Writing About Past Failures Attenuates Cortisol Responses and Sustained Attention Deficits Following Psychosocial Stress

Abstract

Acute stress can harm performance. Paradoxically, writing about stressful events—such as past failures—has been shown to improve cognitive functioning and performance, especially in tasks that require sustained attention. Yet, there is little physiological evidence for whether writing about past failures or other negative events improves performance by reducing stress. In this experiment, we studied the effects of an acute psychosocial stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test, on attentional performance and salivary cortisol release in humans. Additionally, we investigated whether an expressive writing task could reduce the detrimental effects of stress, both on performance and physiological response. We found that when individuals were asked to write about a past failure before experiencing a stressor, they exhibited attenuated stress responses. Moreover, those who wrote about a past failure before being exposed to stress also exhibited better behavioral performance. Our results suggest that writing about a previous failure may allow an individual to experience a new stressor as less stressful, reducing its physiological and behavioral effects.

Psychological resilience and cortisol levels in adults: A systematic review

“…Resilience was significantly associated with acute cortisol response and/or recovery from momentary stressors in six out of the 11 studies that reported on this relationship, with the nature of the association between these two variables being primarily negative (Lau et al, 2021; Mikolajczak et al, 2008; Ruiz‐Robledillo et al, 2017; Sun et al, 2014), but also, in some cases, positive (DiMenichi et al, 2018) or mixed (Park et al, 2018).…”

Effects of Expressive Writing on Neural Processing During Learning

“…Much of the work on the benefits of expressive writing has focused on how writing about very negative experiences, such as trauma, provides emotional benefits (Pennebaker et al, 1988; Harber and Pennebaker, 1992; Lepore and Smyth, 2002; Smyth et al, 2008). However, there is also evidence that writing about more universally experienced negative events and emotions, such as test anxiety and failure, confers benefits as well (Klein and Boals, 2001; Ramirez and Beilock, 2011; DiMenichi and Richmond, 2015; DiMenichi et al, 2018). Our neural results show that expressive writing about commonplace negative events, such as failure, leads to differences in neural processes during cognitive tasks similar to those encountered in school environments, such as memory tasks.…”

“…For example, writing about a past trauma has led to reductions in anxiety and depression (Lepore and Smyth, 2002; Smyth et al, 2008), as well as improvements in physical health (Pennebaker et al, 1988; Harber and Pennebaker, 1992). Writing about anxieties has also resulted in improved cognitive performance, both in the laboratory (Klein and Boals, 2001; DiMenichi and Richmond, 2015; DiMenichi et al, 2018) as well as in the classroom on high stakes exams (Ramirez and Beilock, 2011).…”

“…What is it about writing about negative experiences that leads to such benefits? While there is some evidence that writing about a past negative event leads to reductions in the physiological stress response (DiMenichi et al, 2018), some have posited that writing down negative feelings “frees up” cognitive load to better focus on the task at hand (Klein and Boals, 2001; Ramirez and Beilock, 2011), thus leading to observed performance benefits. However, there is little empirical evidence regarding how expressive writing relates to cognitive processing in the brain, as well as other brain networks vital to cognition.…”

“…Alternatively, writing about a negative event like a past failure might lead to performance improvements via changes to affective or emotional processes. It is important to note that simply inducing a sad mood through writing has not been shown to improve cognitive performance, whereas writing about a negative event specific to the self, such as a failure, has been shown to confer cognitive benefits (DiMenichi et al, 2018). It is possible that being reminded of a past negative experience may cause an individual to be more sensitive to a new negative experience, such as negative feedback about performance.…”