Relationships between Self-Rating Stress Scales and Physiological Stress Measures

• In Event: 343 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 10. Subjective Health Assessment

Abstract

Self-rating scales of stress have frequently been used by social scientists, but their relationships to physiological measures of stress are less clear. In this study we conduct a moderated regression analysis of data from 168 participants and find that cortisol reactivity to an acute stressor is inversely—not positively—associated with self-rated measures of long-term personality variables (negative affectivity, depression and neuroticism) but is unrelated to self-rated measures of long-term situational variables (chronic stress), when the effects of short-term self-rated negative mood are controlled. Short-term negative mood (measured post-stressor) is positively associated with cortisol reactivity, as expected. Notably, depression and chronic stress moderate the effects of negative mood on cortisol response, such that negative mood in combination with high depression and chronic stress is associated with low cortisol reactivity to the acute stressor. Interaction effects for mood with neuroticism and negative affectivity are not significant. When assessing relationships between self-rated scales of stress and physiological measures of stress, it may not be appropriate to assume that their results should be equivalent, especially if some refer to long-term variables and others to short-term variables (e.g., cortisol reactivity). We theorize that long-term and short-term variables have differential impacts on the cognitive appraisals that individuals make when confronted with an acute stressor, leading to different levels of physiological reactivity.

Authors

• Aarti Ramaswami, ESSEC Business School

• Marne Arthaud-Day, Kansas State University

• Janet P. Near, Indiana University

• Joseph Near, Indiana University-Bloomington