Cognitive processes, strain, and stress: Gender differences in stress propensity indicators

A Shortened Psychophysical Task to Quantify Irritability: The Reactive Irritability Scale II (RIS-II)

The Reactive Irritability Scale (RIS) uses magnitude estimation to measure reactive irritability. Respondents rate target sounds in comparison to a neutral reference sound. The RIS proved more sensitive than self-report measures to detect irritability associated with withdrawal from cigarette smoking and with exposure to a stressful environment, but was too long (30 min) for routine use. We report here on a shortened version (13 min)--RIS-II. The RIS-II exhibited robust test-retest reliability and correlated strongly with the original RIS (Study 1). In Study 2, the RIS-II was administered to subjects who experienced psychological stress and then were exposed to progressive relaxation, music, cognitive tasks, or silence; the Progressive Relaxation group was the most irritable. In Study 3, the RIS-II was administered to chronic pain patients. Pain patients found the sounds less irritating than did controls with the exception of the reference sound; repeated presentation of the reference sound increased irritability. These studies indicate that the RIS-II is a reliable instrument that may have utility for the measurement of irritability in laboratory and clinical settings. In addition, these studies indicate that the RIS-II is understandable by individuals of different ages who are from educationally- and culturally-diverse backgrounds and individuals who are healthy as well as individuals suffering from chronic medical conditions who are on multiple medications.

Meta-analysis of relations of stress propensity with subjective stress and strain

Meta-analyses were used to examine relations of three factors of stress propensity, i.e., cognitive-affective connectivity, psychological magnification, and anger-irritability, with three stress criteria, i.e., subjective stress, psychological strain, and physiological strain. Each of the stress propensity factors was significantly related to each criterion. Sex was a significant moderator for two of these nine relations (cognitive-affective connectivity with subjective stress and anger-irritability with psychological strain).

Cognitive-affective stress response: effects of individual stress propensity on physiological and psychological indicators of strain

The purpose of this study was to define further the role of individual stress propensity in physiological arousal and subsequent subjective stress and strain by measuring stress-induced reactivity in a laboratory setting. Individual predisposition to stress is conceptualized as a latent construct, cognitive-affective stress propensity, that is manifested as multiple trait indicators, e.g., negative affectivity, anger-irritability, and negative self-esteem. For 80 undergraduates experimental treatments were two stressors, time pressure and performance feedback. Physiological arousal indices included skin temperature, blood volume, and electromyographic activity. Results provide some support for the hypotheses that this propensity moderates the relationships between stressor and physiological arousal and between physiological arousal and subjective stress and strain.