Exploring the perception of stress in childhood and early adolescence.

Stressful life experiences may jeopardize the healthy development of children. To improve interventions, more knowledge is needed on the perception of stress by children. In adults, stress is regarded as a state of low valence and high arousal. It is unclear whether children perceive stress similarly. In the current study, 35 children of the general population completed three tasks aiming to provide insight into their knowledge of the concept stress. In the first task, participants were asked about their verbal knowledge of the concept stress. In the second task, they rated the valence and arousal of eight emotion-evoking vignettes. In the final task, participants completed an experience sampling survey for at least 1 day, consisting of a stress thermometer and pictorial scales of valence and arousal. Participants' perception of stress was found to be mainly valence focused. Age and sex were found to play a role in the degree of arousal focus. Older participants differentiated more in arousal levels than younger participants, as did girls in comparison with boys. Because the perception of stress depends on developmental and other individual factors, using stress as a single measurement dimension in a survey is not recommended.