With Juliane Kloidt as the strong lead on this project, we empirically induced a theory of eustress (a positive response to challenging situations) from diverse literatures that address it.  Although eustress has received considerable attention for decades, it has been defined, measured, and manipulated in myriad ways, leading to fragmentation and vagueness.  Because a unified and well-specified construct would significantly support eustress research and applications, we developed one here, extracting 57 unique features of eustress from 80 theoretical, interventional, empirical, and psychometric articles.  Organizing and interpreting these 57 features extracted empirically from the literature produced the Comprehensive Hierarchical construct of Eustress (CHE).  According to CHE, eustress emerges from three sources:  (1) successful goal-directed action, (2) experiencing the moment in an enjoyable, fulfilling, or meaningful manner, and/or (3) positive stable qualities of the individual.  Within these three sources, 13 facets differentiate them further in theoretically motivated ways.  We further explore the relation of eustress in challenging situations to wellbeing more broadly across all situations, finding considerable overlap but also important differences.

This article can be accessed at:

Supplemental materials: