Three studies investigated the relevance of affect regulation, stressful life events, and congruence between explicit achievement orientation and implicit achievement motive for subjective well-being and symptom formation. According to personality systems interactions (PSI) theory, stressful life events were expected to reduce motive congruence when the ability to self-regulate affect was impaired (i.e., state orientation). Consistent with expectations, the State Orientation ϫ Stress interaction predicted incongruence in healthy participants (Studies 1 and 3) and in patients (Study 2). Furthermore, incongruence partially mediated the direct State Orientation ϫ Stress effect on subjective well-being (Studies 1 and 3) and the course of psychosomatic complaints over 3 months (Study 2). In Study 3, the experimental induction of threat reduced motive congruence in state-oriented participants compared with an acceptance condition. Findings underscore the importance of assessing motive congruence as a "hidden stressor" and validate a new operant multimotive test.

According to personality systems interaction theory, a negative mood was expected to reduce access to extended semantic networks and to reduce performance on intuitive judgments of coherence for participants who have an impaired ability to down-regulate negative affect (i.e., state-oriented participants). Consistent with expectations, state-oriented participants reporting higher levels of perseverating negative mood had a reduced discrimination between coherent and incoherent standard word triples (Study 1) and individually derived word triples describing persons (Study 2). Participants who are able to down-regulate negative affect (i.e., action-oriented participants) did not show this tendency. In addition, Study 2 revealed a dissociation between state orientation and Neuroticism that is discussed in terms of a functional difference between the two constructs.

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Although everyday life is often demanding, it remains unclear how demanding conditions impact self-regulation. Some theories suggest that demanding conditions impair self-regulation, by undermining autonomy, interfering with skilled performance and working memory, and depleting energy resources. Other theories, however, suggest that demanding conditions improve self-regulation by mobilizing super-ordinate control processes. The present article integrates both kinds of theories by proposing that the self-regulatory impact of demanding conditions depends on how people adapt to such conditions. When people are action-oriented, demanding conditions may lead to improved self-regulation. When people are state-oriented, demanding conditions may lead to impaired self-regulation. Consistent with this idea, action versus state orientation strongly moderates the influence of demands on self-regulatory performance. The impact of demanding conditions on self-regulation is thus not fixed, but modifiable by psychological processes.

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