Psychology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 39

Psychology - Essay Example raisals are a person’s beliefs about the ability to deal with a situation based on available resources, and they can lead to a challenge response or a threat response. A challenge response occurs when we believe that we have enough resources to address the situation, and may have beneficial cognitive and cardiovascular benefits. However, a threat response due to an appraisal of insufficient resources may cause damages that are associated with stress. The authors suggest that humans have a natural attentional bias to potential threats, and that we may enter stress responses without a full appraisal of the situation. It is proposed that reappraising the resources available to deal with a potential threat may lead to a challenge response instead, and better psychophysical outcomes. This research included fifty participants (25 male, 25 female) who were compensated with either $25 or class credit. The subjects were prescreened for cardiovascular problems and one was excluded from the analysis after requesting to leave the study. Sensors were used to gain a baseline cardiovascular reading from each subject. They were placed in one of three conditions (reappraisal of resources, ignoring external cues, and a non-intervention control) and were re-tested after reading information about physical stress in scientific journals. The reappraisal group was instructed to appraise the task based on the new information while the external cues group was told to ignore the stress during subsequent readings. A modified Stroop task was used to measure attentional bias, while a Tier Social Stress Test measured perceived threat and questionnaires provided additional information. The collected data was analyzed using a mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA). It was shown that reappraisal participants reported more perceived resources than the other groups along with less physiological reactivity. Reappraisal subjects also showed less attentional bias for threats and emotionally negative