Abstract
Stress has been widely recognized as a key factor contributing to health outcomes and psychological well-being. While some growing evidence points to stress as having an effect on emotion dynamics characteristics, there has yet to be a test of how global perceptions of stress are associated with not only average levels of emotions but also the variability in the intensity of the emotions, as well as how emotions linger (inertia), and whether these characteristics differ by age. In an effort to better understand how stress influences the emotional experiences of individuals, we examined associations between perceived stress levels and emotion dynamics indices in a sample of 859 working individuals over 24 h. Participants ranged in age from 21 to 81 years. Each participant was prompted at approximately 28 min intervals throughout a 24 h period to report intensity of emotional states. Overall, individuals who were more stressed experienced lower mean levels of positive emotions (with the exception of higher levels of excitement) and higher mean levels of negative emotions. They also experienced more pronounced variability in both positive and negative emotions, and greater inertia in negative emotions. We also found some evidence for age-related differences in mean levels and variability in certain emotions. The relationship of emotion dynamics indices to stress levels was not moderated by age. Many of the stress–emotion dynamics associations did not remain statistically significant upon controlling for the mean level of momentary emotions, indicating that the mean is a large component in the association.
Highlights
The overall levels of emotions that an individual experiences are important indicators of psychological health status
We observed a tendency for older individuals to exhibit lower mean levels and variability in high-arousal emotions, which warrants further research into developmental processes using EMA methods
The findings from this study add to our understanding of how perceived stress is associated with altered emotional functioning
Summary
The overall levels of emotions that an individual experiences are important indicators of psychological health status. Emotions can change over time at the scale of seconds to hours, and a large body of literature has demonstrated that characteristics of emotion fluctuations (emotion dynamics) are important indicators of psychological health (Houben et al, 2015). It is important to understand the various psychological and behavioral factors that contribute to emotion dynamics. One’s overall perception of stress has been identified as a key psychological factor that alters emotion dynamics (Koval and Kuppens, 2012). Evidence of the associations between stress and emotion dynamics to date has been limited to laboratory-induced stressors, which may suffer from a lack of ecological validity in terms of their generalizability to individuals’ real-world perception of stressors (Dickerson and Kemeny, 2004).
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