Stress reappraisal and its effects on emotional bias, state anxiety, social performance and physiological measurements
Year: 2017
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Many individuals will struggle with performance anxiety throughout their life. Clinical \nresearch has shown that a positive conceptualization of stress and stress arousal (stress \nreappraisal) can lead to positive outcomes such as increased cardiac efficiency, higher GRE test \nscores and decreased bias towards threat cues as measured by physiological, performance, and \nattentional bias measures in a clinical population. Little is known regarding these processes in \nnon-clinical populations. As such, this study examined the effects of different conceptualizations \nof stress (positive, negative, and neutral) on blood pressure (mean arterial pressure), social \nperformance ratings, and emotional bias via physiological, observational, self-report, and \nattentional bias measures within a non-clinical population. In this study, participants who were \ninstructed to conceptualize stress as positive had significantly lower mean arterial pressure \n(MAP) during a stressful task and significantly higher social performance during a social \nevaluation task in comparison to participants who were instructed to conceptualize stress as \nnegative. This research suggests that a positive conceptualization of stress might improve cardiac \nfunction and performance on certain tasks in a non-clinical sample. Implications from this \nresearch suggest that if one who perceives stress and stress arousal as beneficial may experience \nan increase in their performance during a social evaluation situation, a decrease in the negative \neffects of stress arousal on physiology, and a positive impact on stress arousal responses.
Author: Trevor Chiasson
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2977482932