Occupational psychologist Cary Cooper
“ What I think causes people most stress nowadays is the long-working-hours culture they are involved in. ”
Lack of Control Impacts Stress Levels
An interview with Professor Cary Cooper, Occupational Psychologist, University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology, England
Q: Why do different personalities react differently to stress?
A: Different people cope differently with stress and two different people in the same context will behave differently. And they'll do so, in part, from their early childhood background. We learn our coping strategies in life from our parents. We identify particularly with parents, we see how they deal with situations and we model that kind of behavior.
There is a view that there's a genetic predisposition to coping, that people's kind of armory of coping strategies comes through the genetic of predisposition and tendencies, particularly the aggressive part of their personality that can create stress-related illnesses … I don't agree with that. I think most of our coping strategies come from the environment, particularly our parents. That is, we try a particular way of coping with a particular problem and it either works or doesn't work and we that it's not useful to use that. I believe it's environmentally, not genetically determined.
Q: What is the role of stress in disease?
A: I actually believe that human beings are genetically predisposed to a whole range of illnesses, whether it's heart disease, maybe even mental ill health, immune system failures and so on. And so we're a loaded gun and stress is the trigger mechanism which starts that process. So the object for me as a scientist is to try to identify the triggers that start the process for a genetic predisposition. If we can get the finger as far away from the trigger as possible then the disease process — which may be genetically predisposed — won't start.
Q: Do women experience different stresses than men?
A: Whether they're homemakers or working — and the majority of woman are now working — women still have the main responsibility for looking after child care, for taking domestic responsibility, while the so-called new man does his career. Really in the end the person who's suffering the stress is the woman who has to do the double shift, if she's working or pursuing a career and also looking after the child. Because we don't have a new man, we have some newish men but no new man.
Q: Has new technology helped reduce stress?
A: The new technology's overloading us. It's accessible everywhere, we have e-mails, we have mobile phones that can contact us in any part of our lives, seven day a week, twenty-four hour society. So what was supposed to be the social support devices for us to help us lead this great leisure life, has turned up as another stressor.
