Stress as a Means of Success: Investigating the Effect of Stress Appraisals on Willpower, Ego Depletion, and Physiological Responses in College Students

Although stress is abundant and unavoidable, recent research suggests our perception of stress can strongly influence its outcomes. The Biopsychosocial Model of Challenge and Threat (BMCT) appraises a stressful scenario as either a threat or challenge and involves different emotional and physiological outcomes, with threat associating the stressor as unhelpful while challenge associates the stressor as beneficial (Blascovich & Tomaka, 1996; Tomaka et al., 1997). The current study manipulates instructions to be either threat- or challenge-based before college participants complete a cognitively demanding Stroop task. Additionally, given that everyday stress taxes an individual’s psychological resources and is negatively correlated to willpower, this study will measure trait self-control and ego depletion (Baumeister & Tienery, 2011). Thus, heart rate, grip strength (ego depletion), and state anxiety will all be measured pre and post test, and trait self-control will be assessed post-test only. Independent samples t-tests will be used to examine the manipulation (threat vs. challenge instructions) on Stroop task performance, state anxiety, grip strength, and heart rate variability. Trait self-control will also be examined in relation to these dependent variables. This study aims to provide insights into what factors influence overall efficiency and productivity.