Health, Medical and Neuropsychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Clinical Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Stress Health. 2018 Apr;34(2):235-246. doi: 10.1002/smi.2777. Epub 2017 Aug 9.
Self-esteem moderates the relationship between stress and (cardiovascular) health, with low self-esteem potentially exacerbating the impact of stressors. Boosting self-esteem may therefore help to buffer against stress. Subliminal evaluative conditioning (SEC), which subliminally couples self-words with positive words, has previously been successfully used to boost self-esteem, but the existing studies are in need of replication. In this article, we aimed to replicate and extend previous SEC studies. The first 2 experiments simultaneously examined whether SEC increased self-esteem (Experiment 1, n = 84) and reduced cardiovascular reactivity to a stressor in high worriers (Experiment 2, n = 77). On the basis of these results, the 3rd experiment was set up to examine whether an adjusted personalized SEC task increased self-esteem and reduced cardiac activity in high worriers (n = 81). Across the 3 experiments, no effects were found of SEC on implicit or explicit self-esteem or affect or on cardiovascular (re)activity compared to a control condition in which the self was coupled with neutral words. The results do not support the use of the subliminal intervention in its current format. As stress is highly prevalent, future studies should focus on developing other cost-effective and evidence-based interventions.
自尊调节压力与（心血管）健康之间的关系，低自尊可能会加剧压力源的影响。因此，提高自尊可能有助于缓冲压力。潜意识评价性条件作用（SEC），即潜意识地将自我词与积极词联系起来，先前已被成功用于提高自尊，但现有研究需要复制。在本文中，我们旨在复制和扩展先前的 SEC 研究。前两个实验同时考察了 SEC 是否会提高高焦虑者的自尊（实验 1，n=84）和降低他们对压力源的心血管反应（实验 2，n=77）。基于这些结果，第三个实验旨在检验调整后的个性化 SEC 任务是否会提高高焦虑者的自尊并降低他们的心脏活动（n=81）。在这三个实验中，与将自我与中性词联系起来的对照组相比，SEC 对潜意识或显性自尊、情感或心血管（再）反应均没有影响。结果不支持当前形式的潜意识干预的使用。由于压力高度普遍，未来的研究应集中于开发其他经济有效的、基于证据的干预措施。
