A Systematic Review and Theoretical Framework of Stress Generation in Daily Life

Stress generation describes processes by which individuals actively contribute to the occurrence of stressful events in their lives. Personal characteristics like neuroticism or psychopathology have been found predict the occurrence of major life stressors over several months or years. However, a profound understanding of stress generation over shorter time periods in people’s daily lives is still missing. Here, we integrated recent research on person-environment transactions with the clinical stress generation literature to develop a process model of stress generation. This process model posits that short-term dynamics between momentary personal characteristics and daily hassles are the building blocks for established long-term stress generation effects. To evaluate this model, we conducted a systematic literature search on stress generation in daily life (43 studies, Ntotal = 9’579). Results show that both dispositional traits and dynamic states predict the occurrence of daily hassles, supporting core aspects of the process model. However, future research on stress generation in daily life using measurement burst design, multi-method assessments of momentary state variables, and comprehensive assessments of daily hassles is needed.