Institute of Psychology, University of Heidelberg.
Department of Biobehavioral Health and Medicine, Hershey Medical Center, Pennsylvania State University.
Emotion. 2018 Apr;18(3):342-354. doi: 10.1037/emo0000381. Epub 2017 Nov 20.
Research on the effect of exposure to minor stressors in people's daily lives consistently reports negative effects on indicators of well-being, often coined stress reactivity. Recent advances in the intensity of data collection have brought about an increasing interest in within-day associations of stress exposure and indicators of well-being, including dynamic aspects of the stress response such as stress recovery. In the present work, we investigated the other end of the stress response: the anticipation of a stressor. We hypothesized that anticipation of an upcoming stressor would be accompanied by higher negative affect. Based on the anticipatory coping account, lower negative affect after occurrence of anticipated (vs. not anticipated) stressors was predicted. We approached this question with a measurement burst study that allowed us to disentangle variation in stress processes across different time scales. One-hundred and seventy-five participants (mean age = 50, range 20-79) completed up to 3 measurement bursts. Each burst consisted of an ecological momentary assessment with 5 assessments per day over 7 days. In line with our expectations, negative affect was significantly higher after stressor anticipation, especially on days with high levels of intrusive thoughts. However, negative affect was not lower after anticipated (vs. not anticipated) stressors. Findings point to the role of perseverative cognition in the effect of stressor anticipation. Directions for future research including the role of controllability and effects on stress recovery are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record
日常生活中轻度压力源对幸福感指标的影响的研究报告一直显示出负面的影响，通常被称为应激反应性。最近，数据采集强度的提高使人们对压力暴露和幸福感指标的日内关联，包括应激反应的动态方面，如应激恢复，产生了越来越大的兴趣。在本工作中，我们研究了应激反应的另一端：对压力源的预期。我们假设对即将到来的压力源的预期会伴随着更高的负面情绪。基于预期应对的观点，预计在发生预期（与未预期）压力源后，负面情绪会更低。我们通过一项测量爆发研究来解决这个问题，该研究使我们能够在不同的时间尺度上区分压力过程的变化。175 名参与者（平均年龄=50 岁，范围 20-79 岁）完成了多达 3 次测量爆发。每次爆发都包括 7 天内每天 5 次的生态瞬时评估。与我们的预期一致，在预期压力源之后，消极情绪显著升高，尤其是在有侵入性思维的日子里。然而，预期（与未预期）压力源后，消极情绪并没有降低。研究结果表明，在压力源预期的影响中，持续认知起着作用。概述了包括可控性和对应激恢复影响的未来研究方向。
