The Role of Performance in the Stress Re-appraisal Process

Chronic stress, physiological and psychological, has been strongly associated with the onset of psychopathology, highlighting the importance of research investigating the experiences of stress. A current model of the stress process includes stress appraisal, stress reactivity, and performance in stressful situations. Past research has treated performance as a dependent variable in this model, but the research in this paper investigates the potential causal relationship of performance on stress re-appraisal. The relationship of performance with pre-task stress appraisal was compared to the relationship of performance with post-task stress appraisal. Participants filled out questionnaires pre-task and post-task, and gave a 5 minute speech in between when the Trier Social Stress Test was conducted. It was found that pre-task stress appraisal was not significantly correlated with performance, but performance did have a moderate negative correlation with post-task stress appraisal. Furthermore performance was associated with change in stress appraisal, and its inclusion in a liner equation predicted stress re-appraisal better than did pre-task stress appraisal alone. Considerations of the implications of performance interfering with the stress appraisal process are made accordingly. _______________________________________________________________________________________