is important for first-year students to have an objective and clear understanding of the stress or possible stress on themselves. Only in this way can they recognize stress and correctly respond to it. For example, terms such as “stress” and “stressful events” mentioned above can be learned from movies. Physical symptoms of stress include fatigue, digestive problems, sleep difficulty, chest pain, muscle pain or tension, and having a headache (Pedrelli, Nyer, Yeung, Zulauf, & Wilens, 2014, p. 508). Emotional symptoms of stress include depression or sadness, irritability, restlessness, and anxiety (Pedrelli, Nyer, Yeung, Zulauf, & Wilens, 2014, p. 508). Apart from these, stress has behavioral symptoms and cognitive symptoms too. If students have these symptoms but cannot identify the underlying cause of these symptoms, they will miss the opportunities to Movies such as The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Silver Linings Playbook, Ghost World, and Girl, Interrupted is about stress and depression. Watching these movies, they not only know what stress is and know what it looks like in real life. Hence, when encountering stress, they can immediately know and take action.

On weekends, movie review activities will be held to help first-year students establish their social network and improve their social life. According to the CDC, college students can establish a friend support network so that they may prevent anxiety and stress (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). Extracurricular activities are a good choice to make new friends. The movie review activities are extracurricular activities that can facilitate students to meet people with similar preferences. Also, the CDC points out that keeping active is effective to prevent anxiety and stress (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). The movie review activities encourage first-year students to reckon and think deeply about various dimensions of a movie. On such occasions, their minds can keep active. The activities are not compulsory so students can attend freely.

The mechanism of this campaign includes compulsory movies and movies on demand. As for the first type of movies, viewers could not choose what to watch because they will have to watch movies related to stress, anxiety, and other kinds of negative emotions, and comedies. Comedies can make views happy and laugh directly. This is also an effective way to coordinate emotions and reduce stress (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). As for the second type of movie, students can vote for the movies that they want to watch in the next week. Also, they can demand a specific movie and invite some people to watch. For example, a class can demand a specific movie such as Forrest Gump and watch it together. On such occasions, the first-year students can proactively get closer to their friends, and groups’ cohesion can be strengthened by these activities.

In short, the intervention plan is called the "Drive-in Theater Day campaign". It will be held every Tuesday at SFSU and it targets the first-year student in SFSU. The themes of some movies are about stress, in order to guide newcomers to identify stress and manage it. Also, some other movies will just be comedies, in order to better the emotional status of viewers. Along with the campaign, movie review activities will be held during weekends. The activities are to encourage first-year students to expand their social network and keep thinking actively. Also, students can vote for or demand a specific movie for some people, such as their classmates or friends. Group cohesion can make students have more social support for responding to stress.

Budget

	Quantity	Cost
place	parking lot
Promotion	Weekly
Materials	a projector, speaker

References

Chiu, C. H., Ma, H. W., Boddez, Y., Raes, F., & Barry, T. J. (2019). Social Support from Friends Predicts Changes in Memory Specificity Following a Stressful Life Event. Memory, 27(9), 1263-1272. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2019.1648687

Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019, March 21). College health and safety. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/family/college/index.htm

Herman, L. (2015, March 31). This is the most stressful time of the week, says science. Here's how…. Retrieved from https://www.themuse.com/advice/this-is-the-most-stressful-time-of-the-week-says-science-heres-how-to-get-through-it

Li, Y., Gu, S., Wang, Z., Li, H., Xu, X., Zhu, H., Huang, J. H. (2019). Relationship between stressful life events and sleep quality: Rumination as a mediator and resilience as a moderator. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10(348), 1-9. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00348

Macionis, J. J. (2016). Sociology (13th ed.). Pearson.

Oswalt, S. B. & Riddock, C. C. (2007). What to Do About Being Overwhelmed: Graduate Students, Stress and University Services. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ899402.pdf

Pedrelli, P., Nyer, M., Yeung, A., Zulauf, C. & Wilens, T. (2014). College students: Mental health problems and treatment considerations. Academic Psychiatry, 39(5), 503-511. doi:10.1007/s40596-014-0205-9

Saleh, D., Camart, N. & Romo, L. (2017). Predictors of stress in college students. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(19), 1-8. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00019

Rastogi, R., Chaturvedi, D. K., Satya, S., Arora, N., Singh, P., & Vyas, P. (2018). Statistical

analysis for effect of positive thinking on stress management and creative problem

solving for adolescents. Proceedings of the 12th INDIACom, 245-251. https://DOI: 10.1080/09658211.2019.1648687

Mathew, C. P. (2017). Stress and coping strategies among college students. IOSR Journal of

Humanities and Social Science, 22(8), 40-44. https://DOI: 10.9790/0837-2208044044