Hutmacher Fabian
Department of Psychology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
Human-Computer-Media Institute, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2021 Apr 20;12:539799. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.539799. eCollection 2021.
It was not until the middle of the twentieth century that scientists and Western societies began to label the combination of physiological and psychological responses that people display when things are getting too much and out of balance as "stress." However, stress is commonly understood as a universal mechanism that exists across times and cultures. In a certain sense, this universality claim is correct: the physiological and endocrinological mechanisms underlying the stress response are not a modern invention of our body. In another sense, the universality claim is potentially problematic: stress has become, but has not always been, a way to be a person. That is, the social practices, in which the physiological and endocrinological stress mechanisms are embedded, are not the same across times and cultures. Crucially, these social practices are not a negligible by-product, but form an essential part of the way stress is commonly understood and experienced. Against this background, one may still decide to use the word "stress" when speaking about other times and cultures. Nevertheless, one should at least be cautious when doing so for three reasons. First, using the word "stress" when referring to societies different from our own may create the impression of a similarity between then and now, which does not actually exist. Second, it may blind us to the nature of the differences between times and cultures. Third, it naturalizes a contemporary scientific concept, which is more adequately viewed as the result of complex social, historical, and societal processes. Putting the stress concept in historical context and acknowledging that its use emerged in a specific historical environment enables us to take a step back and to think about the ways that stress shapes our lives. In other words, viewing stress as a culture-bound concept can give us the possibility to reflect upon our modern societies, in which the concept emerged.
直到20世纪中叶，科学家和西方社会才开始将人们在事情变得过于棘手且失去平衡时所表现出的生理和心理反应的结合称为“压力”。然而，压力通常被理解为一种跨越时间和文化存在的普遍机制。从某种意义上说，这种普遍性的说法是正确的：压力反应背后的生理和内分泌机制并非我们身体的现代发明。从另一种意义上说，这种普遍性的说法可能存在问题：压力已经成为，但并非一直都是，一种为人处世的方式。也就是说，生理和内分泌压力机制所嵌入的社会实践在不同的时间和文化中并不相同。至关重要的是，这些社会实践并非可忽略不计的副产品，而是构成了人们普遍理解和体验压力方式的重要组成部分。在此背景下，人们在谈论其他时代和文化时仍可能决定使用“压力”这个词。然而，这样做时至少应谨慎，原因有三。首先，在提及与我们自己不同的社会时使用“压力”一词可能会造成当时与现在相似的印象，而实际上并非如此。其次，它可能使我们对不同时代和文化之间差异的本质视而不见。第三，它使一个当代科学概念自然化，而这个概念更应被视为复杂社会、历史和社会进程的结果。将压力概念置于历史背景中，并承认其使用是在特定历史环境中出现的，这使我们能够退后一步，思考压力塑造我们生活的方式。换句话说，将压力视为一个受文化限制的概念可以让我们有机会反思这个概念出现的现代社会。
