rethinkingstress-research

Relevant Research

Original Study

Crum, A. J., Salovey, P., & Achor, S. (2013). Rethinking stress: The role of mindsets in determining the stress response. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(4), 716-733.

Summary

Many people assume that stress is harmful and that they should avoid it. But is that true? Or does how we think about stress — our stress mindset — affect how we react to it?

Psychologist Alia Crum and colleagues set out to test whether people’s stress mindsets affect their responses to stress. Over the course of a week, the researchers randomly assigned employees at a financial institution to one of three groups. In the stress-is-debilitating group, 164 employees watched videos that portrayed stress as harmful, causing illness and mistakes at work. In the stress-is-enhancing group, 163 people watched videos that portrayed stress as useful, improving immunity, creativity, and work quality under pressure. In the control group, 61 people did not watch any videos.

After a week, the researchers discovered that people who had watched the stress-is-enhancing videos believed that stress has more positive effects. In contrast, people who had watched the stress-is-debilitating videos believed that stress has more harmful effects. In addition, people with the stress-is-enhancing mindset had better mental health and work performance than did people with the stress-is-debilitating mindset.

In a second study, the researchers showed that people with a stress-is-enhancing mindset actually responded better to stress. During a public speaking task, people with these mindsets had more adaptive physiological responses than did people with the stress-is-debilitating mindset, as indicated by their levels of the stress hormone cortisol. People with the stress-is-enhancing mindset were also more open to feedback — a necessary step toward improving.

Why This Works

What we believe will happen can have surprisingly strong effects on what does happen. Our mindsets shape what we attend to, how we interpret events, and how we react, all of which can change how our bodies respond to situations.

When This Works Best

This intervention works best for people who worry that stress is harmful. For these people, reframing stress as beneficial can have the biggest impact on how they respond to stress.

Additional Research

Akinola, M., Fridman, I., Mor, S., Morris, M. W., & Crum, A. J. (2016). Adaptive appraisals of anxiety moderate the association between cortisol reactivity and performance in salary negotiations. PLoS ONE 11(12): e0167977.

Crum, A. J., Akinola, M., Martin, A., & Fath, S. (2017). The role of stress mindset in shaping cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses to challenging and threatening stress. Anxiety, Stress and Coping 30(4), 379-395.

Crum, A. J. & Lyddy, C. (2014). De-stressing stress: The power of mindsets and the art of stressing mindfully. In A. Ie, C. T. Ngnoumen, & E. J. Langer (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Mindfulness. New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell.

Jamieson, J. P., Crum, A. J., Goyer, J. P., Marotta, M. E., & Akinola, M. (2018). Optimizing stress responses with reappraisal and mindset interventions: An integrated model. Anxiety, Stress and Coping 31(3), 245-261.

In the Media

Harvard Business Review: Stress Can Be a Good Thing If You Know How to Use It

The Wall Street Journal: Stress Benefit Tied to Upbeat Mindset

The New York Times: The Contrarians on Stress: It Can Be Good for You

See Also

SPARQ Solutions Catalog: To Work Better, Rethink Stress

Video: The Science Behind the Rethinking Stress Toolkit

Learn more about the Stress Mindset Measure, a survey from Stanford University Mind & Body Lab

Learn more about stress mindset interventions from Stanford University Mind & Body Lab