The joint impact of mood state and task difficulty on cardiovascular and electrodermal reactivity in active coping
1Department of Psychology, University of Erlangen, Germany. gendolla@phil.uni-erlangen.de
Abstract:
An experiment with N = 56 university students investigated the joint effects of manipulated mood state and task difficulty on cardiovascular and electrodermal reactivity during mood inductions and performance on a letter cancellation task. We tested our theory-based prediction that moods per se do not involve autonomic adjustments whereas mood and task difficulty interact during task performance to determine autonomic reactivity with respect to active coping. Specifically, we anticipated for an easy task weaker reactivity in a positive mood (due to low subjective demand) than in a negative mood (due to high subjective demand). Conversely, we expected, for a difficult task, stronger reactivity in a positive mood (high, but not yet too high, subjective demand) than in a negative mood (too high subjective demand). Adjustments of systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and tonic skin conductance level described exactly the predicted pattern. Furthermore, task performance was associated with autonomic reactivity in the difficult conditions.
Related Concept Videos
Coping Strategies: Emotion Focused
Coping Strategies: Problem Focused
For example, consider a student who struggles to understand their...
The Influence of Cognition on Affect
Stress and Mental Health
Individuals with depression often experience challenges in both their personal and professional...
Psychological Responses to Stress
General State of Stress
Specifically, consider a tetrahedral element where one face, labeled XYZ, is perpendicular to the line OA, and the remaining faces align with the coordinate axes with point O as the origin. At any point, such as point O, the stress tensor can be used to determine the stress...


