An efficient acute stress response in Chinese individuals with high interdependent self-construal

ABSTRACT

Background and Objective

An efficient stress response comprises both quick reactivity and rapid recovery. Studies have found an enhanced stress response in Chinese people with high interdependent self-construal (ISC). ISC is a personality trait that is well-matched with Chinese collectivistic culture, and whether they exhibit an efficient stress response has not been exclusively examined.

Design

We conducted a novel experiment to examine the stress response change rate in Chinese participants with varying levels of ISC，then performed a validation analysis against previous data to examine the reliability of current results.

Methods

In our experiment, 84 healthy (42 high-ISC and 42 low-ISC), young, native Chinese were randomly assigned to either the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), or the control condition. In the published study, 46 native Chinese participants (23 high-ISC and 23 low-ISC) had undergone the TSST. Data were collected throughout the two experiments.

Results

Compared to low-ISC participants, cortisol and subjective stress levels in high-ISC participants peaked sooner and declined rapidly, suggesting quick stress reactivity and rapid recovery. This finding was supported by the previous study.

Conclusions

High-ISC individuals display an efficient stress response pattern, manifested by fast reactivity and rapid recovery, which may be adaptive in Chinese collectivistic culture.

KEYWORDS:

• stress reactivity
• stress recovery
• efficient
• interdependent self-construal

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Xuehan Zhang, Mei Zeng, Huixiang Li, Xiaolin Zhao, Jiwen Li, Xi Ren, Mengning Zhang, Mengxue Lan, Haopeng Chen, and Yadong Liu for helping to complete the experiment. We are also grateful to anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 31971019]; Chongqing Research Program of Basic Research and Frontier Technology [grant number cstc2019jcyj-msxmX0016]; and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [grant number SWU2009202].