When Does Stress Help or Harm? The Effects of Stress Controllability and Subjective Stress Response on Stroop Performance

Abstract

The ability to engage in goal-directed behavior despite exposure to stress is critical to resilience. Questions of how stress can impair or improve behavioral functioning are important in diverse settings, from athletic competitions to academic testing. Previous research suggests that controllability is a key factor in the impact of stress on behavior: learning how to control stressors buffers people from the negative effects of stress on subsequent cognitively demanding tasks. In addition, research suggests that the impact of stress on cognitive functioning depends on an individual’s response to stressors: moderate responses to stress can lead to improved performance while extreme (high or low) responses can lead to impaired performance. The present studies tested the hypothesis that (1) learning to behaviorally control stressors leads to improved performance on a test of general executive functioning, the color-word Stroop, and that (2) this improvement emerges specifically for people who report moderate (subjective) responses to stress. Experiment 1: Stroop performance, measured before and after a stress manipulation, was compared across groups of undergraduate participants (n = 109). People who learned to control a noise stressor and received accurate performance feedback demonstrated reduced Stroop interference compared with people exposed to uncontrollable noise stress and feedback indicating an exaggerated rate of failure. In the group who learned behavioral control, those who reported moderate levels of stress showed the greatest reduction in Stroop interference. In contrast, in the group exposed to uncontrollable events, self-reported stress failed to predict performance. Experiment 2: In a second sample (n = 90), we specifically investigated the role of controllability by keeping the rate of failure feedback constant across groups. In the group who learned behavioral control, those who reported moderate levels of stress showed the greatest Stroop improvement. Once again, this pattern was not demonstrated in the group exposed to uncontrollable events. These results suggest that stress controllability and subjective response interact to affect high-level cognitive abilities. Specifically, exposure to moderate, controllable stress benefits performance, but exposure to uncontrollable stress or having a more extreme response to stress tends to harm performance. These findings may provide insights on how to leverage the beneficial effects of stress in a range of settings.

Risk for Depression and Anxiety in Youth: The Interaction between Negative Affectivity, Effortful Control, and Stressors

“…The particular finding that independent stress moderated the association between temperament and youth psychopathology is consistent with other findings in the cognitive neuroscience literature (e.g., Henderson et al, 2012), which found that uncontrollable (i.e., independent) noise stressors compromised performance on a cognitive control task. In a similar manner, independent stressors (i.e., stressors that are out of an individual’s control) might compromise effortful control and therefore affect the ability to utilize effective coping strategies in the face of these independent stressors.…”

“…Research with humans demonstrates a link between acute and chronic stress and behavioral deficits in effortful control. Young adults exhibited poorer performance on a cognitive control task (e.g., color-word Stroop task) following an intervening uncontrollable noise stressor compared to young adults that did not experience this uncontrollable stressor (Henderson, Snyder, Gupta, & Banich, 2012). Similarly, graduate students demonstrated greater response costs on a cognitive control task when they were tested 1 month before an upcoming exam compared to after the exam (Liston, McEwen, & Casey, 2009).…”

Fluctuating Disinhibition: Implications for the Understanding and Treatment of Alcohol and Other Substance Use Disorders

“…For example, one study demonstrated that acute stress magnified the influence of alcohol-related cues on disinhibition (44), whereas Constantinou et al (69) found that acute stress actually reduced disinhibition in opiate users and matched non-user controls. These findings may be reconciled if we carefully consider the severity of the stress response: Henderson et al (70) demonstrated increased disinhibition after both high and low stress levels of stress, whereas moderate levels of stress led to reduced disinhibition. Therefore, we can speculate that the relationship between disinhibition and stress may follow a U-shaped function, although it is difficult to characterize and directly compare the severity of stress induced in the Constantinou et al (69) and Zack et al (44) studies.…”

Current research and emerging directions in emotion-cognition interactions

“…Specifically, the presence of controllability can help improve cognitive performance, when stress is perceived as moderate (Henderson et al, 2012), and abolish distortions in time perception of negative compared to positive events (Buetti and Lleras, 2012). Moreover, the presence of controllability also affects the PFC functioning, with the vmPFC showing increased activity during controllable anticipation response (Kerr et al, 2012).…”