Anxiety Stress and Coping最新文献

Background and objectives: This study investigated the impact of war stress on birth outcomes, specifically birth mode and the subjective childbirth experience ("flow"). We hypothesized that war stress would adversely affect birth mode and the reported "flow."

Design and methods: A comparative study was conducted utilizing birth data from two online surveys of 411 Israeli women who gave birth before (82%) and during (17.8%) the Israel - Hamas war. Data collected included demographics, birth mode, and self-reported childbirth experience.

Results: Contrary to our initial hypothesis, no significant differences between the two groups regarding birth mode or reported flow during childbirth were found.

Conclusions: These findings suggest women possess an innate ability to immerse themselves in the birthing process, disconnecting from external stressors, particularly within a safe and supportive birthing environment. We explain our findings from evolutionary, psychological, and biochemical perspectives. Humans have likely evolved to focus on childbirth and shut out external threats. A safe birthing space allows women to enter a focused state for successful birth. Moreover, women tend toward "tend-and-befriend" behavior under stress, seeking safety and social support. The study highlights the importance of the immediate birthing environment for successful childbirth outcomes, even during times of significant external stress.

Despite the growing popularity of dog-assisted interventions (DAI), limited empirical evidence exists on their effect on the physiological stress response. The current systematic review examines the existing literature on the effect of a single, brief DAI on psychobiological indicators of stress in different demographics and settings, with a focus on identifying methodological strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the field. A brief intervention is considered as lasting up to 45 minutes. Twenty-six relevant studies, each involving a group of participants receiving DAI and at least one control condition, were identified and analyzed for methodological quality and findings. The review aimed to identify gaps in knowledge and contributes to a deeper understanding of DAI, offering insights for future research. Evidence to date partially supports the notion that a brief therapeutic intervention with the assistance of a dog may influence the autonomic stress response. However, this review highlights a need to standardize methodologies when collecting psychobiological indicators of stress to clarify the relationship between DAI and physiological stress responses.

Background and Objectives: People search the internet for health information, although this increases anxiety and worry, particularly in the health-anxious. Applying the avoidance theory of worrying, we tested whether online health research serves to emotionally distance oneself from illness.Design and Method: Googling long COVID was compared to imagery of suffering from the disease in 60 participants. We assumed that anxiety responses to googling would be lower than during imagery, but higher than during baseline. Self-report, skin conductance (SCL), heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and respiration rate (RR) indicated anxiety.Results: SCL was higher during imagery than googling. However, HR, high frequency HRV and RR signaled stronger activation by googling than imagery. Physiological measures demonstrated a stronger anxiety response to googling compared to baseline. Regarding self-report, an interaction effect of sequence and condition emerged. Those who started with googling reported higher levels of anxiety during imagery. Among participants who began with imagery, anxiety was elevated during googling compared to baseline, but there were no significant differences when compared to anxiety during imagery.Conclusions: Results at least partially support the notion that health-related internet research may serve to avoid the physical and self-reported anxiety responses.

Objectives: This study explored whether several subgroups of athletes representing distinct trajectories of intensity and direction of pleasant and unpleasant emotions (anger, anxiety, dejection, excitement, and happiness) could be shown to exist within the latent growth analysis (LCGA). A secondary objective was to examine whether athletes belonging to distinct trajectories of intensity and direction of emotions reported distinct scores of adaptive defense mechanisms (ADM) and maladaptive defense mechanisms (MDM).

Design: A longitudinal four-wave measurement design was used in the present study.

Method: 380 athletes completed the sports emotion questionnaire direction across four measurement times and the defense style questionnaire at the beginning of the season.

Results: Results of LCGAs revealed several distinct emotional trajectories for each emotion intensity and emotion direction. Moreover, athletes belonging to distinct (adaptive or maladaptive) trajectories reported significantly different scores of ADM and MDM. Higher scores of ADM were reported by athletes belonging to adaptive trajectories of the direction of emotions.

Conclusions: Sports psychologists should try to promote ADM and defensive flexibility to help athletes perceive their emotions as facilitative.

Background and objectives: Morally horrific events can evoke moral pain and may result in a type of psychological distress known as moral injury (MI). Previous research has hypothesized intolerance of uncertainty (IU; the aversive cognitive and behavioural reaction to uncertainty) may predict MI symptomatology due to its influence on perceived responsibility (PR). As such, we examined the influence of IU and PR on moral emotions associated with vignettes depicting morally stressful events.

Method: Participants (n = 245) completed the IU-Scale Short-Form, and were randomly assigned to listen and imagine themselves in a series of vignettes depicting grave moral transgressions committed either by the self (self-transgression condition; STC) or others (OTC). Participants provided ratings of moral emotions and PR in response to each vignette.

Results: Significant positive associations were observed between PR and moral emotions in the STC and OTC. IU's behavioral subdimension, inhibitory IU, was positively associated with moral emotions in the STC. Inhibitory IU did not moderate the association between PR and moral emotions.

Conclusion: Future research should further explore the interplay of inhibitory IU, PR and MI. Understanding the behavioral inaction associated with elevated inhibitory IU may be important in mitigating painful moral emotions following self-transgressed moral violations.

Background and objectives: Self-regulatory processes, namely behavioral regulation (in terms of executive functions) and emotion regulation, are assumed to be central for test anxiety. Both self-regulation components, along with vagally-mediated heart rate variability (HRV) - a proposed concomitant of top-down self-regulation - are associated with anxiety.

Design: A longitudinal design was adopted to test the hypotheses that (1) higher vagally-mediated HRV, (2) adaptive emotion regulation and (3) better executive functioning (i.e., higher inhibitory control) at the semester beginning (t1) predict lower levels of test anxiety at the end of the semester (t2).

Methods: A sample of N = 70 (58 female) university students (M [SD] age = 25.04 [7.14] years) completed a measurement of resting HRV (RMSSD), performed an affective go/no-go task, and reported on emotion regulation and test anxiety at t1. Test anxiety and certain examination characteristics were assessed at t2. A hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses.

Results: Supporting hypothesis 1, HRV at t1 significantly predicted test anxiety at t2, whereas emotion regulation and inhibitory control were no significant predictors.

Conclusions: As vagally-mediated HRV seems meaningful for the prediction of test anxiety, interventions designed to reduce test anxiety could benefit from incorporating HRV biofeedback training.

Background: Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) is a major setback for musicians with diverse backgrounds and expertise. MPA can be managed with adequate strategies, and success will improve if information and professional help is widely available and if musicians are willing to seek such help. Research on MPA has focused on the correlates (potential causes) of MPA, but results are scattered across studies. Also, the correlates of musicians' willingness to mitigate MPA remain underexplored.

Method: To address the referred gaps, we inspected eleven sociodemographic and music-related predictors of MPA in a single sample and investigated potential correlates of musicians' coping strategies and openness to professional help.

Results: Results from 184 Portuguese and Brazilian musicians pointed to age, sex, and discrepancies between real and ideal self as a musician as the most relevant predictors of MPA. Regarding coping strategies, we found that females, Portuguese, classical performers and those exposed to higher levels of external judgment resort more than males, Brazilians, non-classical and low-exposure musicians to physiology-related methods. Openness to professional help was lower in Portuguese, classical and high-exposure musicians, and in low-MPA performers.

Conclusion: These findings contribute to better identifying individuals at risk of developing and perpetuating MPA, thus allowing more efficient awareness campaigns and intervention programs.

Objective(s): Stressful and positive experiences may inform subjective perceptions of cognition; however, much of the literature focuses on stressful experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine individual differences related to both minor (weekly) and larger (life) stressful and positive experiences, and subjective cognitive functioning during a worldwide, chronic stressor. The current studies examined these associations in two samples of older adults which used two different time scales - weeks and months. We also examined how age moderated associations.

Methods: In Study 1, 245 older adults (M_age = 71.1) completed measures on stress, positive experiences, and subjective cognitive difficulties (SCDs) across eight weeks during the pandemic. In Study 2, 116 older adults (M_age = 76.16) were assessed every six months for up to 2½ years during the pandemic.

Results: In both studies, higher typical stress (weekly stress intensity and life events) was related to more subjective cognitive difficulties. In Study 1 but not Study 2, older age was related to lower levels of subjective cognitive difficulties, especially during weeks with high stress and positive experiences (within-persons).

Conclusion: The current study provides information as to whose subjective cognition may be most impacted by stress and positive experiences within a major non-normative event.

Background and objective: Poor executive functioning (EF) has been consistently linked to depression, but questions remain regarding mechanisms driving this association. The current study tested whether poor EF is linked to depression symptoms six weeks later via dependent stressors (model 1) and stressors perceived to be uncontrollable (model 2) at week two (W2) and repetitive negative thinking (RNT) at W4 during early COVID-19 in college students.

Design: This was a longitudinal study with four timepoints spanning six weeks (April-June 2020).

Methods: Participants (N = 154) completed online questionnaires measuring EF, dependent stress frequency, stress controllability appraisals, brooding rumination, worry, and depression.

Results: Supporting model 1, poorer baseline EF predicted higher dependent stress frequency at W2; W2 dependent stress frequency, in turn, predicted increases in W4 RNT, which predicted increases in W6 depression. Model 2 was not supported: Baseline EF did not predict W2 perceived stress uncontrollability, which did not predict W4 RNT; however, W4 RNT predicted increases in W6 depression.

Limitations: The sample was relatively small and EF was measured using only self-reports.

Conclusions: Findings supported a model in which poor EF conferred risk for depression via dependent stress and subsequent RNT, highlighting these processes as risk mechanisms for depression.