Stress reactivity and coping in seasonal and nonseasonal depression

Stress, stress reactivity, and coping skill use were examined in individuals with seasonal depression, nonseasonal depression, and nondepressed controls. Although participants in the two depressed groups reported using more avoidance coping strategies than controls, only participants in the seasonal depressed group reported using more season-specific coping (i.e., light-related strategies) than participants in the nonseasonal depressed and control groups. Individuals in the seasonal depressed group also reporting using acceptance coping strategies less frequently than individuals in the control group. Only participants in the nonseasonal depressed group, however, exhibited greater psychophysiological arousal in reaction to a laboratory stressor (i.e., unsolvable anagram task) when compared to participants in the seasonal and nondepressed control groups. Participants in both depressed groups reported greater impact of negative life events during the past 6 months than did controls. Similarities and differences in the two types of depression may have implications for the conceptualization and treatment of seasonal depression.     

Objective and perceived physiological arousal in trait social anxiety and post-event processing of a prepared speaking task

This study investigated the influence of trait social anxiety on subjective and physiological responses to an anticipated stressor. Seventy normotensive female students characterized as either high or low in social anxiety engaged in a demanding speech task after an anticipation period of one week that provided opportunity to prepare for the task. Trait social anxiety substantially influenced objective and perceived physiological arousal. High socially anxious individuals displayed greater heart rate reactivity and greater increases in perceived arousal that were in excess of objective HR reactivity. Perceived, but not objective arousal, partially mediated the relationship between social anxiety and negative post-task reappraisals of perceived coping resources. Furthermore, self-evaluations were found to be an essential determinant of post-task rumination. The results provide support for central predictions of cognitive models on social phobia.     

Future orientation helps regulate emotion in the future

Although the adaptive function of future orientation has been demonstrated, whether an individual's orientation toward the future regulates emotions to cope with future stressors remains unknown. The present study aimed to investigate the emotion regulation function of future orientation in a goal-related stressful situation. Eighty participants were randomly assigned to an experiment group or a control group. The experiment group was primed by a future-oriented manipulation, whereas the control group was primed by a neutral condition; then, both groups performed the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). The results showed that the experiment group exhibited reduced negative mood, increased positive mood, and a lower peak cortisol level after the TSST task. In conclusion, future orientation is considered an effective approach to regulate future emotions in response to stress. Our results render insights to developing strategies in coping with occupational stress.     

Coping, negative affectivity, and the work environment: additive and interactive predictors of mental health

The present study tested the hypothesis that direct coping would moderate relations between work stress and mental health outcome, whereas suppression (a form of emotion-focused coping) would show an overall effect on outcome. Data on coping, perceived work demand and support, and affective symptoms were obtained from trainee teachers (N = 157). The results supported the hypothesis. Gender differences also were observed; men reported more use of suppression than did women. In addition, negative affectivity (NA) was examined as a confounding variable and as an index of reactivity in stress-outcome relations. NA acted to inflate associations between work perceptions and affective symptoms, but it was also a significant moderator variable; high NA subjects showed greater reactivity to work demand than did low NA subjects.     

Distinguishing youths at risk for anxiety disorders from self‐reported BIS sensitivity and its psychophysiological concomitants

The aim of the study was to explore the psychophysiological concomitants of self‐reported behavioral inhibition system (BIS) sensitivity in adolescents (12 to 17 years old) supposed to be at risk for anxiety disorders. Twenty participants with high scores in self‐reported BIS sensitivity (at‐risk group) were matched in age and sex to 20 participants scoring in the normal range in BIS sensitivity (control group). Negative affect, negative emotion regulation style, and anxiety symptomatology were assessed by means of self‐reported measures. Cardiac and electrodermal response signals were recorded during baseline, paced breathing, exposure to an attentional task with response cost and fear‐relevant slides conditions. The at‐risk group exhibited higher scores on measures of negative affect, negative emotion regulation style, and anxiety symptomatology than their control counterparts. After controlling for negative styles of emotion regulation, groups did not differ in skin conductance reactivity during the attentional task with response cost, but participants at risk exhibited more nonspecific skin conductance responses than the control group during baseline recording. Regarding the cardiac concomitants, participants at risk presented lower vagal tone at resting conditions as compared to participants in the control group. Additionally, at‐risk participants exhibited lower flexibility across experimental conditions in heart rate and cardiac sample entropy measures than participants in the control group. These findings add knowledge on psychophysiological concomitants of BIS sensitivity and are discussed in light of associations between temperament and development of anxiety disorders in youth. They show how psychophysiological patterns observed in resting conditions could be useful endophenotypes to reliably detect individuals at risk before the disorder onset.     

Informational mood impact on effort-related cardiovascular response: the diagnostic value of mood counts

Drawing on the mood-behavior model (G. H. E. Gendolla, 2000), 2 experiments examined moods' informational impact on effort-related cardiovascular response. After being induced into positive versus negative moods, participants performed a memory task (Experiment 1) or a letter-cancellation task (Experiment 2). Half the participants received a cue that their mood could have been manipulated. As expected, both studies found stronger reactivity of systolic blood pressure in a negative mood than in a positive mood when no cue was provided. This effect diminished in the cue conditions. Additionally, achievement corresponded to systolic blood pressure reactivity (Experiment 1), the cue manipulation had no effect on mood, and mood had a congruency effect on subjective task difficulty in the no-cue conditions (Experiment 2).     

Narcissism Predicts Heightened Cortisol Reactivity to a Psychosocial Stressor in Men

Narcissists' sensitivity to social evaluation should increase their physiological reactivity to evaluative stressors. However, very few studies have assessed the physiological correlates of narcissism. In this study, participants completed an evaluative laboratory stressor or a non-evaluative control task. Cortisol reactivity-a marker of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stress response-and negative affect (NA) were higher in the stress versus control condition. However, men showed larger cortisol responses and, among men, higher narcissism scores predicted greater cortisol reactivity and larger increases in NA. Narcissism was unrelated to cortisol reactivity and NA among women and in the control condition. These findings highlight the influence of defensive personality traits on HPA reactivity and suggest a pathway through which narcissistic traits might influence long-term health outcomes.     

Trait and state negative affect interactions moderate inhibitory control performance in emotionally loaded conditions

Following the framework that controlled performance is dependent upon cognitive and emotional processes which are inherently inter-linked, effects of trait and state negative affect (NA) on inhibitory control (IC) were studied in two experiments using an emotional day-night task (EDNT) - an inhibition based decision-making task embedded with emotional content. It was hypothesized that the effects of processing negatively loaded stimuli would depend on trait levels of negative and positive affects, particularly in conditions that entail IC. In Experiment 1, EDNT performance was compared with performance of an emotionally loaded control task that required to perform a dominant response rather than to inhibit it. In Experiment 2, EDNT performance was compared with an emotionally loaded control task that required performing an alternative rule which did not involve inhibiting the dominant response. Results of both Experiments showed that participants high on NA trait reactivity showed improved performance while processing ‘sad’ content, only in the inhibitory task and not in either of the control tasks. Results point to an interaction of trait and state factors in IC, and highlight the notion that heightened NA may sub-serve inhibition in sad contexts, which require counter-intuitive operations.     

Mood, personality, and self-monitoring: negative affect and emotionality in relation to frontal lobe mechanisms of error monitoring

A fundamental question in frontal lobe function is how motivational and emotional parameters of behavior apply to executive processes. Recent advances in mood and personality research and the technology and methodology of brain research provide opportunities to address this question empirically. Using event-related-potentials to track error monitoring in real time, the authors demonstrated that variability in the amplitude of the error-related negativity (ERN) is dependent on mood and personality variables. College students who are high on negative affect (NA) and negative emotionality (NEM) displayed larger ERN amplitudes early in the experiment than participants who are low on these dimensions. As the high-NA and -NEM participants disengaged from the task, the amplitude of the ERN decreased. These results reveal that affective distress and associated behavioral patterns are closely related with frontal lobe executive functions.     

Children's coping with in vivo peer rejection: an experimental investigation

We examined children's behavioral coping in response to an in vivo peer rejection manipulation. Participants (N=186) ranging between 10 and 13 years of age, played a computer game based on the television show Survivor and were randomized to either peer rejection (i.e., being voted out of the game) or non-rejection control. During a five-min. post-feedback waiting period children's use of several behavioral coping strategies was assessed. Rejection elicited a marked shift toward more negative affect, but higher levels of perceived social competence attenuated the negative mood shift. Children higher in depressive symptoms were more likely to engage in passive and avoidant coping behavior. Types of coping were largely unaffected by gender and perceived social competence. Implications are discussed.     

The informational impact of mood on effort mobilization: a study of cardiovascular and electrodermal responses

The impact of mood on effort quantified as autonomic adjustments was investigated in an experiment. The authors induced positive versus negative moods with either 1 of 2 mood induction procedures (music vs. autobiographical recollection) that differed in the extent of required effort. Then participants performed an achievement task after demand appraisals were made. Results were as predicted. During the mood inductions, autonomic reactivity (systolic blood pressure [SBP], diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, skin conductance responses) was stronger in the relatively effortful recollection conditions than in the relatively effortless music conditions. Mood valence had no impact here. But in the context of task performance, the authors found (a) mood congruency effects on the demand appraisals that reflected subjectively higher demand in a negative than in a positive mood, and (b) stronger SBP reactivity in a negative mood compared with a positive mood. Furthermore, SBP reactivity during task performance was correlated with achievement.     

The role of neuroticism on psychological and physiological stress responses

This study examined the influence of personality on stressor appraisals and emotional, physiological, and behavioral responses to psychosocial stress. Appraisals were used to classify participants as threatened (they believed their coping resources were inadequate relative to stressor demands) or challenged (they believed their coping resources were commensurate with stressor demands). Neuroticism predicted threat appraisals, and both were related to negative emotional experience and poor task performance. The influence of neuroticism on negative emotions and poor performance was mediated by threat appraisals. High neuroticism confers stress vulnerability, but only when conditions are construed as threatening.     

The effect of mood on confidence in false memories

The goal of this study was to examine the effect of mood on suggestibility in the misinformation paradigm. To investigate the relative effects of valence and arousal, as well as affect-specific influences, six mood conditions were included: positive mood with low/high arousal (serene/happy), negative mood with low/high arousal (sad/angry), neutral mood, and a control condition. Participants watched a movie and were exposed to misleading information by means of a narrative. Memory was tested in a surprise forced-choice recognition task, with confidence judgements. The mood induction procedure was shown to be effective. A significant misinformation effect confirmed that participants were misled by the false information provided. Mood did not affect susceptibility to the misinformation effect, but did significantly influence participants’ belief in their false memories. Feeling sad induced the highest confidence ratings. Results are discussed in terms of different problem-solving strategies associated with discrete affective states, and have implications for both legal and clinical settings.     

If at first you don't succeed: the neuroendocrine impact of using a range of strategies during social conflict

Using a variety of cognitive or behavioral strategies to manage stressful situations may be more adaptive than relying on a narrow selection. Although research has explored the psychological benefits of a range of coping responses, the physiological impact within and across stressful situations has not been examined. Moreover, research has primarily relied upon self-reports of what people believe they generally do across stressful situations, which may be subject to recall bias. This study observed and coded the range of behavioral response strategies that young adults (n=74, mean age 18.1) used to manage a laboratory-based, interpersonal conflict task and collected self-reports of the cognitive strategies used to manage similar stressors. Analyses examined the impact of response range on cortisol activity during the task. Greater range of observed response strategies predicted lower cortisol reactivity (t(133)=2.65; p=.009), whereas the range of self-reported strategies was unrelated to cortisol reactivity (t(133)=.53; p=.60). Results support observational assessment as an important supplement to self-reports of responses to stress and suggest that the range of strategies used to manage the momentary demands of a stressful situation may help explain individual differences in the impact of stress on physiological systems.     

Controllability,coping, efficacy,and distress

The present study had two central aims: to test the ‘goodness of fit’ hypothesis and to predict coping strategies (problem versus emotion focused) based on two types of situational control (objective and perceived). An experimental design assessed the relationship between control over a stressful situation (an anagram task), and the subsequent coping strategies used to confront that situation (situational coping) as well as psychological distress (state anxiety) and coping efficacy (operationalized as the number of anagrams solved). High control participants solved more anagrams and reported less anxiety than low control participants; they also were higher on task‐oriented coping and lower on emotion‐oriented coping. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children’s Coping with In Vivo Peer Rejection: An Experimental Investigation

We examined children’s behavioral coping in response to an in vivo peer rejection manipulation. Participants (N=186) ranging between 10 and 13 years of age, played a computer game based on the television show Survivor and were randomized to either peer rejection (i.e., being voted out of the game) or non-rejection control. During a five-min. post-feedback waiting period children’s use of several behavioral coping strategies was assessed. Rejection elicited a marked shift toward more negative affect, but higher levels of perceived social competence attenuated the negative mood shift. Children higher in depressive symptoms were more likely to engage in passive and avoidant coping behavior. Types of coping were largely unaffected by gender and perceived social competence. Implications are discussed.     

Trait Self‐Control Predicts Adolescents’ Exposure and Reactivity to Daily Stressful Events

The current study used an influence model of personality and stress processes to examine the association between individual differences in trait self‐control and daily stress exposure and reactivity in adolescent youth. A total of 129 adolescents (M_age = 14.7 years, 59% female) completed individual difference measures of self‐control, neuroticism, and measures of responses to stress. Participants then reported on daily stressful events, stress severity, mood, coping, and mindlessness (a predictor of acting on impulse) for 14 consecutive days. Self‐control predicted less exposure to daily stress, less reactivity to daily stress, and more adaptive responses to stress. Specifically, adolescents with higher self‐control experienced fewer daily stressors and reported lower stress severity, particularly when daily mindlessness was high. Second, adolescents with higher self‐control reported less mindlessness in response to daily stress relative to those with lower self‐control, but they did not show differences in emotional reactivity to stress. Finally, results also offered evidence for an indirect effect of problem‐focused coping strategies between self‐control and emotional reactivity to stress. The current investigation illustrates the importance of trait self‐control in daily stress processes among adolescents and suggests possible mechanisms through which self‐control confers these positive effects.     

Coping and sensitivity to aversive events

To test further the sensitivity to aversive events hypothesis, males and females varying in level of depressed mood listened to positive, negative, and neutral social scenes while psychophysiological measurements were obtained. In addition, the relations among response styles, coping strategies, and psychological adjustment were examined. Results indicated that only dysphoric females responded in ways consistent with the sensitivity hypothesis, exhibiting greater electrodermal responses to negative social scenes compared to nondysphoric females. No differences in psychophysiological sensitivity were found between dysphoric and nondysphoric males. Dysphoric students engaged in more ruminative type responses in reaction to their depressed mood and reported using more avoidant coping strategies in response to stress. In particular, females utilized more ruminative strategies in response to a depressed mood and more emotion-focused coping strategies in response to stressful events in general. The implications for these results are discussed within a diathesis-stress framework.     

Clearing the mind: a working memory model of distraction from negative mood

The present research examined whether and how loading working memory can attenuate negative mood. In three experiments, participants were exposed to neutral, weakly negative, or strongly negative pictures followed by a task and a mood scale. Working memory demands were varied by manipulating task presence (Study 1), complexity (Study 2), and predictability (Study 3). Participants in all three experiments reported less negative moods in negative trials with high compared to low working memory demand. Working memory demands did not affect mood in the neutral trials. When working memory demands were high, participants no longer reported more negative moods in response to strongly negative pictures than to weakly negative pictures. These findings suggest that loading working memory prevents mood-congruent processing, and thereby promotes distraction from negative moods.     

ROMANTIC PARTNERS' COPING STRATEGIES AND PATTERNS OF CORTISOL REACTIVITY AND RECOVERY IN RESPONSE TO RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT

Stress in close relationships can have significant negative consequences for mental health, physical health, and long-term relationship functioning. Dysregulated physiological responses to stress are potential pathways through which relationship stress may lead to these kinds of outcomes, and the ways in which individuals attempt to cope with relationship stress are likely to impact their physiological responses. However, our understanding of the specific coping strategies that predict physiological reactivity and recovery in these contexts is rather limited. This study explored relations between young adult college students' self-reported methods of coping with stress in their romantic relationships and their physiological reactivity to and recovery from negotiating conflict with their romantic partners. Partners' coping styles were also examined as predictors of physiological stress responses. One hundred and ninety opposite-sex couples (N = 380; modal length of relationship = 1-2 years) participated in an experimental conflict discussion task. Physiological stress reactivity to the task was assessed using salivary cortisol, a primary hormonal product of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis. Growth modeling of the cortisol levels before, during, and after the conflict task indicated that men who typically coped with relationship stress by seeking social support showed greater physiological reactivity to the conflict task. Partners' need for social support predicted stronger stress responses for both men and women, as well. While seeking social support is generally thought to be an adaptive coping strategy for couples, the results suggest that within the context of conflict negotiation in which receiving and providing support may be more difficult, seeking support from a partner is associated with greater phyisological stress.