Stress Profile

WPS TEST REPORT

by Kenneth M. Nowack, Ph.D.
Copyright ©1999 by Western Psychological Services
www.wpspublish.com
Version 1.010

Client ID: 000000000 Administration Date: 10/21/99

Gender: Female Processing Date: 10/21/99
Age: 41 Examiner ID Number: 000000000
Ethnicity: White Examiner Name: Sample
Education (Year Completed): >16
Name: Sample

Stress Profile results should always be used in combination with additional information from sources such
as medical history and the results of professional consultations when making important decisions
regarding health and life style changes. Professionals who use the Stress Profile should be familiar with
the material in the Stress Profile Manual (WPS Product No. W-361E)

Inconsistent Responding Index: 1

Response Bias Index: 0
T-Score
Scale Raw T % 20T 30T 40T 50T 60T 70T 80T
.
Stress* 21 60 85 .
Health Habits 74 34 6 .
Exercise 6 40 15 .
Rest/Sleep 10 30 2 .
Eating/Nutrition 11 35 7 .
Prevention 43 51 56 .
ARC Item Cluster* 12 60 84 .
Social Support Network 60 64 91 .
Type A Behavior* 39 66 95 .
Cognitive Hardiness 110 53 60 .
Coping Style .
Positive Appraisal 16 47 39 .
Negative Appraisal* 16 58 77 .
Threat Minimization 19 64 92 .
Problem Focus 14 51 54 .
Psychological Well-Being 45 53 61 .
1 5 10 25 50 75 90 95 99
Percentile
* High T-scores indicate a health risk. For all other scales, high T-scores indicate strengths, and low T-scores indicate health risks.

Number of Health Risk Alerts: 7 [STR, HAB, XRC, RES, EAT, ARC, TYP]
Cigarette Smoking: 5 to 10 cigarettes per day
Number of Health Resources: 2 [SOC, THR]
WPS SP TEST REPORT ID: 000000000 Page: 2

This report is a confidential summary of your Stress Profile, which measures a variety of factors
that may affect your physical health and psychological well-being. Your Stress Profile responses have
been compared to the responses given by a large racially and culturally diverse group of working adults
from all over the country who also completed the inventory. Your profile is determined by scores on the
Stress Profile scales. The scales are 1) Stress; 2) Health Habits (including Exercise, Sleep/Relaxation,
Prevention, and Eating/Nutrition); 3) Social Support Network; 4) Type A Behavior; 5) Cognitive
Hardiness; 6) Coping Style (including Positive Appraisal, Negative Appraisal, Threat Minimization, and
Problem-Focused Coping); and 7) Psychological Well-Being.
Your results are summarized in the Stress Profile graph and described on the following pages.
Each score can fall in one of seven ranges, from Extremely Low to Extremely High. The following list
provides the meaning of each score range on your Stress Profile graph:

Extremely High: At least 99% of the people who took the Stress Profile got a lower score on this
scale.
Very High: At least 84% of the people who took the Stress Profile got a lower score on this scale.
High Average: At least 69% of the people who took the Stress Profile got a lower score on this
scale.
Average: At least 31% of the people who took the Stress Profile got a higher score on this scale,
and at least 31% got a lower score.
Low Average: At least 69% of the people who took the Stress Profile got a higher score on this scale.
Very Low: At least 84% of the people who took the Stress Profile got a higher score on this scale.
Extremely Low: At least 99% of the people who took the Stress Profile got a higher score on this
scale.

When you are looking at your Stress Profile results, it is important to remember that for some of
the Stress Profile scales, a high score points to a health resource and a low score suggests that a health
risk may be present. On other scales, the opposite is true—a high score suggests the possible presence of
a health risk, and a low score points to a health resource. The scales for which this is true are the Stress
(STR), Type A (TYP), and Negative Appraisal (NEG) scores, and the ARC item cluster.

Your Stress Profile Results

Your score on each Stress Profile scale is discussed here to assist you in the interpretation of your
score. Remember that your profile reflects a comparison between your score and the scores of others
who have also taken this instrument in a variety of work environments.

Unusual Response Patterns

The Inconsistent Responding Index and the Response Bias Index help identify unusual patterns of
answers that should be taken into consideration when you are thinking about your Stress Profile results.
Your scores in these areas do not suggest that your answers fell into a very unusual pattern when you
took the Stress Profile.

Stress
Stress is defined as the experience of major and minor irritants, annoyances, and frustrations
(hassles) of daily living. This scale measures your experience of daily hassles over a three-month period in
six distinct areas: 1) Health; 2) Work; 3) Personal Finances; 4) Family; 5) Social Obligations; and 6)
Environmental and World concerns. Compared to other people, you reported a very high level of stress
WPS SP TEST REPORT ID: 000000000 Page: 3

over the last three months. As a result, you may be quite a bit more vulnerable to stress-related illnesses
and disorders. You will benefit substantially from increasing your practice of physical, emotional, and
behavioral coping techniques to help you reduce your level of work and life stress.

You reported that you frequently or always experience stress in the following areas:
Work
Financial
Family
If these circumstances remain unchanged, they are likely to undermine your health in the long run. Your
continued efforts to reduce this kind of stress will provide long-term health benefits.

Health Habits
Health habits are the specific things that you do to maintain and improve both your physical health
and your psychological well-being. You have an overall Health Habits score and subscores in four
different areas—Exercise, Rest/Sleep, Prevention, and Eating/Nutrition. The overall Health Habits score
is the most useful one for getting an idea of how you compare to others in general. The five subscores are
most useful for evaluating where your health habits are strong, and where they might be strengthened.
You report a low level of regular health maintenance habits. In particular, you report that you do
not frequently exercise, get adequate rest or sleep, or maintain healthy eating and nutritional habits. In
addition, you report that you are in the habit of using caffeine and cigarettes. As a result, you may be
significantly more vulnerable than others to stress-related illness. Even though it may appear in the short
run that using caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, or other recreational drugs relaxes you or makes you better able
to cope with stress, the overuse of these substances is frequently associated with health problems. You
will find each of your Health Habits subscores briefly discussed below.
Physical Exercise. The physical exercise questions on the Health Habits scale ask about the
frequency and amount of exercise you engage in to enhance muscular tone and the cardiovascular system.
Judging by your responses, your level of exercise is very low. You may wish to increase your exercise
activity to 20-30 minutes at least three times a week. Before engaging in any strenuous exercise program,
it is usually a good idea to consult a physician.
Sleep/Relaxation. The Sleep/Relaxation questions ask about how regularly you are able to get
adequate rest, sleep, and relaxation. Your responses indicate that you regularly experience an extremely
low level of rest, sleep, and physical and mental relaxation. As a result, you may almost always feel tired,
fatigued, drained, unable to concentrate, emotionally exhausted, or inappropriately sleepy. You should
consider how you can take more time to physically relax, slow down, and get adequate rest and sleep,
especially during those times when stress is present at work or at home.
Prevention. The Prevention questions on the Health Habits scale ask how regularly you use
common sense health and hygiene practices, and how often you use substances that may increase your
health risk. The excessive use of substances such as caffeine or alcohol and habitual or excessive
recreational use of restricted drugs are associated with an overall greater risk of experiencing health
problems in general and stress-related illness in particular. In fact, overreliance on substances is often the
first clear sign that some source of stress is beginning to undermine your health. For this reason, your
responses to the substance use items on the Prevention scale are considered separately from your overall
Prevention score in this section.
The level of preventive health practices reflected in your responses is average. This helps to
decrease your risk of developing chronic health problems over the long term. You will benefit by
continuing to follow common sense when it comes to maintaining your health.
The ARC Item Cluster is a separate score for those items on the Prevention scale that ask about
the use of Alcohol, Recreational drugs, and Cigarettes. These items are grouped together in this way
WPS SP TEST REPORT ID: 000000000 Page: 4

because they can present similarly serious risks to your physical health. They are also grouped together
because effective programs are available for reducing their use. Your ARC Item Cluster score is high.
This may be a sign that there are sources of stress in your life that have begun to affect your health. You
may benefit from taking at look at what kinds of circumstances make you want to drink coffee or alcohol,
or use other recreational drugs. Doing so may alert you to sources of stress in your life over which you
would rather have better control. Identifying such sources of stress is a key step toward freeing yourself
from their negative effects on your health. It may also help you keep the use of these substances to a
minimum, a benefit to your health in the long run.
Eating/Nutrition. The Eating/Nutrition questions on the Health Habits scale ask how often you
eat well-balanced, and nutritious meals and follow sound nutritional habits. You have reported a very low
level of healthy eating and nutritional practices. You may often miss important meals, eat a non-balanced
nutritional diet, or ignore the amounts of saturated fats, cholesterol, salt, and sugars that you consume.
Small modifications in your eating and nutritional habits can have profound effects on your risk of
developing and your ability to overcome chronic illness and diseases such as coronary heart disease,
stroke, and diabetes.

Social Support Network

Your social support network is made up of the people in your life that you can count on for
emotional support, advice, information, love and assistance. This network includes people at work and
people away from work. A high score suggests satisfaction with both the size and quality of your social
support system. People who feel satisfied with their social support networks seem to experience better
physical health and psychological well-being in the face of daily work and life stress. Your responses
suggest that you are quite satisfied with your social support network. This situation substantially
strengthens your ability to resist stress-related illnesses and disorders. Your overall health will continue to
benefit as you keep and expand your social support system by initiating friendships, remain willing to be
open with others about yourself, and continue to develop trusting relationships.

Type A Behavior
Type A Behavior is defined as a particular pattern of responding to the pressures of daily living
and to events that are seen as challenges or threats. People who make use of this behavior pattern often
talk and move quickly, attempt to do many things at once, work very long hours, and generally push
themselves to the limit. They go all out on any endeavor, suppressing fatigue. They are competitive,
hard-driving, impatient, and quick to anger. A high score on the Type A Behavior scale suggests that a
person uses a lot of these Type A behaviors in the face of work and life stress. Those who do so appear
to increase their risk of experiencing job burnout, as well as physical illness, such as coronary heart
disease, and psychological distress, such as depression or anxiety.
Your Type A Behavior score is high. This suggests that in the face of stress, threat, and challenge,
you usually feel pressured, hurried, irritated, or impatient in coping with the demands of a typical day. If
you can decrease the times when you feel this way, it will help you to be substantially less vulnerable to
stress-related illnesses and disorders. You will benefit by developing a calmer way of responding to work
and life challenges. When you feel hurried, impatient, or frustrated, take the time to slow down and
physically relax. Also, do not underestimate the value of simply saying calming things to yourself.

Cognitive Hardiness
Cognitive Hardiness refers to a specific set of attitudes or beliefs about work and life that are
relatively enduring from day-to-day. These include a sense of commitment and strong interest toward
work, family, hobbies, or projects that you are involved in on a day-to-day basis, and having things that
you look forward to doing. A sense of belonging with friends, work, and family is a component of
WPS SP TEST REPORT ID: 000000000 Page: 5

Cognitive Hardiness. When Cognitive Hardiness is present, daily life changes are seen as being
challenging rather than threatening. This keeps you open to trying new experiences and helps you to
recognize that change affords hidden opportunities rather than hindrances to work and life satisfaction.
Finally, Cognitive Hardiness includes the belief that you have control over your life, that what you do is
directly related to what you achieve, that success in work and life is a result of individual behavior rather
than luck, fate, or chance, and that you can effectively achieve success in both work and life. This
disposition appears to buffer the potentially damaging impact of stress on well-being and directly
generates effective coping behaviors. Thus, high Cognitive Hardiness scores suggest the possession of the
kind of generally hardy outlook on life that is associated with a lowered risk for job burnout, physical
illness, and psychological distress.
Your Cognitive Hardiness score is in the average range. Even though you do not have any
unusual tendency to focus on the threatening aspects of daily events, to the extent that you can become
more aware of the positive aspects of your work and life, you may decrease your susceptibility to
stress-related disorders. You can do this by working to keep a clear view of your life goals and to
strengthen your commitment to the things and people that are important to you. You will also benefit
from finding ways to gain a stronger sense of control over any sources of stress of which you are aware.

Coping Style
Coping style is defined as the most common way you deal with work and life threats, pressures,
and challenges. There is no overall Coping Style scale score, just four scores in specific areas—Positive
Appraisal, Negative Appraisal, Threat Minimization, and Problem-Focused Coping. High scores suggest
that you rely heavily on the related approach to coping in most situations that you perceive as challenging
or threatening.
Positive appraisal, threat minimization, and problem-focused techniques may help you cope with
daily work and life stress. In fact, avoidance may be a particularly powerful short-term strategy when you
are faced with situations that are beyond your direct control. Problem-focused strategies may also assist
you in directly modifying your own environment or behavior. Negative appraisal is usually
counterproductive to coping effectively coping with stress and may even directly contribute to some
types of anxiety and depression.
Positive Appraisal. Positive appraisal means focusing on the positive to minimize what appear to
be problems, pressures, or challenges. People do this by saying and thinking positive things about the
situation. Your score on this scale is in the average range and indicates that you use positive appraisal as
often as do most other people when coping with daily work and life stress. Still, you may want to find
additional ways to minimize stressful events or situations when they occur. You may find it of benefit to
discover positive things that you can say and think more often when you are dealing with both internal
and external challenges.
Negative Appraisal. Negative appraisal is focusing or dwelling on the negative aspects of
problems, pressures, or challenges. When you use negative appraisal, you expect the worst to happen,
blame or criticize yourself, and describe the situation to yourself or others using the words
“should,”ldblquote must,” or “have to” quite frequently. Your Negative Appraisal score is in the high
average range. Your responses suggest that you use negative appraisal more often than do most people
when coping with daily work and life stress. You appear more likely than most to blame or criticize
yourself. You will benefit from finding ways to become more aware of when you are trying to deal with a
situation by using negative descriptions and self-talk. You will also benefit if you can refrain from doing
so when you are dealing with both internal and external challenges.
Threat Minimization. Threat Minimization is achieved by deliberately minimizing the
significance of problems, pressures, or challenges. When you make a joke about a difficult situation, or
WPS SP TEST REPORT ID: 000000000 Page: 6

try not to think about it excessively, or consciously regard it as something that is over and done with, you
are using threat minimization as a way of coping. Your Threat Minimization score is very high. Coping by
minimizing threat can help ease your mind and reduce your worry about stressful events and situations
that are beyond your control. However, it is important to use this strategy selectively, as it can jeopardize
your health if you avoid facing situations that need your attention and that you actually can resolve.
Problem-Focused Coping. You are using problem-focused coping when you attempt to change
a situation, take action, make decisions, and solve problems, respond to pressures, or meet challenges.
Seeking advice, asking for help, developing a plan, changing your behavior, figuring out a solution, and
changing jobs or relationships are all examples of problem-focused coping. High Problem-Focused
Coping subscores indicate that you use such strategies frequently. Your score is in the average range.
This suggests that you take direct action to change or modify your environment as often as do most
people. Continuing to find ways in which you can constructively alter your own behavior or the behavior
of others in stressful circumstances may help to reduce your overall level of stress.

Psychological Well-Being
The Psychological Well-Being scale is a measure of life satisfaction in general. A high score
indicates that you are satisfied with yourself and feel able to relax and enjoy life. Those with high scores
feel happy with their families, work, interpersonal relationships, successes, and achievements. In general,
people with a strong sense of psychological well-being report fewer stress-related illness than those
without such a strong sense. You report an average level of psychological well-being compared to others.
Still, your long-term physical health could benefit from any efforts you can make to pinpoint areas of
your life where you are not satisfied. Commit yourself to taking effective steps to improve those
situations.
WPS SP TEST REPORT ID: 000000000 Page: 7

Item Responses:

1. 3 17. 3 33. 4 49. 3 65. 4 81. 4 97. 3 113. 4

2. 4 18. 5 34. 5 50. 5 66. 3 82. 4 98. 4 114. 4
3. 4 19. 1 35. 4 51. 3 67. 4 83. 4 99. 4 115. 4
4. 4 20. 2 36. 3 52. 5 68. 4 84. 4 100. 4 116. 4
5. 3 21. 2 37. 3 53. 4 69. 4 85. 4 101. 4 117. 4
6. 3 22. 4 38. 4 54. 4 70. 5 86. 2 102. 4 118. 3
7. 2 23. 2 39. 5 55. 4 71. 4 87. 3 103. 3 119. F
8. 2 24. 2 40. 4 56. 3 72. 3 88. 3 104. 4 120. T
9. 2 25. 3 41. 3 57. 2 73. 4 89. 3 105. 3 121. F
10. 4 26. 4 42. 5 58. 2 74. 2 90. 4 106. 3 122. F
11. 4 27. 1 43. 4 59. 1 75. 2 91. 3 107. 4 123. F
12. 4 28. 4 44. 5 60. 3 76. 1 92. 4 108. 4
13. 4 29. 1 45. 4 61. 1 77. 4 93. 2 109. 3
14. 4 30. 2 46. 4 62. 2 78. 4 94. 4 110. 3
15. 3 31. 3 47. 4 63. 5 79. 4 95. 4 111. 4
16. 2 32. 3 48. 4 64. 4 80. 4 96. 2 112. 4

Response Key

T True
F False
- Missing Response

Number of Missing Responses: 0

This report was generated based on WPS TEST REPORT Microcomputer Data Entry.

END OF REPORT
 Using and Interpreting Your Stress Profile

Your Stress Profile provides you with important feedback about those factors that may affect
your ability to cope with stress and maintain a level of both physical and psychological well-being. This
information can be useful in helping you to develop a commitment to cope more effectively with stress.
As you can see from your Stress Profile graph, your scores include 7 Health Risk Alerts. In the Stress
Profile normative group, 4% had at least this many Health Risk Alerts. Your scores also indicate 2 areas
that are Health Resource areas for you. In the Stress Profile normative group, 58% had at least this many
Health Resource areas indicated by their scores. Your Health Resource areas are likely to offset your
risks to a certain extent. More importantly, these areas may provide resources that can be used to address
areas of risk for you in your efforts to strengthen your overall health status.

Steps To Developing A Personalized Stress And Health Management Program

The following steps should help you change specific aspects of your lifestyle that may assist you
in your efforts to cope with work and life stress in a healthy and productive manner.

Step 1: Identify areas of your lifestyle needing change. Review the Stress Profile to determine specific
health areas or behaviors that might be modified in some way.

Step 2: Build commitment to change your habits. Determine how motivated you actually are to alter
specific behaviors or make changes in your lifestyle. Brainstorm the potential barriers that might exist for
making your stress management action plan a success. Write down and review the advantages for altering
your lifestyle now!

Step 3: Become more aware of your behaviors on a day-to-day basis. Before you begin any individual
change program, you must be aware of how you are presently behaving. This awareness will serve as a
baseline against which to compare your successful lifestyle changes later.

Step 4: Develop an action plan to manage your stress and health. This plan should be realistic,
measurable, concrete, and achievable within a specific time frame. Your ultimate goal is to initiate and
maintain a healthy approach to daily living. Use the form on the next page to develop your action plan.

Step 5: Evaluate and monitor your progress on your stress and health management action plan. View
lapses as a natural part of any individual change process. Remember, a lapse does not have to lead to a
relapse back to your old habits! Reward yourself for success and periodically review your action plan to
maintain your lifestyle changes over time.
 Stress And Health Management Action Plan

Specific behavioral goal (include dates, times, situation, etc.):

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

Is this behavioral goal challenging and realistic?

_______________________________________________________________________

Is this behavioral goal observable and measurable?

_______________________________________________________________________

How I will identify and evaluate my progress:

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

I can think of the following reasons for sabotaging this goal:

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

I will reward myself for successfully achieving my goal by:

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

I will do the following to maintain commitment towards my goal:

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

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