The Effects of Stress Beliefs on Daily Affective Stress Responses

Abstract

<p>Background: Negative beliefs about the effects of stress have been associated with poorer health and increased mortality. However, evidence on the psychological mechanisms linking stress beliefs to health is scarce, especially regarding real-life stress. Purpose: The aim of the current study was to investigate the effects of stress beliefs on affect in the daily stress process in a population prone to health-impairing effects of stress: university students. Methods: Using daily diaries, 98 university students reported on daily perceived social and work-related stressors as well as positive and negative affect for ten consecutive days. Stress beliefs, depressive and anxiety symptoms, neuroticism and demographic variables were assessed prior to the daily diary phase. Results: Hierarchical linear models revealed a significant cross-level interaction between negative stress beliefs and the association of daily social stressors with negative affect (B= 0.24; 99%-CI= 0.08 to 0.41, p &amp;lt; .001). When experiencing social stress, participants who held high negative stress beliefs had higher daily negative affect (simple slope = 4.09; p &amp;lt; .001); however, for participants who held low negative stress beliefs the association between daily social stress and daily negative affect was considerably smaller (simple slope = 2.12; p &amp;lt; .001). Moreover, individuals believing stress to be controllable showed higher positive affect throughout the ten-day daily diary phase. Conclusions: Negative stress beliefs were found to moderate the affective response to daily real-life stressors. Given the established relationship between affect and health, this study provides initial evidence of psychological mechanisms linking stress beliefs to health.</p>

The influence of stressful life events on procrastination among college students: multiple mediating roles of stress beliefs and core self-evaluations

“…Previous findings have suggested that individuals with a positive stress beliefs showed higher cognitive flexibility and amplifying attentional bias to positive information (Crum et al, 2017). Again, negative stress beliefs have been linked to health-and performance-related problems, such as higher subjective stress appraisal, physiological stress responses and physical symptoms, and reduced academic performance in stressful situations (Fischer et al, 2016;Keech et al, 2018;Laferton et al, 2020). More importantly, the association between threat stress mindset and avoidance-motivated responses has been established (Jamieson et al, 2018).…”

The mediating role of proactive coping in the relationships between stress mindset, challenge appraisal tendencies, and psychological wellbeing

“…In support, one study found that 85% of participants reported stress to have a negative impact on health and productivity (McGonigal, 2016). Rather than automatically equating stress with distress (Rudland et al, 2020), it is possible to view stress and its consequences positively (Dixon et al, 2017), which may result in downstream psychological benefits (Laferton et al, 2019). This is particularly important as it is not possible to avoid stress entirely.…”