STAR Participation and Contributions

By Emine Erktin, STAR Newsletter, November 2000 ____________________________________________________

STAR as a multi-disciplinary inter-cultural medium for stress and anxiety research

Emine Erktin
Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey

Developments in technology brought about external memory storage units to supplement the human brain. Accumulated knowledge is no longer the essential part in scientific organisations. Thus, like in other areas, in stress and anxiety research, the enrichment accomplished by the interaction of multi-disciplinary, cross cultural approaches where questions are investigated through a variety of formations are called for.

STAR Society forms an exceptional model for multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural research. The yearly STAR meetings set the stage for multiform inter-disciplinary studies. The variety of topics that appeal to the members from more than 40 countries cover almost every aspect of stress and anxiety research.

According to the Members Directory (1998) STAR had around 280 members from around 40 different countries and different areas and disciplines: Argentina, Armenia, Australia , Austria Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt , Estonia, Ethiopia ,Finland, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, China, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy ,Korea, Kuwait, Japan, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom, Ukraine and USA. In the last four years meetings participants from countries like Brazil, Iran, Ireland, Lithuania, Mexico, North Ireland, Romania, South Africa contributed as well.

The programs and abstract books of the last five years' STAR meetings were reviewed and the contributions from each country in the form of oral and poster presentations were listed (cf. Table 1 below):

USA (79) Germany (78), Poland (64), Slovakia (53), Turkey (50), Russia (27), Israel(27), Australia (25), Canada (22), Hungary (21), Ukraine (19), Austria (18) Spain (17), Czech Republic (16), India (15), Romania (13) , Italy (12), Hong Kong (11), Netherlands (9), Greece (8), South Africa (8), United Kingdom (6) , Belgium (6), Egypt (3), Finland (5),Taiwan(5), Japan (3),Iran (3), Argentina (3), Armenia (3), Scotland (3), Norway(3), Denmark(2), , Estonia(2), Lithuania (2), Mexico (2), Ireland (1) , Slovenia (1), Korea (1), Sweden (1), Brazil (1), Ethiopia (1), North Ireland(1), New Zealand (1).

TABLE 1: Contributions from different countries for STAR meetings 1996-2000

The last five years meetings were held in Austria (1996), Germany (1997), Turkey (1998), Poland (1999) and Slovakia (2000). The high number of contributions from the hosting countries justifies the tradition of having the STAR conferences at a different country each year. Scientists who are unable or unwilling to travel get to have a chance to attend a STAR meeting this way. The STAR conference participants on the other hand, might get a chance to acquire a new cultural perspective from the works of the local researchers.

On a small study where the contributions of the years 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 were reviewed, and classified, it was observed that the following categories of stress and anxiety and related topics were discussed by the participants in STAR meetings in the past ten years (cf., Tables 2 and 3 below):

Clinical issues (14%), Education (13%), Health (12%), Coping (10%), Work -related stress (9%), Anxiety and related emotions (7%), Methodology and assessment (6%), Computers and technology (%6), Stress and coping of the elderly (6%), Test anxiety (5%), Disasters and post traumatic stress (4%), Treatment (4%), Stress and anxiety in Sports (3%), Cross-cultural issues (2%), Stress and anxiety in Music (1%), Migration (1%) .

Table 2: Categories of presentations at STAR meetings 1990 and 1993 to 2000.

For the past ten years, clinical studies, education and health seem to be the three most popular categories investigated by the STAR researchers. STAR had been founded as a society for test anxiety research. So it is expected that educational issues should always be an important part of discussions at STAR meetings. It was however foreseen that limiting the studies to test anxiety research would be too confounding and a decision had been made to alter the name of the organisation which was until ten years ago Society for Test Anxiety Research. Keeping the initials, it was rightfully changed to Society for STress and Anxiety Research. The variety of topics discussed at each meeting reveals the accuracy of this decision. At this point in STAR's history, research on test anxiety seems to have reached a saturation point. In the 1990 meeting the test anxiety studies constituted 19% of the contributions. The number of studies on test anxiety were in decline until in the 1999 meeting test anxiety studies formed only 1.4 % of the total number of presentations (cf., Figure 1 below).

The percentage of studies on health issues indicates the new perspective and enrichment brought to the society by the incorporation of stress and related issues.

The studies on coping are on the increase. More and more studies on different theories and models of coping have been discussed increasingly in the past few years' STAR meetings.

Table 3: Rank order of topics in STAR meetings during past ten years.

Work related stress has also been expanding as a popular issue for the past years especially reaching its peak with the introduction of the Spielberger "job stress survey". Apparently Professor Spielberger keeps inspiring the STAR contributors. And this is also observed when one glances at the studies on anxiety and related emotions such as anger, and hostility which make up 7% of the contributions in the past ten years.

Disaster studies presented at STAR meetings mark the history for the natural and man-made disasters like the Gulf war and major earthquakes and the sensitivity of the STAR scientists.

Many categories are recognised by the researchers who carry out the studies and lead the way for and inspire others. Computer and technology related stress and anxiety and studies on the elderly are such categories and they make up almost 12% of the contributions.

Figure 1: Changes of topics in STAR meetings during past ten years

Although the issues on methodology and assessment studies constitute 6% of the total number of studies, they have been in decline in recent years. The diminishing interest in these more technical aspects of anxiety research seems to go parallel with the reluctance of some eminent researchers working on these issues and who contributed greatly to the STAR in the past years, to regularly attend the conferences.

After more than twenty years of hard work STAR is not only an established scientific community but also an educational environment bringing together distinguished researchers and novices, celebrating the works of the former and inspiring and encouraging the studies of the latter. Adopting policies to integrate more different cultures and disciplines meanwhile carefully maintaining the existing communication and the social ambience which makes each STAR meeting a jubilation, may be the primary mission of the STAR Board in the future.