Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Background of the Study

This research was conducted in order to find out the effects of stress on the

decision making of the respondents. This was created in order to know the different

ways we can help the students on how to manage stress, and it aims to find solutions to

the roots of these problems through interviews, surveys, and the research related

literature and studies that may help in enumerating the factors of stress among our

respondents. We chose this topic because stress is one of the most common problems

among students, especially for people such as Grade 11 students since a lot of us are

still adjusting to our current school’s work pace. Also, Gladies and Kennedy (2011)

stated that “Stress is an inescapable reality of most working environments.”

First of all, what is stress? According to Cox (1978), “The word “stress” is derived

from the Latin word stringere which means to draw tight.” (cited in Furnham 2005, p.

354). Also, according to Rahul Sharma et al (2015), “The term stress means an

imbalance between the mental and emotional levels of an individual.’’

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 Stress can have varying levels on different people since we have different

environments at home, but stress can worsen at school since this means that our

respondents will need to adjust again from their environment at home and at school.

Rahul Sharma et al (2015) also stated that “Stress reason out due to various

external and internal factors, makes a periphery around a persona. In recent times it is

observed that the stress levels are gaining the momentum in the organizational working

frame” (p.184).

We will have two types of students: Introverts and Extroverts. Unlike the common

misunderstanding which states that introverted people are antisocial or loners,

introverted people only need some alone time in order to recharge their energies.

Extraverts, more commonly called as extroverts, are the opposite of introverts. They

need people around them in order to recharge their energies. CASEYMDOZA of

VINAZINE (2017) stated that “Extroverts are oftentimes generalized as being inherently

social, when in reality, extroversion just means gaining energy by being around other

people. Extroverts with social anxiety, however, become more anxious when around

groups of people”.

Since they have different personalities, there may be different causes of stress

and different effects on the decision making of these individuals. Our difference on

experiencing stress can also be measured through our patience. This can be proven by

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the statement of Cartwright and Cooper (1997, cited in Levy 2010) saying that “Stress

refers to any force that pushes a psychological or physical function beyond its range of

stability, producing a strain within the individual” (p. 291).

If a person is strained, this means that they are more likely to do bad decision

making which leads to bad performance of students, specifically our respondents. Just

like what Bhagat et al (1995, cited in Levy 2010) stated; “Strains on the other hand are

undesirable personal outcomes resulting from the combined stressful experiences of

various life domains.” (p. 291).

Another statement of Levy (2010) says that stress leads to strains, and that

employees who are particularly stressed at work can experience sickness, low quality

performance, increased absence and poor communication and many other strains (p.

291).

Since our respondents are in grade 11, a lot of our respondents will be minors.

Since they are still in their growing stages in life, prevention of these sicknesses can be

done by preventing strains, and to prevent these strains, we must first address the root

of the problem: stress. Our research will be able to help our respondents and other

beneficiaries by finding the appropriate solutions to issues such as low-quality

performance, absenteeism, and most importantly, decision making.

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Statement of the Problem

The aim of this research is to find the main reasons of stress and to help the

respondents manage stress for better decision making. More specifically it seeks to

answer the following questions:

1. What are the effects of stress on the students?

2. What are the factors that can help reduce their stress?

3. What are the factors that can help prevent stress?

Significance of the Study

This study provides various significance of the study for the purpose of the

information to the following:

Student. The student will have more knowledge about stress on how it affects

to their decision making. To help them to be productive and successful life and how to

manage stress.

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 Teachers. To help the teachers to know the sides of the students who

experience stress on their decision making. It helps to the teacher to have enough

knowledge to apply on their students.

Parents. To help them know the situation what their child are facing right

now. To help their children to encourage them to spend their time in outdoor activities or

household chore.

Researcher. This study will serves as a guide and reference for the future

researcher that attempts to make their own research about this topic. This study is

beneficial to researchers because their research will become easier and make them

discover the other things that they not yet know for better decision making.

Scope and Delimitation

The purpose of the study is to determine the effects of stress to the decision-

making of the respondents. The study was conducted at PHIMA UPang College of

Urdaneta. This study limits its coverage on the Grade 11 ABM 04A. The range of the

study was from June to October 2019. The study is largely dependent on the honesty,

sincerity and integrity of the respondents.

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Definition of Terms

In this study we used these words in order to understand easily our research topic.

Anxiety - a feeling of fear or nervousness about what might happen.

- this is used as an example to the related disorders of stress.

Depression - a state of feeling sad.

- this is used to consider as an example of the effects of stress.

Effects - a change which is result or consequence of an action or other cause.

Extrovert - an outgoing person who gains energy from people around them.

Introvert - a person who needs to have some alone time in order to gain energy.

Persona - a person’s personality.

Stimulus - an outside force acting upon an object or living thing.

Strains - the unwanted outcomes of stress.

Stress - the outcome or result of having too much stimulus that a person

cannot handle.

Student - person who will answer the test questionnaires.

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 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

According to Cox (1978), “The word “stress” is derived from the Latin word

stringere which means to draw tight.” (cited in Furnham 2005, p. 354). Also, according

to Rahul Sharma et al (2015), “The term stress means an imbalance between the

mental and emotional levels of an individual. Meanwhile, Cartwright and Cooper (1997,

cited in Levy 2010) saying that “Stress refers to any force that pushes a psychological

or physical function beyond its range of stability, producing a strain within the individual”

(p. 291).

In accordance to these statements, Gladies and Kennedy (2011) said that “Stress

is an inescapable reality of most working environments.”

Rahul Sharma et al (2015) also stated that “Stress reason out due to various

external and internal factors, makes a periphery around a persona. In recent times it is

observed that the stress levels are gaining the momentum in the organizational working

frame” (p.184). Related to this is a statement of Cartwright and Cooper (1997, cited in

Levy 2010) saying that “Stress refers to any force that pushes a psychological or

physical function beyond its range of stability, producing a strain within the individual”

(p. 291).

i
 “Strains on the other hand are undesirable personal outcomes resulting from the

combined stressful experiences of various life domains.” (Bhagat et al 1995, cited in

Levy 2010) (p. 291).

This can be supported by a statement of CASEYMDOZA of VINAZINE (2017)

saying that “Extroverts are oftentimes generalized as being inherently social, when in

reality, extroversion just means gaining energy by being around other people. Extroverts

with social anxiety, however, become more anxious when around groups of people”.

Balleine (2007) stated that decision making refers to the ‘ability of humans and

other animals to choose between competing courses of action based on their relative

value of consequences.’ In accordance with this definition, the most popular tasks that

assess decision making, for example in patients with neuropsychological impairments,

comprise two or more options. Such tasks have also been applied to healthy

participants to investigate personality and other individual factors that could potentially

influence decision making. These decision-making tasks have also been used to

experimentally investigate the effects of stress on decision making.