Coping styles and anxiety and physiological responses of teachers in stressful situations

Abstract

The relationship between coping styles and stress responses of teachers was examined in an experiment. With the scores of Manifest Anxiety and Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scales, teacher-participants were classified into four groups of six each; repressor, sensitizer, low-anxious, and defensive-anxious. Then, they performed a word-association task, and were individually interviewed by a woman they met for first time. Intermittently during the sessions, the participant rated own state anxiety; heart rate (HR) and skin conductance level (SCL) were monitored; and reaction time and successful recall rate on the task were recorded. Results were as follows: Repressors showed high state anxiety and a significantly greater increase in HR, but a smaller increase in SCL than the others. In contrast, sensitizers showed low state anxiety and a significantly greater increase in SCL. The low-anxious showed high state anxiety at the beginning which decreased immediately, and remained at an intermediate and steady physiological arousal level, except SCL. The defensive-anxious showed low state anxiety and low HR. On the whole, it was suggested that coping styles could predict stress responses.