The effects of personality and mood states on stress appraisals

This study investigated the influence of neuroticism, extraversion, cognitive processing, and experimentally induced mood states on stress appraisals made for five hypothetical stressors. Each of the five stressors was described by a written vignette, and contained an equal number of positive and negative elements. The cognitive processing bias was measured by having participants rate the extent to which, when making appraisals, they attended to the positive or negative elements present in the stressors. Participants first responded to the NEO-PI-R, a personality questionnaire measuring neuroticism and extraversion. Next, participants were randomly assigned to a negative, neutral, or positive mood condition, and watched a short video designed to induce the assigned mood. Following the video participants completed a mood-adjective checklist, made appraisals for the five hypothetical stressors, and completed a four-item questionnaire asking about their use, when making appraisals, of the positive and negative features of the stressors. It was predicted that experimentally induced mood would lead to mood-congruent attention and appraisal patterns, and also that mood and the cognitive processing bias would act as mediators between personality and appraisals. Consistent with predictions, positive mood-condition participants reported paying less attention to the negative elements of the hypothetical stressors, and made more positive appraisals than did negative or neutral mood-condition participants. Multiple regression and structural equation modeling techniques showed that, as predicted, neuroticism had indirect effects on appraisal patterns that were mediated by negative mood and by a cognitive bias which led neurotics to pay more attention to the negative, and less attention to the positive, stressor elements. Extraversion predicted positive mood and positive cognitive processing, but had only direct effects on appraisal patterns. Overall the results of this study support mood and cognitive processing as significant mediators between personality and appraisal processes. These findings suggest that both affective and cognitive components of personality are useful in understanding the association between stable dimensions of personality and stress appraisals