When Stress Becomes Human: The Joint Effect of Anthropomorphism and Generalized Trust on Stress Mindset

Stress mindset—the extent to which individuals believe that stress has enhancing rather than debilitating consequences—is an important predictor of mental health, highlighting the need to identify factors that shape it. While previous research has shown that externally provided persuasive information about the beneficial consequences of stress fosters a more stress-is-enhancing mindset, little is known about whether and when individuals’ internal cognitive strategies can also foster this mindset. This research focuses on a specific internal cognitive strategy—anthropomorphism—and investigates whether it and generalized trust jointly shape individuals’ stress mindset. Two experimental studies were conducted. Study 1 shows that compared with non-anthropomorphism, anthropomorphism leads to a more stress-is-enhancing mindset among individuals with high generalized trust, but not among those with low generalized trust. Study 2 further demonstrates that this joint effect is mediated by enhanced perceived altruistic motivation. This research introduces stress as a new anthropomorphic entity and extends the stress mindset literature by showing that an internal cognitive strategy and a social belief jointly shape individuals’ stress mindset.