Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to examine the relation between protective factors against stress, such as self-esteem, and psychological stress responses. The aperture model of stress has 4 assumptions: (a) each person has at least one aperture through which stress intrudes, (b) stress distribution follows the right half of a standardized normal distribution, (c) each aperture functions independently by receiving the stress, squaring its value as a stress response, and, finally, adding each value, and (d) stronger protective factors result in fewer apertures. The mathematical consequence is that each distribution of stress responses stratified by the strength of the protective factor proved to be followed by a χ2 distribution with degrees of freedom corresponding to the number of apertures. The model provided an excellent account of the data when negative self-esteem or optimism was used as the protective factor. The interaction of the diathesis-stress model can be derived mathematically through the aperture model of stress.
