The Diathesis-Stress Model

Psychologists have been interested in the person-environment interaction –environmental factors have been explored and related to individual’s behaviour, many argued that behaviour could be explained and predicted if the fundamental mechanisms, such as environmental influences, were known (Conyne & Clack, 1981). Models have been bias and focused on the negative influences on human behaviour, however, recent models of person-environment interaction delve deeper and attempt to understand whether this interaction can cause positive influences. In this essay, the psychological literature of three models of person-environment will be explored and the differences and possible similarities will be discussed.
Firstly, the diathesis-stress model attempts to explain the person-environment interaction; this framework proposes that some individuals are disproportionately likely to be affected adversely by an environmental stressor (e.g., family adversity) due to a “vulnerability” in their composition. This model explains that “vulnerability” may be

Additionally, the diathesis-stress model implicitly implies that there is no difference between vulnerable and resilient individuals in the absence of adversity. Recently, a newer model named “differential susceptibility” has been used to investigate the person-environment interaction that is not limited to contextual adversity. It explains that some individuals are more disproportionately susceptible to positive and negative developmental experiences (Ellis, Boyce, Belsky, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn,