environmental press–competence model

a model of stress and adaptation in which adaptive functioning in the environment depends on the interaction between stimuli in a person’s physical and social environment that place demands on that individual (environmental press) and the individual’s competence in meeting these demands, which is shaped by such personal characteristics as physical health and cognitive and perceptual abilities. See also person–environment interaction. [proposed in 1973 by U.S. geropsychologists M. Powell Lawton (1923–2001) and Lucille D. Nahemow (1933–2000)]

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Psychology term of the day

July 27th 2024

primary insomnia

in DSM–IV–TR, a sleep disorder characterized by difficulty in initiating or maintaining a restorative sleep to a degree in which the severity and persistence of the sleep disturbance causes clinically significant distress, impairment in a significant area of functioning, or both. The disorder is not caused by a general medical condition or the effects of a substance and is not exclusively an aspect of another sleep disorder or mental disorder. It is termed insomnia disorder in DSM–5. See dyssomnia. Compare primary hypersomnia.