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

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.