Perceived Stress among Dual-Career Couples across Work-Family Integration Types

Most psychologists define stress as the physiological and psychological response to a condition that threatens or challenges the individual and requires some form of adaptation or adjustment. An early, contribution to stress research was made by Cannon (1932), who described the fight-or-flight response. Cannon described that when any threat is perceived by an organism (animal or human), the sympathetic nervous system and the endocrine glands prepare the body to fight the threat or free from it. He also considered it potentially harmful in the long run, if an organism is not able to fight or free and experience prolonged stress and continuing physical arousal (Sapolsky, 1994).