The present study examined the relationship between personality traits and the response to acute psychological stress induced by a standardized laboratory stress induction procedure (the Trier Social Stress Test, TSST). The stress response was measured with a combination of cardiovascular reactivity, hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis reactivity, and subjective affect (including positive affect, negative affect and subjective controllability) in healthy individuals. The Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) approach was applied to account for the relationship between personality traits and stress responses. Results suggested that higher neuroticism predicted lower heart rate stress reactivity, lower cortisol stress response, more decline of positive affect and lower subjective controllability. Individuals higher in extraversion showed smaller cortisol activation to stress and less increase of negative affect. In addition, higher openness score was associated with lower cortisol stress response. These findings elucidate that neuroticism, extraversion and openness are important variables associated with the stress response and different dimensions of personality trait are associated with different aspects of the stress response.

The present study investigated the effect of acute stress on attentional bias to threat using behavioral and ERP methods. Sixty-two male participants were randomly assigned to a stress condition (Trier Social Stress Test) or a control condition. To examine the impact of stress-induced cortisol on attentional bias to threat, participants in the stress group were split into Low- and High cortisol responders. All participants were then administered a modified dot probe task in which the cues were neutral and angry faces. Behavioral results showed a pattern of attentional bias toward threat in the Control group but not in the stress group. For the ERPs, the P100 peaked earlier for the angry-cued targets than the neutral-cued targets in the Control group, which suggests a rapid, adaptive response toward threat. However, this effect was not observed in the stress group, suggesting a suppressed attentional bias under stress. In addition, the stress group (including both Low and High cortisol responders) showed reduced P300 amplitude to target onset than the Control group. These results suggest that acute stress disrupts attentional bias to threat including a reduction in early bias to threat in addition to a subsequent change of attention allocation.

Individuals with low level of resilience are documented to be less capable of regulating negative emotion. To investigate the underlying neurophysiology, the present study examined the relationship between resilience and the late positive potential (LPP) evoked by emotionally negative pictures. Fifty-four participants watched negative and neutral pictures passively while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded to assess LPP. Participants also completed the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) for assessment of their resilience levels. We found that resilience was negatively correlated with the LPP response to negative emotional pictures. Additionally, this negative correlation was mainly driven by optimism, one of the three composite factors that contribute to resilience. Our results showed a neurophysiological correlate for the effect of resilience on negative emotion, and suggested a predictive value of optimism in identifying individuals potentially sensitive to affective interruptions.