Stress Reactivity and Emotional Recovery: Individual Differences in Sense of Coherence

SA Liang; ZHANG Zhong-Meng; LI Hong

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2013, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (4) : 837-841.

Stress Reactivity and Emotional Recovery: Individual Differences in Sense of Coherence

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Abstract

There is a wealth of evidence demonstrating sense of coherence (SOC) is related to negative emotion, but the relationship with positive emotion remains unclear. Researchers have demonstrated that positive and negative emotions have different adaptive functions for individuals. Positive emotion could build individual’s physical, intellectual and social resources by broadening one’s thought-action repertoires (Fredrickson, 1998). Negative emotion could narrow one’s momentary mind-sets by behaving in a specific way. Using a “nine holes” task to create a laboratory situation of stress, we examined both negative and positive emotional experience among high and low sense of coherence participants. As far as we are concerned, there is no direct evidence about emotional recovery among sense of coherence individuals. But researches of relevant academic field-Resilience have demonstrated that high and low resilient individuals may differ in the pace of the emotional recovery (Waugh, Fredrickson, & Taylor, 2008). Thus, we examined characteristics of emotional recovery of high and low sense of coherence participants. In present study, there were 46 subjects (34 female, 12 male) to participate and complete the experiment. The 13-item short version of the Orientation to Life Questionnaire (SOC-13) was used to test participant’s sense of coherence. After filling in personal information, subjects saw one neutral picture quietly for one minute, then used PANAS (modified version) to rate their mood. Accompanying with experimenter’s instructions, all the participants finished the “nine holes” task, and then rated 14 pressure emotions. Afterwards they saw the other neutral picture for one minute, and then rated the same 14 pressure emotion items (randomly displayed). All the ratings were completed on the 14.0 inches computer. The results revealed that (1) Individuals with high sense of coherence reported significantly more positive emotion than low sense of coherence participants. By contrast, low SOC individuals rated more negative emotion than high SOC participants. (2) Low sense of coherence participants were induced more negative emotion rather than positive emotion when given the circumstances of stress. (3) High sense of coherence individuals got more emotion recovered during the rest period. (4) Individuals with low sense of coherence defined its characteristic towards emotion change, namely, they were induced more negative emotion under stress and recovered themselves more slowly. These findings suggested that high sense of coherence individuals may have greater ability to use positive emotion to cope with and adapt in stress or adversity; while individuals with low sense of coherence may have negative bias towards affective perception, thus they were more easily affected by negative emotion, which could confine their attention to the “bad” stimuli and prevent their emotional recovery process ultimately.

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sense of coherence / stress situation / emotional response / emotional recovery

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Stress Reactivity and Emotional Recovery: Individual Differences in Sense of Coherence[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2013, 36(4): 837-841

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