Being a Grump Only Makes Things Worse: A Transactional Account of Acute Stress on Mind Wandering
The current work investigates the influence of acute stress on mind wandering. Participants completed the Positive and Negative Affect Scale as a measure of baseline negative mood, and were randomly assigned to either the high stress or low stress version of the Trier Social Stress Test. Participant...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2013-11-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00730/full |
| _version_ | 1818192430864793600 |
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| author | Melaina T Vinski Scott eWatter |
| author_facet | Melaina T Vinski Scott eWatter |
| author_sort | Melaina T Vinski |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The current work investigates the influence of acute stress on mind wandering. Participants completed the Positive and Negative Affect Scale as a measure of baseline negative mood, and were randomly assigned to either the high stress or low stress version of the Trier Social Stress Test. Participants then completed the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) as a measure of mind wandering behaviour. In Experiment 1, participants reporting a high degree of negative mood that were exposed to the high stress condition were more likely to engage in a variable response time, make more errors, and were more likely to report thinking about the stressor relative to participants that report a low level of negative mood. These effects diminished throughout task performance, suggesting that acute stress induces a temporary mind wandering state in participants with a negative mood. The temporary affect-dependent deficits observed in Experiment 1 were replicated in Experiment 2, with the high negative mood participants demonstrating limited resource availability (indicated by pupil diameter) immediately following stress induction. These experiments provide novel evidence to suggest that acute psychosocial stress briefly suppresses the availability of cognitive resources and promotes an internally-oriented focus of attention in participants with a negative mood. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T00:30:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7644b14958c94754bd388c653cada876 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T00:30:23Z |
| publishDate | 2013-11-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-7644b14958c94754bd388c653cada8762022-12-22T00:44:30ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782013-11-01410.3389/fpsyg.2013.0073059496Being a Grump Only Makes Things Worse: A Transactional Account of Acute Stress on Mind WanderingMelaina T Vinski0Scott eWatter1McMaster UniversityMcMaster UniversityThe current work investigates the influence of acute stress on mind wandering. Participants completed the Positive and Negative Affect Scale as a measure of baseline negative mood, and were randomly assigned to either the high stress or low stress version of the Trier Social Stress Test. Participants then completed the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) as a measure of mind wandering behaviour. In Experiment 1, participants reporting a high degree of negative mood that were exposed to the high stress condition were more likely to engage in a variable response time, make more errors, and were more likely to report thinking about the stressor relative to participants that report a low level of negative mood. These effects diminished throughout task performance, suggesting that acute stress induces a temporary mind wandering state in participants with a negative mood. The temporary affect-dependent deficits observed in Experiment 1 were replicated in Experiment 2, with the high negative mood participants demonstrating limited resource availability (indicated by pupil diameter) immediately following stress induction. These experiments provide novel evidence to suggest that acute psychosocial stress briefly suppresses the availability of cognitive resources and promotes an internally-oriented focus of attention in participants with a negative mood.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00730/fullmind wanderingcoping strategiespupil diametertransactional model of stressnegative mood |
| spellingShingle | Melaina T Vinski Scott eWatter Being a Grump Only Makes Things Worse: A Transactional Account of Acute Stress on Mind Wandering Frontiers in Psychology mind wandering coping strategies pupil diameter transactional model of stress negative mood |
| title | Being a Grump Only Makes Things Worse: A Transactional Account of Acute Stress on Mind Wandering |
| title_full | Being a Grump Only Makes Things Worse: A Transactional Account of Acute Stress on Mind Wandering |
| title_fullStr | Being a Grump Only Makes Things Worse: A Transactional Account of Acute Stress on Mind Wandering |
| title_full_unstemmed | Being a Grump Only Makes Things Worse: A Transactional Account of Acute Stress on Mind Wandering |
| title_short | Being a Grump Only Makes Things Worse: A Transactional Account of Acute Stress on Mind Wandering |
| title_sort | being a grump only makes things worse a transactional account of acute stress on mind wandering |
| topic | mind wandering coping strategies pupil diameter transactional model of stress negative mood |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00730/full |
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