The dynamic nature of the stress appraisal process and the infusion of affect

Abstract

Very little is known about the process in which people reappraise a stressful environment or the factors that may influence this process. In the current study, we address the several limitations to previous research regarding stress reappraisals and explore the role of affect on this process. A total of 320 participants (mean age = 20 years, 60% male) completed an increasingly demanding team-based coordination task. Mood and stress appraisals were assessed at three time points using self-report surveys during four different waves of data collection. The longitudinal design enabled us to assess primary and secondary reappraisals (change in appraisals during the experiment), task-irrelevant affect (affect assessed prior to experiment participation), and task-relevant affect (change in affect experienced during the experiment). Guided by the Transactional Theory of Stress, we argue that the relationship between primary reappraisal and secondary reappraisal is an accurate representation of a dynamic stress appraisal process. We found that participants were more likely to engage in the stress appraisal process when they experienced less task-irrelevant positive affect and greater task-relevant positive affect. Both task-irrelevant and task-relevant negative affect were not found to influence the stress appraisal process.

Keywords:

• stress
• appraisal
• reappraisal
• positive affect
• negative affect
• latent growth modeling

Notes

1. Although the moderating effect for task-relevant positive affect was significant, we should note that the moderating effect was relatively weak compared to task-irrelevant positive affect and some caution should be used in interpreting the results. However, moderator analysis testing for two-way interactions are a low power test (Aiken & West, 1991) and the interaction between the changes in two variables is similar to testing for a three-way interaction. As a result, a significant moderating effect that explains an additional 2% of the variance is unlikely to occur by chance and warrants interpretation and attention.