Constructive thinking, reactions to a laboratory stressor, and symptoms in everyday life

Abstract

The present study is a replication and extension of a previous study that found that college students who were good constructive thinkers, as identified by the Constructive Thinking Inventory (CTI), reported more negative affect and negative cognitions, but not greater physiological reactivity than poor constructive thinkers in the stress phase of a laboratory stress test. Opposite results were obtained in a second recovery phase, in which the groups did not differ in self-reported negative affect and cognition, but the poor, unlike the good constructive thinkers, exhibited a paradoxical increase in physiological reactivity. Self-reported negative affect and cognitions in the laboratory, but not physiological reactions, were selectively associated with symptoms reported in everyday life. Because of the unexpected results for the physiological data, the present study was conducted with improved procedures and additional measures. The results replicated and extended the findings from the previous study, including finding significant relations between cognitive, affective, and physiological responses in the laboratory, on the one hand, and reports of symptoms in everyday life, on the other, and the importance of a distinction between stress-instigated and spontaneous negative cognitions was confirmed.