Stress specificities: differential effects of coping style, gender, and type of stressor on autonomic arousal, facial expression, and subjective feeling.

In this study several factors considered to be relevant in mediating stress arousal were experimentally manipulated. Ss selected for the coping styles anxiety denying, low anxiety, and high anxiety were confronted with both low- and high-arousal-inducing situations, using 2 different types of stressors (cognitive vs. emotional) in each case. Arousal reactions were measured in 3 response modalities: verbal report of subjective experience; nonverbal, nonvocal behavior; and physiological reactions. The results reveal complex interactions between type and degree of stress, coping style, and gender of Ss, confirming findings on vocal parameters of stress. These complex interactions are discussed with respect to the possibility that Ss' evaluation of situation characteristics may be influenced by coping styles and gender, resulting in differential reaction patterns.