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Not I, but she: The beneficial effects of self-distancing on challenge/threat cardiovascular responses

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.11.008Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We tested effects of manipulated self-distancing on later cardiovascular responses.

  • Self-distancing led to cardiovascular responses consistent with greater challenge.

  • Thus, self-distancing seems to promote favorable evaluations of resources/demands.

  • Cardiovascular responses reflecting task engagement were unaffected.

  • This suggests self-distancing did not lead to lower evaluations of self-relevance.

Abstract

Self-distancing has been shown to lead to benefits in the face of upcoming stressors, but the process by which this occurs remains unclear. We applied the cardiovascular measures of the biopsychosocial model of challenge/threat to test two plausible explanations: whether manipulating self-distancing (vs. a control condition) (1) makes a subsequent active-performance stressor seem less personally relevant, thereby leading to lower task engagement during task performance, and/or (2) promotes more favorable evaluations of personal resources relative to situational demands, resulting in greater challenge during performance. Participants who self-distanced by using non-first-person (vs. first-person) pronouns and their own name while preparing for a speech showed cardiovascular responses consistent with greater challenge while delivering the speech. Self-distancing did not, however, influence cardiovascular responses reflecting task engagement during the speech. Moreover, the effect of self-distancing persisted in the form of relative challenge during a second speech on an unrelated topic. These findings suggest self-distancing can lead to a positively valenced experience during active-performance stressors, rather than simply muted responses based on decreasing the stressor's self-relevance.

Section snippets

Participants

One hundred thirty-three undergraduates (68 women) participated in the study for partial course credit and had useable data in at least one of the two speech tasks. Of these, 132 had analyzable data for the first speech task, and 128 had analyzable data for the second speech task. This should have provided adequate power (0.80) to detect an approximate effect size of ηp2 = 0.06.

In a typical challenge/threat study, approximately 10–15% of the sample may be lost due to recording problems. In

Results

As is standard in challenge/threat research (e.g., Lupien et al., 2012, Seery et al., 2013), cardiovascular reactivity values were calculated by subtracting the value of the last baseline minute from each of the 2 min from both speeches (see Llabre, Spitzer, Saab, Ironson, & Schneiderman, 1991, for psychometric justification for the use of change scores in psychophysiology). Reactivity values were then averaged across minutes separately within each speech. This approach should increase

Discussion

The current study informs our understanding of self-distancing processes through the use of theoretically-based psychophysiological measures. Participants who self-distanced by using non-first-person pronouns and their own name while preparing for an upcoming speech showed cardiovascular responses consistent with greater challenge during the speech, compared to those who used first-person pronouns. Self-distancing did not, however, influence cardiovascular markers of task engagement. Given both

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