The Interacting Role of Emotion Regulation and Stressful Life

Events to Predict Cortisol Response to Stress

Lydia G. Roos, B.S.

Kimberly A. Papay, B.S.

Jeanette M. Bennett, Ph.D.

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Introduction

u Stressful life events are common

u Depending on the severity and its perception as traumatic, can result in long-term psychological and physiological effects (e.g., PTSD, depression, substance use disorders) (Schnurr & Green, 2004)

uMay be partly due to dysregulations in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis leading to changes in the stress response (Schnurr & Green, 2004)

Introduction (cont.)u Recent stressful events not considered traumatic by clinician

standards receive little attention

u Emotion regulation strategies, such as suppression, may also influence HPA axis response to stress (Lam, Dickerson, Zoccola, & Zaldivar, 2000)

u Current study: Does the use of a suppressive emotion regulation strategy moderate the impact of number of recent stressful life events on cortisol response to acute stress?

Stressful Life Events

Suppression

Acute Stress Response

Participants

u Secondary data obtained from the Pittsburgh Common Cold Study 3

u Participants

u 199 healthy adults ages 18-55 (mean 30; SD 10.6)

u 114 males, 85 females

u Exclusion criteria:

uPsychiatric illnesses in the past year

uMajor medical conditions

uTaking medications other than birth control

uPregnancy/Lactation

Measures – Stressful Life Events

u Life Events List (LEL) - 24-item self-report questionnaire used to assess the amount of stressful life events experienced during the past year (Cohen, Tyrrell, & Smith, 1991; Henderson, Byrne & Duncan-Jones, 1981).

ue.g., “Broke off an engagement to be married or ended an intimate relationship.”

u“House was broken into and/or burgled.”

Measures – Emotion Regulation

u Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) – 10-item self-report questionnaire used to assess habitual use of two strategies for managing emotions (Gross & John, 2003).u Subscale - Expressive Suppression

ue.g., “I keep my emotions to myself.”

u“When I am feeling negative emotions, I make sure not to express them.”

Acute Stress Provocationu Participants underwent a modified version of the Trier

Social Stress Test (Kirschbaum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993).

uWell-validated, reliable method for provoking HPA axis response (Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004)

u15-minute task

u5 mins – Prepare speech

u5 mins – Deliver speech on camera

u5 mins – Serially subtract 13 from 1,022

HPA Axis Responseu Seven salivary cortisol samples – Baseline (Time 0),

immediately after stressor, and recovery every 10 minutes

Baseline Task Recovery

5 min Speech Prep

5 min Speech Delivery

5 min Mental Arithmetic

-20 0 +15 +25 +35 +55 +65+45

Results

Results

Results

Discussion

u Expressing emotions with more stressors may lead to adaptive recovery

u Less HPA axis reactivity to future acute stress

u Suppressive emotions with more stressors may lead to greater physiological response

u May also be due to suppressing emotions being physically taxing (Gross, 2002)

Limitations & Future Directions

u Limitations:

uNo trauma history

uDid not capture the impact of the event on the person and his/her life

u Future directions:

uAssess differences in emotion regulation’s effect in traumatic life events vs. recent stressful events

u Intervention studies to examine whether reducing maladaptive emotion regulation strategies reduce negative impacts of stressful events on stress response

Acknowledgements

u This research was supported in part by the Herschel & Cornelia Everett Foundation Graduate Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte

u Laboratory for the Study of Stress, Immunity, and Disease - Director, Sheldon Cohen, PhD

u Data were accessed via the Common Cold Project (CCP) website (www.commoncoldproject.com).

u Grant funding:

u National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (AT006694

u National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (R01 AI066367)

u National Institutes of Health to the University of Pittsburgh Clinical and Translational Science Institute (UL1 RR024153 and UL1 RT000005).

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susceptibility to the common cold. New England Journal of Medicine, 325, 606-612.

2. Dickerson, S. S. & Kemeny, M. E. (2004). Acute stressors and cortisol responses: A theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 355–391.

3. Gross, J.J., & John, O.P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 348-362.

4. Henderson, A. S., Byrne, D. G., & Duncan-Jones, P. (1981). Neurosis and the social environment. New York: Academic Press.

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