The COVID-19 pandemic has subjected most of the world’s population to unprecedented situations, like national lockdowns, health hazards, social isolation and economic harm. Such a scenario calls for urgent measures not only to palliate it but also, to better cope with it. According to existential positive psychology, well-being does not simply represent a lack of stress and negative emotions but highlights their importance by incorporating an adaptive relationship with them. Thus, suffering can be mitigated by, among other factors, adopting (...) an attitude of positive reframing, maintaining hope, existential courage, life appreciation, engagement in meaningful activities, and prosociality. The conglomerate of these elements has been recently denominated as meaning-centered coping. In this study, we evaluated the protective role of this type of coping on mental health. A sample of 12,243 participants from 30 countries across all continents completed measures of Meaning-Centered Coping Scale, depression, stress, anxiety and stressful COVID-19 related conditions they experienced. Results indicated that meaning-centered coping was strongly associated with diminished symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression. Moreover, it moderated various relationships between vulnerability factors and markers of psychological distress, especially in the case of depression. These findings call for attention to meaning-centered coping approaches in the context of hardship, such as the current COVID-19 health crisis. In these difficult times, decision-makers and health organizations may integrate these approaches into their guidelines. (shrink)

Regulating affective responses to acute stress has the potential to improve health, performance, and well-being outcomes. Using the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat as an organizing framework, we review how appraisals inform affective responses and highlight research that demonstrates how appraisals can be used as regulatory tools. Arousal reappraisal, specifically, instructs individuals on the adaptive benefits of stress arousal so that arousal is conceptualized as a coping resource. By reframing the meaning of signs of arousal that accompany (...) stress, it is possible to break the link between stressful situations, and malignant physiological responses and experiences of negative affect. Applications of arousal reappraisal for academic contexts and clinical science, and directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Although not identical, this article suggests that complex posttraumatic stress disorder, depersonalization and schizophrenia share at least one feature: in all these cases, the body becomes a defective tool, an IT. In turn, those suffering from them can no longer be-in-the-world through the living body but rather experience their body as an object; they manage their lives on the level of body image.The next section outlines some cognitive and phenomenological concepts such as body schema, body image, body-as-subject and body-as-object. (...) Thereafter, the article explores the phenomenology of C-PTSD, depersonalization, and schizophrenia, finally suggesting that in each of these cases the body... (shrink)

Every day situations arising in health care contain ethical issues influencing care providers' conscience. How and to what extent conscience is influenced may differ according to how conscience is perceived. This study aimed to explore the relationship between perceptions of conscience and stress of conscience among care providers working in municipal housing for elderly people. A total of 166 care providers were approached, of which 146 (50 registered nurses and 96 nurses' aides/enrolled nurses) completed a questionnaire containing the Perceptions (...) of Conscience Questionnaire and the Stress of Conscience Questionnaire. A multivariate canonical correlation analysis was conducted. The first two functions emerging from the analysis themselves explained a noteworthy amount of the shared variance (25.6% and 17.8%). These two dimensions of the relationship were interpreted either as having to deaden one's conscience relating to external demands in order to be able to collaborate with coworkers, or as having to deaden one's conscience relating to internal demands in order to uphold one's identity as a `good' health care professional. (shrink)

Religion and faith are often central aspects of an individual’s self-concept, and yet they are typically avoided in the workplace. The current study seeks to replicate the findings about the role of religious beliefs and practices in shaping an employee’s reactions to stress/burnout and job attitudes. Second, we extend the literature on faith in the workplace by investigating possible relationships between religious beliefs and practices and citizenship behaviors at work. Third, we attempted to study how one’s perceived freedom to (...) express his/her religious identity at work was related to workplace attitudes and behaviors. Mixed results suggest that religiosity can be related to stress and burnout, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior. More research is needed to further qualify the results and explore the effects of one’s perceived freedom to express his/her religious identity in the workplace. (shrink)

In spring 2020, COVID-19 and the ensuing social distancing and stay-at-home orders instigated abrupt changes to employment and educational infrastructure, leading to uncertainty, concern, and stress among United States college students. The media consumption patterns of this and other social groups across the globe were affected, with early evidence suggesting viewers were seeking both pandemic-themed media and reassuring, familiar content. A general increase in media consumption, and increased consumption of specific types of content, may have been due to media (...) use for coping strategies. This paper examines the relationship between the stress and anxiety of university students and their strategic use of media for coping during initial social distancing periods in March-April 2020 using data from a cross-sectional survey. We examine links between specific types of media use with psychological well-being concepts, and examine the moderating roles of traits as buffers against negative relationships between stress and anxiety and psychological well-being. Our findings indicate that stress was linked to more hedonic and less eudaimonic media use, as well as more avoidant and escapist media-based coping. Anxiety, on the other hand, was linked to more media use in general, specifically more eudaimonic media use and a full range of media-based coping strategies. In turn, escapist media was linked to negative affect, while reframing media and eudaimonic media were linked to positive affect. Avoidant coping was tied to poorer mental health, and humor coping was tied to better mental health. Hedonic and need-satisfying media use were linked to more flourishing. Hope, optimism, and resilience were all predictive of media use, with the latter two traits moderating responses to stress and anxiety. The findings give a nuanced portrait of college students’ media use during a pandemic-induced shutdown, showing that media use is closely intertwined with well-being in both adaptive and maladaptive patterns. (shrink)

The Perceptions of Conscience Questionnaire (PCQ) and the Stress of Conscience Questionnaire (SCQ) have previously been developed and validated within the ‘Stress of Conscience Study’. The aim was to revalidate these two questionnaires, including two additional, theoretically and empirically significant items, on a sample of healthcare personnel working in direct contact with patients. The sample consisted of 503 healthcare personnel. To test variation and distribution among the answers, descriptive statistics, item analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were used (...) to examine the underlying factor structure of the questionnaires. Support for adding the new item to the PCQ was found. No support was found for adding the new item to the SCQ. Both questionnaires can be regarded as valid for Swedish settings but can be improved by rephrasing some of the PCQ items and by adding items about private life to the SCQ. (shrink)

Microbes can influence host physiology and behavior in many ways. Here we review evidence suggesting that some microbes can contribute to host stress (and other microbes can contribute to increased resilience to stress). We explain how certain microbes, which we call “stress microbes,” can potentially benefit evolutionarily from inducing stress in a host, gaining access to host resources that can help fuel rapid microbial replication by increasing glucose levels in the blood, increasing intestinal permeability, and suppressing (...) the immune system. Other microbes, which we term “resilience microbes,” can potentially benefit from making hosts more resilient to stress. We hypothesize that “stress microbes” use a fast life history strategy involving greater host exploitation while “resilience microbes” use a slow life history strategy characterized by more aligned evolutionary interests with the host. In this paper, we review the evidence that microbes affect host stress and explain the evolutionary pressures that could lead microbes to manipulate host stress, discuss the physiological mechanisms that are known to be involved in both stress and microbial activity, and provide some testable predictions that follow from this hypothesis. (shrink)

Re-analysis of the data provided in the target article reveals a lack of evidence for a strong, universal relationship between parasite stress and the variables relating to sociality. Furthermore, even if associations between these variables do exist, the analyses presented here do not provide evidence for Fincher & Thornhill's (F&T's) proposed causal mechanism.

The aim of this research is focused on analyzing the alteration of the psychophysiological and cognitive response to an objective computerized stress test, when the behavioral response is controlled. The sample used was sports science students, with a mean age of 22.82 A quasi-experimental design was used in which the response of each participant to the DT test was evaluated. The variable “number of hours of physical activity per week” and the variable “level of behavioral response to stress” (...) were controlled. Before and after this test, the following parameters were measured: activation and central fatigue, and perceived exertion. Significant differences were found in all of the measures indicated. The usefulness of this protocol and the measures used to analyze the stress response capacity of the study subjects are discussed. (shrink)

The human mind strives to maintain equilibrium between memory and oblivion and rejects irrelevant or disruptive memories. However, extensive amounts of stress hormones released at the time of a traumatic event can give rise to such powerful memory formation that traumatic memories cannot be rejected and do not vanish or diminish with time: Post-traumatic stress disorder may then develop. Recent scientific studies suggest that beta-blockers stopping the action of these stress hormones may reduce the emotional impact of (...) disturbing memories or prevent their consolidation. Using such an intervention could, in principle, help people who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, but the idea of doing so is controversial. I shall here discuss memory manipulation in this perspective. (shrink)

Test anxiety is a widespread and primarily detrimental emotion in learning and achievement settings. This research aimed to explore the autonomic nervous system response patterns of test-anxious individuals in response to evaluative stress. By presenting a standard interview task, an evaluative scenario was effectively induced. Heart rate variability, a biomarker that can accurately reflect the ANS activity, was used to reflect the physiological responses of 48 high test-anxious subjects and 49 low test-anxious subjects. Results indicate that: both groups show (...) a significantly increased emotional arousal in the evaluative scenario; high test-anxious individuals show a significantly decreased emotional pleasantness in the evaluative scenario, whereas low test-anxious individuals show no significant changes; both groups show a significantly increased low-frequency HRV; high test-anxious individuals show a significantly decreased high-frequency HRV and root mean square of successive heartbeat interval differences, whereas low test-anxious individuals remain stable. These findings suggest that high test-anxious individuals display an increased sympathetic nervous system activity and a decreased parasympathetic nervous system activity in response to evaluative stress, while low-anxious individuals display an increased SNS activity and a stable PNS activity in response to evaluative stress. (shrink)

This two-wave study investigated the temporal interplay between motivation and the intensity and reported impact of athletes’ emotions in training settings. In total, 217 athletes completed self-report measures of motivational climate, motivation regulations, emotional states (i.e., pleasant states, anger, and anxiety) experienced before practice at two time points during a 3-month period. Latent change score modeling revealed significantly negative paths from task-involving climate at time 1 to the latent change in the intensity of dysfunctional anxiety and anger, and significantly positive (...) paths from ego-involving climate at time 1 to the latent change in dysfunctional anger (i.e., intensity and reported impact). The paths from controlled motivation at time 1 to the latent change in the intensity of dysfunctional anxiety and vice versa were significantly positive. The path from controlled motivation at time 1 to the latent change in the intensity of functional anger was significantly positive, but not vice versa. In addition, the paths from dysfunctional anger (i.e., intensity and reported impact) at time 1 to the latent change in motivation regulations were significant, but not vice versa. Overall, evidence provided suggested that the temporal interplay of motivation and emotions is contingent on the specific emotions. The findings highlight the role of coach-created motivational climate and the importance of identifying high levels of controlled motivation to help athletes better adapt to psychological stress. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic threatened our physical health, alongside our mental and social wellbeing. Social distancing requirements, which are necessary to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, increased social isolation by limiting social interactions that are an essential part of human wellbeing. In this study, we examined the stress caused by COVID-19 early on in the pandemic through the lens of sociability among a large sample of preservice educators. We found that individuals who have higher sociability experienced greater COVID-19 stress. (...) This study also contributed to prior literature which has sought to relate pandemic-related stress to demographic group differences. We found no significant relationship between demographic membership and COVID-19 stress. This study is among the first, however, to demonstrate that vulnerability to pandemic stress varies as a function of sociability. Implications of these findings and ways people can better cope with pandemic isolation are discussed. (shrink)

This article reports on the development of an instrument to measure the perceived stress that results from the use and ubiquity of digital technology in the workplace. Based upon a contemporary understanding of stress and a set of stressors that is a substantial update to existing scales, the Digital Stressors Scale advances the measurement of digital stress. Initially, 138 items were constructed for the instrument and grouped into a set of 15 digital stressors. Based on a sample (...) of N = 1,998 online questionnaires completed by individuals representative of the US employed population, the scale was refined using exploratory factor analyses and PLS-SEM. The resulting and final scale consists of ten stressor categories reflective of one higher-order construct and a total of 50 items. Through a nomological network that includes important outcome variables of digital stress it was then demonstrated that the DSS provides substantial explanatory power, particularly related to emotional exhaustion and user satisfaction. Thus, the DSS constitutes a state-of-the-art self-report instrument to measure the extent of distress appraisal related to digital technologies in the workplace and helps to explain further how and why information and communication technologies can lead to adverse outcomes in individuals, thereby providing the starting point for job related organizational interventions. (shrink)

With increasing attention on the role of parenting stress on family functioning and children’s development, one area that has been neglected is how such relations differ across cultures. Although sometimes viewed as homogeneous, Asian countries often have markedly different belief systems. Cross-cultural studies require instruments that have been validated in different socio-cultural contexts. The widely used parenting stress index-short form has been used in several locations. However, results regarding its factorial structure have been mixed. Furthermore, there are only (...) a few cross-cultural comparison studies. This study examined the factorial structure of an abridged version of the PSI-SF with data from Hong Kong and Thailand. The results from confirmatory factor analyses indicated that, in both cultures, a three-factorial structure provides the best model fit. Furthermore, we found evidence for partial metric invariance, suggesting that the test scores can be compared directly. Tests for convergent and discriminant validity revealed that the three factors were correlated with parent general distress, authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting behaviors, in both cultures. These findings suggest that the abridged PSI-SF can provide a meaningful comparison of parenting stress between Hong Kong and Thailand. (shrink)

Intensified job demands originate in the general accelerated pace of society and ever-changing working conditions, which subject workers to increasing workloads and deadlines, constant planning and decision-making about one’s job and career, and the continual learning of new professional knowledge and skills. This study investigated how individual characteristics, namely negative and positive affectivity related to competence demands, and multitasking preference moderate the association between IJDs and cognitive stress symptoms among media workers. The results show that although IJDs were associated (...) with higher cognitive stress symptoms at work, that is, difficulties in concentration, thinking clearly, decision-making, and memory, competence demands-related negative affectivity explained the most variance in cognitive stress symptoms. In addition, IJDs were more strongly associated with cognitive stress symptoms at work in individuals with high competence demand-related negative affectivity, and low multitasking preference. Altogether, the present findings suggest that HR practices or workplace interventions to ease employees’ negative affectivity from increasing competence demands at work could usefully support employees’ effective cognitive functioning when confronted with IJDs. (shrink)

In this brief comment, we bring together two articles that appear in this special section. Jamieson et al. provide an overview of the biopsychosocial model of threat and challenge and suggest that stress-related arousal can be reappraised as a coping resource to facilitate challenge appraisals. Hernandez et al. review evidence for the link between well-being and health. We see a connection between these seemingly unrelated reviews: Well-being may improve health in part by shaping appraisals of stressors’ demands and appraisals (...) of coping resources. (shrink)

BackgroundImplementation of quarantine and lockdown to COVID-19 pandemic has created dramatic negative psychological impact mainly the general population’s health worldwide. We aimed to assess the prevalence and predictors of anxiety and stress severity among the Palestinian population.MethodsA cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted. An anonymous online questionnaire and snowball recruiting technique were used to target the general public in Palestine between 6 and 16 April, 2020 during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Multivariate logistic regression models were developed for the outcome variables.ResultsOf the (...) 2819 individuals who completed the questionnaire, more than two thirds of them were females. Nearly, were residing at the West Bank. The mean age of participants was 29.47 years. The anxiety prevalence was with had mild/moderate severity. The stress prevalence was with had mild/moderate severity. The prevalence of both anxiety and stress was. In multivariate analysis, exposure to confirmed case of COVID-19, inadequacy of food supply and jobs that acquire leaving home during lockdown were significantly related to higher anxiety degree. As for stress, low monthly income, cohabitation with a person of a high-risk group and inadequacy of food supply were significantly related to higher stress degree.ConclusionYoung adults with low socioeconomic status and inadequate food supply were more likely to have a higher degree of stress and/or anxiety. Providing alternative economical sources for those in need, and spreading more awareness regarding the pandemic, supporting the population’s psychological wellbeing, community connection and the availability of specialist mental health services are crucial to overcome the mental impacts of COVID-19 in Palestine. (shrink)

Introduction: Many individuals and families are currently experiencing a high level of COVID-19-related stress and are struggling to find helpful coping mechanisms. Mindfulness-based interventions are becoming an increasingly popular treatment for individuals experiencing depression and chronic levels of stress. The app draws from scholarly evidence on the efficacy of mindfulness meditations and builds on the pre-existing apps by incorporating techniques that are used in some therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy.Methods: Participants were randomly assigned (...) to a 4-week mindfulness and self-compassion-based cognitive smartphone intervention or a wait-list control group. They were instructed to engage in self-compassion and mindfulness practices and a cognitive restructuring task. They also completed measures that evaluated their levels of depression, stress, anxiety, self-compassion, wisdom, psychological well-being, and subjective well-being. The intervention group was also instructed to track their weekly engagement with the app. Standardized effect sizes for between-group differences were calculated using Cohen's d for complete case analyses.Results: Complete case analyses from baseline to the end of this randomized controlled trial demonstrated significant moderate between-group differences for depressive symptoms and decisiveness. Moderate between-group differences were also found for self-compassion such that significant improvements in self-kindness, common humanity, mindfulness and decreases in self-judgement, isolation, and overidentification were observed. A small between-group difference was found for emotional regulation. Moreover, a significant moderate within-group decrease in stress and anxiety symptoms was also observed in the intervention group.Conclusions: Serene is an effective intervention that promotes increased levels of self-compassion and emotional regulation. Engaging with Serene may help reduce depressive symptoms through mindfulness, self-compassion, and cognitive restructuring which help reduce overidentification with one's negative emotions. As individuals rebalance their thinking through cognitive restructuring, they can identify the varying stressors in their life, develop action plans and engage in adaptive coping strategies to address them. Serene may promote greater self-understanding which may provide one with a more balanced perspective on their current upsetting situations to positively transform their challenges during the pandemic. (shrink)

IntroductionChildhood maltreatment is a developmental risk factor and can negatively influence later psychological functioning, health, and development in the next generation. A comprehensive understanding of the biopsychosocial underpinnings of CM transmission would allow to identify protective factors that could disrupt the intergenerational CM risk cycle. This study examined the consequences of maternal CM and the effects of psychosocial and biological resilience factors on child attachment and stress-regulatory development using a prospective trans-disciplinary approach.MethodsMother-child dyads participated shortly after parturition, after 3 (...) months, and 12 months later. Mothers’ CM experiences were assessed at t0, attachment representation at t1 and psychosocial risk and social support were assessed at t1 and t2. At t2, dyads participated in the Strange Situation Procedure. Children’s attachmen status were classified as organized vs. disorganized, including their level of disorganized behavior, and heart rate and respiratory sinus arrhythmia were recorded as stress response measures of the autonomic nervous system. Maternal caregiving during SSP was assessed using the AMBIANCE scale. Child’s single nucleotide polymorphisms rs2254298 within the oxytocin receptor and rs2740210 of the oxytocin gene were genotyped using DNA isolated from cord blood.ResultsMaternal CM experiences were significantly associated with an unresolved attachment status, higher perceived stress and more psychological symptoms. These negative effects of CM were attenuated by social support. As expected, maternal unresolved attachment and child disorganized attachment were significantly associated. Maternal caregiving did not mediate the relationship between maternal and child attachment but influenced children’s HR and RSA response and disorganized behavior. Moreover, the rs2254298 genotype of the OXTR gene moderated the stress response of children from mothers with CM. Children carrying the rs2740210 risk allele of the OXT gene showed more disorganized behavior independent from maternal CM experiences.ConclusionWe replicated and extended existing CM and attachment models by co-examining maternal attachment, social support, and child genetic susceptibility on child attachment and cardiovascular stress regulation. The findings contribute to an extended understanding of risk and resilience factors and enable professionals to target adequate services to parents and children at risk. (shrink)

Sleep-related experiences [Watson, D. . Dissociations of the night: Individual differences in sleep-related experiences and their relation to dissociation and schizotypy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 110, 526–535] refer to a host of nocturnal altered-consciousness phenomena, including narcoleptic tendencies, nightmares, problem-solving dreams, waking dreams, and lucid dreams. In an attempt to clarify the meaning of this construct, we examined cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of sleep-related experiences , altered-consciousness tendencies , psychological distress, childhood maltreatment , and life stress in young adults. (...) Both types of SREs were found to be distinguishable from altered-consciousness tendencies. Transliminality emerged as a longitudinal predictor of both general SREs and lucid dreams. Psychological distress and an increase in life stress predicted an increase in general SREs over a 3-month interval. We conclude that transliminality is a general altered-consciousness trait that accounts for some of the individual differences in sleep-related experiences, and that general sleep experiences are an outcome of psychological distress and life stress. (shrink)

Open Access: This essay argues that Claudia Card numbers among important contributors to nonideal ethical theory, and it advocates for the worth of NET. Following philosophers including Lisa Tessman and Charles Mills, the essay contends that it is important for ethical theory, and for feminist purposes, to carry forward the interrelationship that Mills identifies between nonideal theory and feminist ethics. Card's ethical theorizing assists in understanding that interrelationship. Card's philosophical work includes basic elements of NET indicated by Tessman, Mills, and (...) others, and further offers two important and neglected elements to other nonideal ethical theorists: her rejection of the “administrative point of view,” and her focus on “intolerable harms” as forms of “extreme moral stress” and obstacles to excellent ethical lives. The essay concludes that Card's insights are helpful to philosophers in developing nonideal ethical theory as a distinctive contribution to, and as a subset of, nonideal theory. (shrink)

ObjectiveTo examine the effect of family and perceived organizational support on the relationship between nurse adaptability and their experience with COVID-related PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms in frontline nurses working on COVID-19 units.BackgroundProximity to and survival of life-threatening events contribute to a diagnosis of PTSD, which is characterized by avoidance of reminders of trauma, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks of events, sleep disturbances, and hypervigilance. Using the job-demands and resource model, we examined the effect of adaptability, family support, and perceived organizational (...) support on PTSD symptoms for nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we tested whether perceptions of environmental supports—i.e., family and organizational support—moderated the relationship between nurse adaptability and COVID-related PTSD symptoms.MethodsA sample of frontline nurses working on COVID-19 units during the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas (N= 277) participated in this cross-sectional, observational study. Frontline Nurses reported demographic information and completed surveys designed to measure adaptability, perceived organizational support, family support, and COVID-related PTSD symptoms.ResultsAdaptability was significantly positively correlated (medium effects) to perceived organizational and family support (r= 0.51 and 0.56, respectively,p< 0.01). Adaptability and perceived organizational support were also negatively correlated with COVID-related PTSD symptoms (medium effects). Adaptability was negatively correlated with COVID-related PTSD symptoms, supporting Hypothesis 1 (r= −0.43,p< 0.01). Perceived organizational support was also significantly negatively correlated with COVID-19-related PTSD symptoms (r= −0.30,p< 0.01). Family support was not significantly correlated with COVID-related PTSD but was positively related to experiencing COVID-related PTSD after other variables were accounted for.ConclusionFindings suggest that individual adaptability and organizational support may reduce PTSD severity in frontline nurses working during a crisis; however, family support may increase PTSD symptoms. We provide suggestions for strengthening individual adaptability and healthcare leadership including remaining highly engaged to show support by providing rapid communication, remaining calm during difficult circumstances, and maintaining a consistent, physical presence during difficult times. Moreover, our results suggest additional support for nurses with families to adapt to crisis. (shrink)

This study analyses the emotional exhaustion of students inhigher education, derived from the extremely technology-relatedstrain associated to the current COVID-19 pandemic in a conservation of resources’ approach. Technostress, as source of emotional exhaustion, was investigated in a sample of 333 students in a medium size public university in Spain. Data was collected in May 2020, during the COVID lockdown. After literature review, a structural model was developed, linking technostress with emotional exhaustion. Results confirm the expected cause-effect relationships. In addition, the (...) study reveals two mediator variables that must be considered when managing students′ suffering, perceived stress and intrapersonal conflicts. This study contributes to the academic literature in the field of managing and mitigating suffering. They do so by providing both new knowledge and empirical evidence on the effects of technostress in the new generations that will soon join the working life. (shrink)

Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic has presented millions of people with extraordinary challenges that are associated with significant amounts of stress. Emotion regulation is crucial during this crisis as people seek to mitigate the stress and uncertainty of the present moment. In this study, we surveyed a nationally representative sample of 297 adults from the United States on their levels of perceived stress related to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as their level of engagement of different (...) emotion regulation strategies during the pandemic. We performed multiple linear regression analyses to assess which regulation strategies were associated with individual differences in perceived stress. Among all emotion regulation strategies, psychological distancing, which involves thinking about stressful circumstances in an objective, impartial way, was uniquely associated with reductions in perceived stress due to COVID-19 across individuals. This effect was not moderated by age, gender, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, or trait-related difficulty in regulating emotion. Conversely, situation modification was associated with significantly greater perceived stress overall. These results suggest the broad applicability and utility of psychological distancing during pandemic-related social distancing as part of an adaptive emotion regulation toolkit and motivate the investigation of interventions involving psychological distancing in this context. (shrink)

Background Health care workers (HCWs) are susceptible to moral stress and distress when they are faced with morally challenging situations where it is difficult to act in line with their moral standards. In times of crisis, such as disasters and pandemics, morally challenging situations are more frequent, due to the increased imbalance between patient needs and resources. However, the concepts of moral stress and distress vary and there is unclarity regarding the definitions used in the literature. This study (...) aims to map and analyze the descriptions used by HCWs regarding morally challenging situations (moral stress) and refine a definition through conceptual analysis. Methods Qualitative data were collected in a survey of 16,044 Swedish HCWs who attended a COVID-19 online course in autumn 2020. In total, 643 free-text answers with descriptions of moral stress were analyzed through content analysis. Results Three themes emerged from the content analysis (1) “Seeing, but being prevented to act; feeling insufficient/inadequate and constrained in the profession,” (2) “Someone or something hindered me; organizational structures as an obstacle,” and (3) “The pandemic hindered us; pandemic-related obstacles.” The three themes correspond to the main theme, “Being prevented from providing good care.” Discussion The main theme describes moral stress as various obstacles to providing good care to patients in need and acting upon empathic ability within the professional role. The themes are discussed in relation to established definitions of moral stress and are assessed through conceptual analysis. A definition of moral stress was refined, based on one of the established definitions. Conclusions On the basis of the study results and conceptual analysis, it is argued that the presented definition fulfils certain conditions of adequacy. It is essential to frame the concept of moral stress, which has been defined in different ways in different disciplines, in order to know what we are talking about and move forward in developing prevention measures for the negative outcomes of this phenomenon. (shrink)

Willpower has ramifications for autonomy and mental time-travel. Autonomy presupposes mature powers of volition and the capacity to anticipate future events and consequences of one's actions. Ainslie's study is useful to clarify basic autonomy in addiction and dementia. Furthermore, we show how our study on coping with stress can be applied to suppression and resolve.

Copyright © 2015 by the Society of Criti. Objective: Global lung stress varies considerably with low tidal volume ventilation for acute respiratory distress syndrome. High stress despite low tidal volumes may worsen lung injury and increase risk of death. No widely available parameter exists to assess global lung stress. We aimed to determine whether the volume delivered during a recruitment maneuver is inversely associated with lung stress and mortality in acute respiratory distress syndrome. Design: Substudy of (...) an acute respiratory distress syndrome clinical trial on esophageal pressure-guided positive end-expiratory pressure titration. Setting: U.S. academic medical center. Patients: Forty-two patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome in whom airflow, airway pressure, and esophageal pressure were recorded during the recruitment maneuver. Interventions: A single recruitment maneuver was performed before initiating protocol-directed ventilator management. Recruitment maneuvers consisted of a 30-second breath hold at 40 cm H2O airway pressure under heavy sedation or paralysis. VRM was calculated by integrating the flow-time waveform during the maneuver. End-inspiratory stress was defined as the transpulmonary pressure during end-inspiratory pause of a tidal breath and tidal stress as the transpulmonary pressure difference between end-inspiratory and end-expiratory pauses. Measurements and Main Results: VRM ranged between 7.4 and 34.7 mL/kg predicted body weight. Lower VRM predicted high end-inspiratory and tidal lung stress. After adjusting for Pao2/Fio2 and either driving pressure, tidal volume, or plateau pressure and positive end-expiratory pressure, VRM remained independently associated with both end-inspiratory and tidal stress. In unadjusted analysis, low VRM predicted increased risk of death. VRM remained significantly associated with mortality after adjusting for study arm. Conclusions: Low VRM independently predicts high lung stress and may predict risk of death in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome. (shrink)

The objective structured clinical examination is a method for assessment clinical competencies and skills. However, there is a need to improve its design in psychology programs. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of the different scenario's presentation order with different complexity/difficulty on the autonomic stress response of undergraduate students undergoing a Psychology OSCE. A total of 32 students of Psychology Bachelor's Degree were randomly selected and assigned to two OSCE scenarios of different complexity. While undergoing (...) the scenarios, participants heart rate variability was analyzed as an indicator of participant's stress autonomic response. Results indicate that the order of presentation of different complexity/difficulty scenarios affects the autonomic stress response of undergraduate Psychology students undergoing an OSCE. Students who underwent the high-complexity scenario first, reported significantly higher autonomic stress response than students who began the OSCE with the low-complexity scenario. Highly complex or difficult scenarios require good executive functions or cognitive control, very sensitive to autonomic stress responses. Therefore, OSCE design will benefit from placing easy scenarios first. (shrink)

The current research aims to prove the impact of resilience on sleep quality and to investigate the mediating function of perceived stress in the paths from resilience to sleep quality among disabled Chinese elders. The participants were 196 elders with visual and physical disability who resided in the nursing houses in Shanghai, including 102 males and 94 females whose mean age was 74.5 years old. All the elders were measured with the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, (...) and Perceived Stress Scale. The results showed that all the demographic variables were significantly related to perceived stress and PSQI scores. High levels of resilience could significantly enhance the quality of sleep in disabled Chinese elders. In addition, the two-step mediation models also confirmed the impact of resilience on sleep quality as mediated through perceived stress in this special aged population. Better knowledge on the mechanisms of sleep quality among older adults could benefit the prevention and treatment of some geriatric diseases. (shrink)

The underlying aim of this study was to investigate the impact of interpersonal injustice on emotional exhaustion and the three main facets of knowledge hiding, i.e., evasive knowledge hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized knowledge hiding. This study also investigates the moderating role of high-performance work stress in the relationship between interpersonal injustice and emotional exhaustion. A questionnaire was adopted to obtain data from 539 employees working in the telecom sector of China. The Smart-PLS software was used to analyze the (...) data through the aid of a structural equation modeling technique. The results revealed that interpersonal injustice had a positive and significant relationship with evasive knowledge hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized knowledge hiding. Interpersonal injustice also had a positive relationship with emotional exhaustion, and it was found that emotional exhaustion had a positive relationship with evasive knowledge hiding, playing dumb, and rationalized knowledge hiding. The results also revealed that emotional exhaustion mediated the relationship between interpersonal injustice and knowledge hiding. Moreover, it was also observed that high-performance work stress significantly but negatively moderated the relationship between interpersonal injustice and emotional exhaustion. Theoretically, this study made a valuable contribution by examining the impact of interpersonal injustice on knowledge hiding behavior. In terms of practical implications, this study would certainly aid the organizations to support a fair and just workplace culture that encourages knowledge sharing. (shrink)

Ataxia‐telangiectasia (A‐T) is a pleiotropic recessive disorder characterized cerebellar ataxia, immunodeficiency, specific developmental defects, profound predisposition to cancer and acute radiosensitivity. Functional inactivation of single gene product, ATM, accounts for this compound phenotype. We suggest that ATM acts as a sensor of reactive oxygen species and/or oxidative damage cellular macromolecules, including DNA. In turn, ATM induces signalling through multiple pathways, thereby coordinating acute phase stress responses with cell cycle checkpoint control and repair of oxidative damage. Absence of ATM is (...) proposed to limit the repair of insidious oxidative damage that can occur under normal physiological conditions, ultimately leading to apoptosis of particularly sensitive cells, such as neurons and thymocytes. (shrink)

The evolution of religious traditions may be partially explained by out-group avoidance due to pathogen stress. However, many religious rituals may increase rather than decrease performers' susceptibility to infection. Moreover, religions often spread through proselytizing, which requires out-group interaction; and in other cases, the benefits of economic exchange increase religious pluralism and social interactions with out-groups.

BackgroundAthletes will increase their state anxiety under stress situations, which will lead to the decline of sports performance. The improvement of anxiety by probiotics has been reported, but there is a lack of research in the athlete population. The purpose of the current study is to explore the effectiveness of probiotics in improving athletes’ state anxiety and sports performance under stress situations.MethodsWe conducted this single-arm study in Chongqing Institute of Sports Technology. In the 8-week study, 21 Chongqing young (...) divers were given probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BB-12 daily. The state anxiety and sports performance of athletes were measured before, during, and after the intervention, and the gut microbiota of athletes was measured before and after the intervention.ResultsThe intervention results showed that cognitive state anxiety, somatic state anxiety, and anxiety emotion were improved. In terms of gut microbiota, the intervention did not change the gut microbial composition but increased the abundance of Bifidobacteriaceae. At the 8th week, the performance of athletes under stress was significantly improved.LimitationsFirst of all, due to the restriction of the number of subjects in this study, there was no control group. Secondly, although the athletes’ diet was recorded in this study, the influence of this factor on gut microbiota was not eliminated. Finally, the anxiety level of the athletes in this study was obtained through a self-report, lacking physiological data in state anxiety.ConclusionThe results show that probiotics intervention can improve the state anxiety of athletes under stress situation and improve the performance of athletes under stress situation. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs’ wellbeing is of unprecedented importance given their crucial role in national economies in terms of job creation and innovation. In this research, we used a mixed methods approach to investigate the direct and indirect mechanisms by which entrepreneurs’ wellbeing mediates the effects of stress on perceived entrepreneurial success. We theorize that entrepreneurs experience work-related stress and that the level of perceived wellbeing mediates the relationship between the entrepreneurs’ stress and perceived success. We also hypothesize moderation effects (...) by dispositional positive affect. We find that stress has direct negative effects on entrepreneurs’ wellbeing and perceived success. However, an experience of positive affect significantly weakens the negative effects of stress by broadening and building entrepreneurs’ cognitions. Drawing from our theoretical and empirical findings, we discuss implications for theory and practice in the domain of entrepreneurs’ wellbeing. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate the moderating effect of the organizational identification level of the employees on the relationship between their organizational role stress level and job satisfaction. Data were gathered from 460 white-collar employees with snowball sampling. Covariance-based structural equation modeling was used in data analysis. According to the research results, it was found that there is a significant negative relationship between the organizational role stress level of the employees and their job satisfaction. This research also shows (...) that organizational identification has a moderating effect on the negative relationship between organizational role stress and job satisfaction. An employee who has a high level of organizational identification has more job satisfaction than an employee who has less organizational identification. (shrink)

Several protective cellular mechanisms protect against the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the concomitant oxidative stress. Therefore, any reduction in glucose or fatty acid flux into cells leading to a decrease in the production of reducing equivalents would also lead to a decreased ROS production and protect cells against oxidative stress. In the presence of insulin, FOXO proteins are localized from the nucleus to the cytoplasm and degraded. An increase in cellular glucose uptake will lead to (...) increased production of ROS. This in turn activates the stress‐responsive Jun‐N‐terminal kinase (JNK), which promotes nuclear translocation of FOXO proteins, upregulating some important target genes including stress resistance. Consequently, insulin resistance should result in decreased cellular ROS production. For this reason, insulin resistance could be a physiological mechanism activated at the cellular level in response to conditions stimulating ROS production and leading to the prevention of oxidative stress, and extension of life. Concerning the whole organism, however, IR is a maladaptive process in the long term causing a diabetic state. BioEssays 29:811–818, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Research on couples’ earnings arrangements has focused on men’s and women’s conformance to the male-breadwinner/female-homemaker model. By doing so, research has ignored the following: Breadwinning can be a source of stress for men; the male-breadwinner/female-homemaker model does not apply to all racial groups; and the proportion of women in an occupation may moderate the stress process associated with divergent earnings arrangements. To address factors overlooked, I applied mixed-effects models to the 1999–2017 Panel Study of Income Dynamics data to (...) examine the internalizing and externalizing responses to stress among married, non-Hispanic white and Black men and women. Greater relative earnings reduce Black women’s psychological distress and heavy drinking, but increase Black men’s heavy drinking. Among white men, greater relative earnings reduce psychological distress and demonstrate a curvilinear relationship with heavy drinking, whereas no significant pattern emerges for white women. Occupational sex composition moderates these relationships. Among Black women, greater relative earnings lower psychological distress the most for those in women-concentrated occupations, and moving from economic dependency to equal breadwinning decreases heavy drinking the most for white men in men-concentrated occupations. Findings showcase the value of an intersectional approach to capture the diverse meanings associated with earnings arrangements. (shrink)

Background: Despite the growing potential of mobile-based technologies, innovative interventions targeting the reduction of acute stress in daily life remain under-researched. Music listening is an easy-to-administer activity that is associated with lower levels of biological and self-reported stress. However, the application of music as an intervention in moments of acute stress in daily life remains to be examined. We developed a just-in-time intervention delivering music in moments of stressful experiences in daily life and tested its feasibility using (...) a mixed methods approach.Methods: In this uncontrolled pilot study, the ecological momentary music intervention was tested by 10 chronically stressed women aged 23.5 ± 3.3 years. Over 18 consecutive days, whenever participants reported stressful experiences, they were encouraged to listen to a self-compiled playlist. Subjective stress levels and saliva samples were assessed at three time points per stress report. We analyzed app-based log data, in-the-moment responses, questionnaire data, and semi-structured interview data.Results: On average, participants’ compliance with the study protocol lay at 70%. Overall, 65 stressful experiences were reported, 51 of which were followed by music listening, for an average duration of 12:53 min. Complete data were provided for 46 stressful experiences. Participants reported immediate relaxation and distraction through music listening. The interviews revealed that the intervention was easy to use and that music listening in moments of perceived stress was viewed as a new and pleasant activity. Several aspects of the protocol were identified, which should be improved in future studies.Conclusion: Since repeated stressful experiences in daily life can pose a threat to physical and mental integrity, interventions that are easily applicable and deliver support when needed most are necessary. Following minor adaptations, the EMMI can be considered as a feasible approach to target psychobiological stress responses in daily life, which is worthy of investigation in future larger-scale trials. (shrink)

The higher education sector was affected by this pandemic, managing enduring challenges since early 2020. Institutions of higher learning are prepared to address unsurmountable challenges to ensure that students are not deceived and are being given the proper nurture, coupled with adherence to syllabuses. Simultaneously, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused unscrupulous pressure on students of these institutions. The psychological waves are creating mammoth consequences, affecting the beneficiaries of the higher education system and their families. In recent years, with limited studies (...) on psychological impact among tertiary students on a cross-country basis, general self-efficacy, and the degree of coping strategies, we were motivated to investigate the degree of depression, anxiety, and stress, among this cohort of students encompassing the pre-university/Diploma, 1st–4th-year undergraduate, and postgraduate students from private universities in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Southern Africa, and China, representing the emerging economies. A cross-sectional survey was conducted, followed by quantitative analysis. The objective of this study was to recognize whether there is a relationship between the psychological impact of DAS and the coping strategies adopted by the undergraduate students responding during the lockdown. The findings of this study revealed that with a sample size of 397, DAS lacked any severe impact on students across gender, country, household income, and level of education. DAS was established to be well managed with a coping strategy and self-efficacy established. This study resulted in a deeper understanding of DAS among undergraduates in emerging economies and their degree of coping behavior, providing a glimpse of the approach of millennials to handle DAS during the pandemic. (shrink)

This study examined the structural validity and reliability of the DASS-21 in a large sample of secondary school students from North Macedonia. Based on theoretical and empirical considerations, five structural models were compared using confirmatory factor analysis. The original three-factor model provided good fit to the data; however, high interfactor correlations indicated that the depression, anxiety, and stress factors were indistinguishable. The bifactor solution yielded superior fit relative to other tested models. Factor loading patterns revealed a strong general factor (...) and some specificity of the depression and anxiety factors, whereas the stress items were primarily markers of general distress. Model-based reliability and ancillary bifactor indices revealed that the DASS-21 is essentially unidimensional. Thus, only the total score could be used as a reliable measure of general emotional distress, while subscale scores should be avoided. Overall, the findings provide further support for the cross-cultural validity of the DASS-21 and confirm that it is suitable for use among older adolescents in North Macedonia. (shrink)

The objective of the study was to translate and validate the COVID Stress Scales into Spanish in Peru. Around 1,424 people, selected through a non-probabilistic sampling, participated in the study. Factor analysis confirmed an initial six-dimensional factorial structure of the CSS-36. Reliability by internal consistency was good for the dimensions of fear of danger, socioeconomic consequences, xenophobia, fear of contamination, traumatic stress, and compulsive control. In addition, the factorial structure of scale has been shown be strictly invariant for (...) both males and females. The Spanish version of the CSS-36 has evidence of validity, reliability, and invariance to measure COVID-19 stress in a Peruvian sample. (shrink)

The preschool education profession often faces many challenges and preschool teachers, as important members of the preschool education profession must respond to a variety of emergencies with young children, which also leads to high levels of job stress and can have a negative impact on their ongoing well-being. Past research has pointed out that a healthy lifestyle is one of the key factors in enhancing sustainable well-being in high-stress work situations and many studies have found that good leisure (...) activity engagement as a healthy lifestyle is associated with higher levels of well-being. However, the relationship between preschool teachers’ leisure engagement and sustainable well-being has been less explored. Therefore, this study proposed seven research hypotheses based on the engagement theory proposed by Fredricks et al. and developed a research model to explore the relationship between three types of leisure engagement, including behavioral, affective and cognitive, and preschool teachers’ job stress and sustainable well-being, using age as a control variable. This study used a cross-sectional web-based questionnaire with a convenience sample of 500 preschool teachers in China. The collected data were analyzed for reliability and validity, model fit testing and structural equation modeling for model validation after removing invalid data and incomplete responses. The results of the study showed that behavioral engagement was not related with either the job stress or sustainable well-being of preschool teachers; Emotional and cognitive engagement were negatively related to job stress but positively related to the sustainable well-being of preschool teachers; and Job stress was negatively related to the sustainable well-being of preschool teachers; Age is an effective control variable. From the above results, it is clear that not all three types of leisure engagement are effective in terms of reducing the work stress of preschool teachers. As well as being related to the sustainable well-being of preschool teachers emotional and cognitive engagement contributed more to sustainable well-being acquisition. (shrink)

Sensory feedback, which can be presented in different modalities - single and combined, aids task performance in human-robot interaction (HRI). However, combining feedback modalities does not always lead to optimal performance. Indeed, it is not known how feedback modalities affect operator performance under stress. Furthermore, there is limited information on how feedback affects neural processes differently for males and females and under stress. This is a critical gap in the literature, particularly in the domain of surgical robotics, where (...) surgeons are under challenging socio-technical environments that burden them physiologically. In the present study, we posited operator performance as the summation of task performance and neurophysiological cost of maintaining that performance. In a within-subject design, we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to assess cerebral activations of 12 participants who underwent a 3D manipulation task within a virtual environment with concurrent feedback (visual and visual + haptic) in the presence and absence of a cognitive stressor. Cognitive stress was induced with the serial-7 subtraction test. We found that while task performance was higher with visual than visual + haptic feedback, it degraded under stress. The two feedback modalities were found to be associated with varying neural activities and neural efficiencies, and these were stress- and gender-dependent. Our findings engender further investigation into effectiveness of feedback modalities on males and females under stressful conditions in HRI. (shrink)

Personality has widely been documented to play an important role in the cognitive appraisal and stress processes. Emerging studies highlight the stress mindset as a new concept that could add to the understanding of individual differences in stress experiences. This study aimed to examine the relative contribution of Big Five personality dimensions and stress mindset in accounting for measures of cognitive appraisals of stress among the competing athletes. The study was conducted on a sample of (...) 125 collegiate athletes of both genders who actively compete in sport. All the participants were regular undergraduate or graduate students at the Faculty of Kinesiology of the University of Zagreb. A questionnaire including demographic information about athletes and their sport career, stress mindset measure, situation-specific cognitive appraisal scale, sources of stress scale, and personality scale measured by IPIP-50 was administered in an online form using the Google Forms platform. Multivariate hierarchical regression procedures resulted in somewhat different predictor structures accounting for cognitive appraisals of threat, loss, and challenge, used as criterion variables. The set of Big Five personality dimensions and stress mindset measure proved to have a significant additive contribution to the explanation of each of the three cognitive appraisal criterion variances. The study results support the current body of literature suggesting a unique role of the stress mindset construct in explaining individual differences in cognitive stress appraisal among athletes above and beyond general personality dimensions. (shrink)

Selective attention depends on goal-directed and stimulus-driven modulatory factors, each relayed by different brain rhythms. Under certain circumstances, stress-related states can change the balance between goal-directed and stimulus-driven factors. However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying these changes remain unclear. In this study, we explored how psychosocial stress can modulate brain rhythms during an attentional task and a task-free period. We recorded the EEG and ECG activity of 42 healthy participants subjected to either the Trier Social Stress Test, a (...) controlled procedure to induce stress, or a comparable control protocol, flanked by an attentional task, a 90 s of task-free period and a state of anxiety questionnaire. We observed that psychosocial stress induced an increase in heart rate, self-reported anxiety, and alpha power synchronization. Also, psychosocial stress evoked a relative beta power increase during correct trials of the attentional task, which correlates positively with anxiety and heart rate increase, and inversely with attentional accuracy. These results suggest that psychosocial stress affects performance by redirecting attentional resources toward internal threat-related thoughts. An increment of endogenous top-down modulation reflected an increased beta-band activity that may serve as a compensatory mechanism to redirect attentional resources toward the ongoing task. The data obtained here may contribute to designing new ways of clinical management of the human stress response in the future and could help to minimize the damaging effects of persistent stressful experiences. (shrink)