Estudio de las variables relacionadas con el estrés de la operación Paso del Estrecho

Abstract

From the 1950's long waitings ranging from hours to days take place every summer in the Port of Algeciras Bay during the so-called Strait Crossing Operation (North-African immigrants massively travelling from Europe to their countries of origin). The Strait of Gibraltar constitutes a bottle-neck that forces automobile occupants to endure long periods of waiting, in a situation that to date has not been studied from the Psychology point of view.This study aimed at covering that gap. Our basically descriptive purpose was to identify and categorise: (a) those stimular sets present in the port facilities which are somehow related to the users' emotional discomfort; (b) cognitive schemas in that group that are associated to stress reactions during the wait; and (c) behavioural coping patterns as developed by the travellers.With a base in the Field Theory and with a transactional approach to the study of stress, we applied qualitative (observational) and quantitative (comparative) techniques, thus improving the obtained data by the integration of both methodological approaches.From our results, we conclude that: (a) with regards to physical variables, information is the most powerful tool for the waiting management team; (b) as per cognitive variables, "perception of justice in the line" appears as the most influent variable on the stress reactions associated to the wait in the port; and (c) the observed coping patterns are associated with environmental and cognitive mediating variables, as described in the study.