The Relationships of Primary Appraisals of Infertility and Other Gynecological Stressors to Coping

Women experiencing infertility, pregnancy, medical gynecological problems, or annual checkups were assessed for primary appraisal of their stressor and types of coping strategies used. Diagnostic category approximated the subjective appraisal of stressor for pregnant (challenge) and checkup (no stress) groups. Most participants in the medical gynecological problems group appraised their stress as a threat, but a few participants chose other appraisal categories. Infertility was associated with two categories of appraisal—loss and challenge. Participants appraising their stressor as a loss made greater use of the coping strategies of Action, Wishful Thinking, and Fatalism than did women appraising their stressor as a challenge, a threat, or not stressful. Women appraising infertility as challenge were less distressed than women in any other group. The bimodal perception of infertility has implications for treating women who seek psychological help.     

Stress and Disease: A Structural and Functional Analysis

Chronic stress, a validated health risk factor, remains an ambiguous construct in spite of years of research. We propose that chronic stress is best understood as a series of acute stress responses, and that these responses become maladaptive when they occur frequently or are of long duration. We focus on the factors that contribute to chronic stress: whether the presence of a stressor, real or imagined, is long‐lived and/or frequent (repeated activation), the degree to which the stressor is perceived as a threat even when no longer present (low or slow adaptation), and the extent to which the duration of responding is prolonged (delayed or failure to return to homeostasis). Importantly, we examine how perseverative cognitions (such as rumination and worry) contribute to chronic stress by creating and sustaining acute stress responses, largely via influencing activation, adaptation, and return to homeostasis. Finally, we discuss the implications of our stress model: that interventions can be ideographically tailored to address how an individual is experiencing chronic stress; that researchers may be better able to identify specific characteristics of chronic stress that relate most strongly to poor health; and that moderators of chronic stress may function through these contributing factors rather than via general effects on the system.     

Gender differences in salivary alpha-amylase and attentional bias towards negative facial expressions following acute stress induction

This study investigated gender differences in two key processes involved in anxiety, arousal and attentional bias towards threat. Arousal was assessed using salivary alpha-amylase (sAA), a biomarker of noradrenergic arousal and attention bias using a dot-probe task. Twenty-nine women and 27 men completed the dot-probe task and provided saliva samples before and after a stress induction [cold pressor stress (CPS) test]. Women displayed a significant increase in arousal (sAA) following the stressor compared to men, who displayed a significant reduction in arousal. Reaction time data revealed a significant avoidance of threat in women at baseline, but a significant change to an attention bias towards threat following the stressor. Men did not significantly respond to the stressor in terms of attentional bias. These findings suggest that women are more reactive to a stressor than men, and display an initial avoidance response to threat, but an attentional bias towards threat following stress.     

Veridicality of cognitive mapping of stressor effects: Sex differences1

In order to examine the veracity of judgment-questionnaire data regarding the effects of confronting a stressor in various contexts, judgments based on the imagined consequences of these encounters were scaled for both male and female subjects using individual-differences multidimensional scaling analyses. A parallel experiment was then carried out where a second group of subjects were directly exposed to the spectrum of stressor-context combinations previously judged. The two experiments substantially differed with respect to the inferences suggested by their results: while there were no apparent sex differences in the configuration of judgment responses, there were appreciable sex differences in response to the direct stress; other effects were predicted according to the judgment-scaling results but were not obtained upon direct stressor exposure. The study extended past results of equivocal veracity of conclusions drawn from personality questionnaires, ratings and inventories to the domain of stress reactions. The role of antecedent cognitive structuring of threatening situations along stress-relevant dimensions in determining response to direct threat was discussed. Discussion also focused on the configuration of sex differences over the several measures of response to the direct stressor. It was suggested that the stressor was more potent for females leading to increased cognitive coping efforts on their part. The effect of these efforts was the eventual reduction of their subjective stress to the level of that displayed by male.     

Chronic stress and environmental enrichment as opposite factors affecting the immune response in Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica)

Procedures in the commercial production of animals involve stressful situations which lessen the animal's welfare. This study on Japanese quail evaluated whether an environmental enrichment manipulation can affect avian immune responses and if combined with a chronic stressor exposure can help to counteract the negative effects of stress on the immune system. Potential gender effects were also considered. After hatch, half of the birds were housed in non-enriched boxes and half were housed in environmentally enriched boxes. From day 33 to 42 of age, all birds within half of the non-enriched and enriched boxes remained undisturbed while the other half were daily exposed to a 15 min restraint stressor (chronic stressor). The inflammatory response (lymphoproliferation after phytohemagglutinin-p), percentage of lymphocytes, heterophil/lymphocyte (H/L) ratio and primary antibody response against sheep red blood cells were assessed. The chronic stressor application and the enrichment procedure, respectively, either increased or reduced the four immunological parameters evaluated and always in opposite directions. Males consistently showed lower antibody titres than females and presented the highest H/L ratio in response to the stressor when reared in the non-enriched environment. The findings indicate that submitting these animals to an enriched environment can be effectively used to improve their immune response and to reduce the detrimental effects of a stressor exposure.     

Stress, intrusive imagery, and chronic distress

Discusses the nature of stress in the context of problems with its definition and sources of confusion regarding its usefulness and specificity. Stress can be defined as a negative emotional experience accompanied by predictable biochemical, physiological, and behavioral changes that are directed toward adaptation either by manipulating the situation to alter the stressor or by accommodating its effects. Chronic stress is more complex than most definitions suggest and is clearly not limited to situations in which stressors persist for long periods of time. Responses may habituate before a stressor disappears or may persist long beyond the physical presence of the stressor. This latter case, in which chronic stress and associated biobehavioral changes outlast their original cause, is considered in light of research at Three Mile Island and among Vietnam veterans. The role of intrusive images of the stressor or uncontrollable thoughts about it in maintaining stress is explored.     

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.     

Sleep deprivation and stressors: Evidence for elevated negative affect in response to mild stressors when sleep deprived

Stress often co-occurs with inadequate sleep duration, and both are believed to impact mood and emotion. It is not yet known whether inadequate sleep simply increases the intensity of subsequent stress responses or interacts with stressors in more complicated ways. To address this issue, we investigated the effects of one night of total sleep deprivation on subjective stress and mood in response to low-stress and high-stress cognitive testing conditions in healthy adult volunteers in two separate experiments (total N = 53). Sleep was manipulated in a controlled, laboratory setting and stressor intensity was manipulated by changing difficulty of cognitive tasks, time pressure, and feedback about performance. Sleep-deprived participants reported greater subjective stress, anxiety, and anger than rested controls following exposure to the low-stressor condition, but not in response to the high-stressor condition, which elevated negative mood and stress about equally for both sleep conditions. These results suggest that sleep deprivation lowers the psychological threshold for the perception of stress from cognitive demands but does not selectively increase the magnitude of negative affect in response to high-stress performance demands. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Trait Influences on Stress Appraisal and Coping: An Evaluation of Alternative Frameworks

According to contemporary trait models, personality variables influence the relation of certain social-cognitive processes to coping and adjustment. Specifically, neuroticism may effect a greater perception of threat in a given stressor and thus effect a greater propensity for emotion-focused coping efforts. Similarly, higher levels of conscientiousness may be related to a greater use of problem-focused coping. We tested these presumed effects of personality traits on the association between stress appraisals and coping among 141 undergraduates. Resulting models indicated that certain personality characteristics are related to appraisal and coping activities, but these relations do not fully explain the association between stress appraisal and coping.     

Influence of Regularity of Exposure to Chronic Stress on the Pattern of Habituation of Pituitary-Adrenal Hormones, Prolactin and Glucose

The effect of regularity of exposure to two different chronic stressors (noise or immobilization (IMO)) on the pattern of habituation of pituitary-adrenal (PA) hormones, prolactin and glucose was evaluated in adult male rats. Animals were chronically subjected to either regular or irregular time schedule of noise (30 min/day) or IMO (2 h/day) for two weeks. The day after the last stress session the rats were killed without stress or after having been subjected to 30 min of the homotypic stressor. Whereas regular noise did not affect food intake, body weight gain or adrenal weight, irregular noise decreased body weight gain and induced a moderate adrenal hypertrophy. In addition, previous daily exposure to regular but not to irregular noise reduced both prolactin and corticosterone responses to acute noise. In contrast, glucose response to acute noise was reduced after both regular and irregular exposure to chronic noise. Either regular or irregular exposure to chronic IMO decreased food intake and body weight and increased adrenal weight to the same extent. Likewise, no influence of regularity of exposure to chronic IMO on corticosterone and prolactin responses to acute IMO was observed. However, habituation of the ACTH response to acute IMO was observed in rats subjected to chronic regular IMO, but not in rats subjected to chronic irregular IMO. Finally, acute IMO-induced hyperglycemia diminished to the same extent after regular and irregular IMO. From these results we can conclude that: first, the process of habituation of the PA axis to chronic stress is greatly dependent upon factors such as regularity of exposure to the stressor and stressor intensity, and second, the influence of regularity on the pattern of habituation to a repeated stressor is dependent on the physiological variable we are dealing with.     

Psychological stress,appraisal, emotion and Cardiovascular response in a public speaking task

Forty-three undergraduates (30 males, 13 females) prepared and performed a speech task (stressor) or a reading task (no-stressor control). Preparing to speak led to greater threat appraisal, negative emotion, and cardiovascular (CV) response than preparing to read aloud, particularly in speech anxious individuals. Delivering the speech, however, did not result in an increment in CV response over and above preparation. Although threat appraisals could not explain the effect of stress on CV response during task preparation, negative emotion accounted for over half of the effect. These data support the hypothesis that CV response in these studies is at least partially accounted for by psychological processes (stressor-specific anxiety and negative emotional response) and suggests that these processes may be best studied during a period of stressor anticipation.     

Use of a computer-controlled firearms training simulator in perception response time experiments

This paper describes the use of a custom-configured computer-controlled firearms training simulator to measure perception response (reaction) time (RT) to a stimulus in which the degree of threat presented is a manipulable variable across trials. The computer records the number of frames of videotape traversed between the point of presentation of the threat in the video stimulus and the point at which the subject responds by drawing the firearm. For the purposes of data analysis, these frame-count measures are converted to RT measurements. Example data are presented that capture perception RT at both thedraw-stimulus and thefire-stimulus points in situations for which either only one threat or more than one threat exists. Other elements, such as degree of threat and accuracy of response, provide additional data.     

Serial stressors: prior exposure to a stressor modulates its later effectiveness on gastric ulceration and corticosterone release

Several studies have focused on the proactive effects of prior exposure to a stressor on ulcerogenic and endocrine responses to exposure to a similar final stressor. In the present study, we explored the effects of prior exposure of M?ll-Wistar rats to water-restraint stress on gastric ulceration and corticosterone responses to a final stressor. The number of prior exposures to water-restraint challenge was varied from one to four, and the durations of the prior exposures varied from 30 min to 2 h. The duration of the final stress challenge was 75 min. The two indices of the stress response to the final stressor challenge yielded different results. For neither index was the duration of prior exposures a significant factor in modulating the response to the final challenge. For gastric ulceration, those animals receiving one prior exposure, but not four, exhibited less gastric ulceration than animals receiving no prior exposure. These animals also developed less ulceration than those receiving four prior exposures. For corticosterone, those animals receiving four prior exposures exhibited a lower adrenocortical response to the final stressor than did animals receiving no prior exposure, or only one prior exposure. The results indicate the complexity of proactive effects of earlier stress experience on responses to a final stressor challenge.     

Acute stress eliminates female advantage in detection of ambiguous negative affect

The human stress response evolved to maximize an individual's probability of survival when threatened. The present study addressed whether physical danger modulates perception of an unrelated ambiguous threat and, if so, to what extent this response is sex- specific. The authors utilized a first-time tandem skydive as a stressor, which had been previously validated as producing a highly-controlled, genuinely stressful environment. In a counter-balanced within-subjects design, participants wore a virtual reality helmet to complete an emotion-identification task during the plane's ascent (stress condition) and in the laboratory (control condition). Participants were presented static male faces morphed between 20-80% aggression, which gradually emerged from degraded images. Using a binary forced-choice design, participants identified each ambiguous face as aggressive or neutral. Results showed that participants characterized emotion more rapidly under stress versus control conditions. Unexpectedly, the results also show that while women were more sensitive to affect ambiguity than men under control conditions, they exhibited a marked decrease in sensitivity equivalent to men while under stress.     

Benefit of social support for resilience-building is contingent on social context: examining cardiovascular adaptation to recurrent stress in women

Previous work on social support and stress tolerance using laboratory-based cardiovascular stress response paradigms has suggested that perceived social support may be effective in building resilience in recipients. However, such paradigms are often socially de-contextualized insofar as they fail to take account of the social aspects of stress itself. Using 90 healthy college women, the present study sought to examine the association between self-reported perceived social support and cardiovascular stress tolerance. Participants underwent two consecutive exposures to a mental arithmetic task. On second exposure to the stressor, participants completed the task under either social threat or control conditions. Social threat was manipulated using socially salient instructions, to create a high social context. Adaptation to stress was established in terms of comparisons between cardiovascular responses to successive exposures. Results showed that cardiovascular responses tended to habituate across time, with perceived social support associated with the degree of habituation, but only under certain contextual conditions; high perceived support was associated with effective habituation under control conditions only. This response pattern is consistent with the view that high perceived social support buffers against stress in healthful ways, but only in asocial contexts.     

Lipid reactivity to stress: II. Biological and behavioral influences.

This study examined behavioral and physiological influences on lipid concentrations during acute and chronic stressors. One hundred men (n = 92) and women (n = 8) were tested during a chronic stressor and during 2 acute stressors. During chronic stress, diet, physical activity, exercise, and sleep were examined. During the acute stressors, catecholamines, cortisol, plasma volume, and cardiovascular responses were examined. None of the behavioral influences could explain the lipid response to chronic stress. Responses of the atherogenic lipids to acute stressors were not solely reflecting hemoconcentration of the plasma but were moderately correlated with cardiovascular, epinephrine, and cortisol reactivity. Diastolic blood pressure reactors to the acute stressors had larger lipid responses to the chronic stressor than did nonreactors. Elevations in blood lipids during stress are not artifacts and may be clinically significant.     

If it goes up, must it come down? Chronic stress and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis in humans

The notion that chronic stress fosters disease by activating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis is featured prominently in many theories. The research linking chronic stress and HPA function is contradictory, however, with some studies reporting increased activation, and others reporting the opposite. This meta-analysis showed that much of the variability is attributable to stressor and person features. Timing is an especially critical element, as hormonal activity is elevated at stressor onset but reduces as time passes. Stressors that threaten physical integrity, involve trauma, and are uncontrollable elicit a high, flat diurnal profile of cortisol secretion. Finally, HPA activity is shaped by a person's response to the situation; it increases with subjective distress but is lower in persons with posttraumatic stress disorder.     

Childhood poverty and health: cumulative risk exposure and stress dysregulation

A massive literature documents the inverse association between poverty or low socioeconomic status and health, but little is known about the mechanisms underlying this robust relation. We examined longitudinal relations between duration of poverty exposure since birth, cumulative risk exposure, and physiological stress in two hundred seven 13-year-olds. Chronic stress was assessed by basal blood pressure and overnight cortisol levels; stress regulation was assessed by cardiovascular reactivity to a standard acute stressor and recovery after exposure to this stressor. Cumulative risk exposure was measured by multiple physical (e.g., substandard housing) and social (e.g., family turmoil) risk factors. The greater the number of years spent living in poverty, the more elevated was overnight cortisol and the more dysregulated was the cardiovascular response (i.e., muted reactivity). Cardiovascular recovery was not affected by duration of poverty exposure. Unlike the duration of poverty exposure, concurrent poverty (i.e., during adolescence) did not affect these physiological stress outcomes. The effects of childhood poverty on stress dysregulation are largely explained by cumulative risk exposure accompanying childhood poverty.     

Economic Stress: Notes on the Psychology of Inflation

This research examines economic inflation as a "psychological stressor." Economic behavior in response to inflation is hypothesized to be a function of subjective cognitive appraisal of threat as well as objective economic indices such as actual income. A survey of 504 American college alumni compared the contribution of perceived threat and family income to self-reported changes in buying practices and leisure activities. These changes, as well as the reported degree of stress experienced, were better accounted for by perceived threat than by actual income. Further, threat and income did not interact in affecting economic behavior. Finally, none of the demographic and economic variables differentiated between groups of more versus less threatened individuals. A replication study was conducted on a sample of 112 Israeli college alumni. The rate of inflation in Israel is 10 times higher than the American rate, but income is protected by continuous indexing. The findings for the Israeli sample replicated with a high degree of accuracy the American findings, thereby providing unique cross-cultural validity to the conception of economic inflation as a psychological stressor.     

Assertiveness predicts threat and challenge reactions to potential stress among women.

In this study assertiveness as a moderator of stress reactions among women was examined. Specifically, the experimenters examined how high and low assertive women cognitively appraised, affectively and physiologically responded to, and behaviorally coped with the stress of giving an impromptu speech. High assertive women appraised the speech stressor as challenging, whereas low assertive women appraised the stressor as threatening. High assertive women also had a challenge pattern of autonomic response during the task, compared with the threat response of low assertive women. Afterward, the high assertive women reported experiencing less stress and negative emotion and greater positive emotion than did the low assertive women. Overall, the high assertive women's stress-related reactions indicated challenge, whereas the low assertive women's reactions indicated threat (see J. Tomaka, J. Blascovich, R. M. Kelsey, & C. L. Leitten, 1993).