This article proposes an alternative conceptualization of the processes with which new university students try to overcome the challenges and potential stresses experienced in their movement into the university context. Instead of viewing coping efforts as solely directed towards avoiding stress and enhancing well-being, efforts of overcoming difficulties and stress are to be seen in relation to students’ goal-oriented movement towards becoming students at a particular institution and in a particular field of study. By drawing on the concepts of (hyper)generalized affective semiotic fields, and equifinality and bifurcation points, it is suggested that the process of making sense of a difficult situation is related to the dynamics between well-defined short-term goals and ill-defined long-term goals. In this conceptualization, students not only cope with a specific problem in the here-and-now but make sense of the problem while negotiating their unique trajectory towards more distanced imagined educational outcomes.
ArnettJ. (2015). The Oxford handbook of emerging adulthood. Oxford University Press.
2.
BayramN.BilgelN. (2008). The prevalence and socio-demographic correlations of depression, anxiety and stress among a group of university students. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 43(8), 667–672. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-008-0345-x
3.
BesserA.Zeigler-HillV. (2014). Positive personality features and stress among first-year university students: Implications for psychological distress, functional impairment, and self-esteem. Self and Identity, 13(1), 24–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2012.736690
4.
BewickB.KoutsopoulouG.MilesJ.SlaaE.BarkhamM. (2010). Changes in undergraduate students’ psychological well-being as they progress through university. Studies in Higher Education, 35(6), 633–645. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070903216643
5.
BrancoA. U. (2016). Values and their ways of guiding the psyche. In ValsinerJ.MarsicoG.ChaudharyN.SatoT.DazzaniV. (Eds.), Annals of theoretical psychology: Vol. 13. Psychology as the science of human being: The Yokohama manifesto (pp. 225–244). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21094-0
6.
BrancoA.ValsinerJ. (1997). Changing methodologies: A co-constructionist study of goal orientations in social interactions. Psychology and Developing Societies, 9(1), 35–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/097133369700900103
7.
BrancoA.ValsinerJ. (2010). Towards cultural psychology of affective processes: Semiotic regulation of dynamic fields. Estudios de Psicología, 31(3), 243–251. https://doi.org/10.1174/021093910793154411
8.
BrinkmannS. (2016). Diagnostic cultures: A cultural approach to the pathologization of modern life. Routledge.
9.
BrunerJ. (1996). The culture of education. Harvard University Press.
10.
CabellK. R.ValsinerJ. (2011). Affective hypergeneralization: Learning from psychoanalysis. In SalvatoreS. E.ZittounT. E. (Eds.), Cultural psychology and psychoanalysis: Pathways to synthesis (pp. 87–113). Information Age.
11.
de MattosE.ChavesA. M. (2013). Semiotic regulation through inhibitor signs: Creating a cycle of rigid meanings. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 47(1), 95–122. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-012-9223-x
12.
DenovanA.MacaskillA. (2013). An interpretative phenomenological analysis of stress and coping in first year undergraduates. British Educational Research Journal, 39(6), 1002–1024. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3019
13.
FolkmanS.LazarusR. (1980). An analysis of coping in a middle-aged community sample. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 21(3), 219–239. https://doi.org/10.2307/2136617
14.
FolkmanS.LazarusR. S. (1985). If it changes it must be a process: Study of emotion and coping during three stages of a college examination. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(1), 150–170. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.48.1.150
15.
FolkmanS.LazarusR. S.GruenR. J.DeLongisA. (1986). Appraisal, coping, health status, and psychological symptoms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(3), 571–579. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.50.3.571
16.
GillespieA.ZittounT. (2010). Using resources: Conceptualizing the mediation and reflective use of tools and signs. Culture & Psychology, 16(1), 37–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X09344888
17.
HammerP.MadsenT.TateoL. (2019). I see stress in many places around me, but as such, I’m over it. In TateoL. (Ed.), Educational dilemmas: A cultural psychological perspective (pp. 146–170). Routledge.
HobfollS. E. (2001). The influence of culture, community, and the nested-self in the stress process: Advancing conservation of resources theory. Applied Psychology, 50(3), 337–421. https://doi.org/10.1111/1464-0597.00062
20.
HoldsworthS.TurnerM.Scott-YoungC. (2017). . . . Not drowning, waving. Resilience and university: A student perspective. Studies in Higher Education, 43(11), 1837–1853. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1284193
21.
JensenD. H.JettenJ. (2016). The importance of developing students’ academic and professional identities in higher education. Journal of College Student Development, 57(8), 1027–1042. https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2016.0097
22.
JosephsI. E.ValsinerJ.SurganS. E. (1999). The process of meaning construction: Dissecting the flow of semiotic activity. In BrandtsädterJ.LernerR. M. (Eds.), Action & self-development: Theory and research through the life span (pp. 257–282). SAGE. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452204802.n9
23.
KaaeA. (2013). Gruppeproces og problemer [Group-process and problems]. In OlsenP. B.PedersenK. (Eds.), Problemorienteret projektarbejde (pp. 225–252). Roskilde Universitetsforlag.
24.
KatznelsonN.VestergaardA. (2018). Karakterbogen – om karakterer, læring og elevstrategier i en præstationskultur [The grade book – on grades, learning and students’ strategies in a performance culture] (1st ed.). Aalborg Universitetsforlag.
25.
KirkegaardT.BrinkmannS. (2015). Rewriting stress: Toward a cultural psychology of collective stress at work. Culture & Psychology, 21(1), 81–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354067X15568978
26.
LawrenceJ. A.ValsinerJ. (2003). Making personal sense: An account of basic internalization and externalization process. Theory & Psychology, 13(6), 723–752. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354303136001
27.
LazarusR. S. (1999). Stress and emotion: A new synthesis. Springer.
28.
LazarusR. S.FolkmanS. (1984). Stress, appraisal and coping. Springer.
29.
MarsicoG.TateoL. (2018). Introduction: The construct of educational self. In MarsicoG.TateoL. (Eds.), The emergence of self in educational contexts: Theoretical and empirical explorations (pp. 1–14). Springer.
30.
MechanicD. (1978). Students under stress: A study in the social psychology of adaptation. The University of Wisconsin Press. (Original work published 1962)
31.
MolenaarP. C. (2004). A manifesto on psychology as idiographic science: Bringing the person back into scientific psychology, this time forever. Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, 2(4), 201–218. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15366359mea0204_1
32.
NerdrumP.RustøenT.RønnestadM. (2006). Student psychological distress: A psychometric study of 1750 Norwegian 1st-year undergraduate students. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 50(1), 95–109. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313830500372075
33.
NielsenA. M.LagermannL. C. (2017). Stress i gymnasiet: Sammenfatning af resultater og anbefalinger [Stress in high school: What stresses Danish high school students and how prevention and treatment works with “open and calm for adolescents”]. DPU, Aarhus Universitet.
34.
OvugaE.BoardmanJ.WassermanD. (2006). Undergraduate student mental health at Makerere University, Uganda. World Psychiatry, 5(1), 51–52.
35.
PalmerM.O’KaneP.OwensM. (2009). Betwixt spaces: Student accounts of turning point experiences in the first-year transition. Studies in Higher Education, 34(1), 37–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070802601929
36.
PancerS. M.HunsbergerB.PrattM. W.AlisatS. (2000). Cognitive complexity of expectations and adjustment to university in the first year. Journal of Adolescent Research, 15(1), 38–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070802601929
37.
RessurreiçãoS. B.da Rocha SampaioS. M. (2018). The reconfiguration of the educational self in the context of higher education. In MarsicoG.TateoT. (Eds.), The emergence of self in educational contexts: Theoretical and empirical explorations (pp. 61–77). Springer.
38.
RobinsonA. M. (2018). Let’s talk about stress: History of stress research. Review of General Psychology, 22(3), 334–342. https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000137
39.
RogersA. A.UpdegraffK. A.IidaM.DishionT. J.DoaneL. D.CorbinW. C.Van LentenS.HaT. (2018). Trajectories of positive and negative affect across the transition to college: The role of daily interactions with parents and friends. Developmental Psychology, 54(11), 2181–2192. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000598
40.
SalvatoreS.ValsinerJ. (2010). Between the general and the unique: Overcoming the nomothetic versus idiographic opposition. Theory & Psychology, 20(6), 817–833. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354310381156
41.
SatoT.HidakaT.FukudaM. (2009). Depicting the dynamics of living the life: The trajectory equifinality model. In ValsinerJ.MolenaarP.LyraM.ChaudharyN. (Eds.), Dynamic process methodology in the social and developmental sciences (pp. 217–240). Springer.
42.
SatoT.YasudaY.KidoA.ArakawaA.MizoguchiH.ValsinerJ. (2007). Sampling reconsidered: Idiographic science and the analysis of personal life trajectories. In ValsinerJ.RosaA. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (1st ed., pp. 82–108). Cambridge University Press.
43.
SimonH. (1977). Models of discovery. D. Reidel.
44.
SørensenN. U.PlessM.KatznelsonN.NielsenM. L. (2017). Picture perfect: Præstationsorienteringer blandt unge i forskellige ungdomslivskontekster [Picture perfect: Performance-orientations among young adults in different adolescent life-contexts]. Tidsskrift for ungdomsforskning, 17(2), 27–48.
45.
StallmanH. (2010). Psychological distress in university students: A comparison with general population data. Australian Psychologist, 45(4), 249–257. https://doi.org/10.1080/00050067.2010.482109
46.
SzuleviczT.KureL. K.LøkkenL. O. (2019). Stress—Between welfare and competition. In TateoL. (Ed.), Educational dilemmas: A cultural psychological perspective (pp. 41–55). Routledge.
47.
ValsinerJ. (2002). Forms of dialogical relations and semiotic autoregulation within the self. Theory & Psychology, 12(2), 251–265. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354302012002633
48.
ValsinerJ. (2007). Culture in minds and societies. SAGE.
49.
ValsinerJ. (2008). Open intransitivity cycles in development and education: Pathways to synthesis. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 23(2), 131–145. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03172741
50.
ValsinerJ. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology. SAGE.
51.
ValsinerJ. (2017). From methodology to methods in human psychology. Springer Briefs in Psychology.
52.
ValsinerJ.SatoT. (2006). Historically structured sampling (HSS): How can psychology’s methodology become tuned in to the reality of the historical nature of cultural psychology. In StraubJ.KölblC.WeidemannD.ZielkeB. (Eds.), Pursuit of meaning: Advances in cultural and cross-cultural psychology (pp. 215–252). Transcript.
53.
VygotskyL. (1986). Thought and language. MIT Press.
54.
WainwrightD.CalnanM. (2002). Work stress: The making of a modern epidemic. Open University Press.
55.
WortmeyerD. S.BrancoA. U. (2016). Institutional guidance of affective bonding: Moral values development in Brazilian military education. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 50(3), 447–469. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-016-9346-6
56.
ZittounT. (2006). Transitions: Development through symbolic resources. Information Age.
57.
ZittounT. (2007). Dynamics of interiority. In SimãoL. M.ValsinerJ. (Eds.), Otherness in question: Labyrinths of the self (pp. 187–214). Information Age.
58.
ZittounT. (2009). Dynamics of life-course transitions: A methodological reflection. In ValsinerJ.MolenaarP.LyraM.ChaudharyN. (Eds.), Dynamic process methodology in the social and developmental sciences (pp. 405–430). Springer.
59.
ZittounT.ValsinerJ. (2016). Imagining the past and remembering the future: How the unreal defines the real. In SatoT.MoriN.ValsinerJ. (Eds.), Making of the future: The trajectory equifinality approach in cultural psychology (pp. 3–19). Information Age.
