Constructive thinking and coping with laboratory-induced stress.

Abstract

In a laboratory stress test, poor constructive thinkers produced more negative affective and cognitive responses in all experimental periods and a greater increase in such responses in the stress period than did good constructive thinkers. The groups differed in physiological arousal in the recovery period but not in the stress period. Stressor-instigated negative thoughts and spontaneous negative thoughts produced different patterns of relations with variables measured in the laboratory and with symptoms reported in everyday life. Discriminating patterns of relations were found between measures of cognition and affect in the laboratory and self-reported emotional, physical, and behavioral symptoms in everyday life. The results help explain the relation between maladaptive automatic thinking, on the one hand, and elevated physiological arousal and emotional, physical, and behavioral symptoms, on the other.

Peripheral Autonomic Signals as Access Pathways for Individuals with Severe Disabilities: A Literature Appraisal

“…Tasks requiring mental arithmetic are used frequently in research to generate states of mental stress and stimulation [91][92][93], and the effects of performing mental arithmetic on the components of the ANS are well studied. During silent arithmetic, individuals experience a significant increase in heart rate, electrodermal activity, the pre-ejection period of the cardiac cycle, cardiac output, and respiration rate, accompanied by a significant decrease in the stroke volume of the heart [55,93].…”

Decision‐making competence: External validation through an individual‐differences approach

“…It should also be related to self-consciousness (concern for how others view one) and self-monitoring (critiquing one's behavior in light of social and situational factors). We measured these cognitive styles with the polarized-thinking portion of the constructive thinking inventory (Epstein & Meier, 1989;Katz & Epstein, 1991), the self-consciousness scale (Fenigstein et al, 1975), and the self-monitoring scale (Graziano et al, 1987;Snyder, 1974;Snyder & Cantor, 1980). We also used the behavioral coping component of the constructive thinking inventory.…”

Constructive thinking, rational intelligence and irritable bowel syndrome

“…Thus, the difference between constructive thinking and coping response merits some comment. Constructive thinking would be mostly implicated in the automatic and holistic cognitive appraisal of any event, prior to the occurrence of emotion, and operates at a preconscious level in a way in which a person is unaware [47] . Coping is usually defined as cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage a troubled person-environment relationship; it is the reaction to a conscious appraisal of the situation [48] .…”