Anxiety Stress and CopingPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-10-02DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2025.2542298
Angie S LeRoy, Andreas Weyland, Jade Kanemitsu, Arya Tsay-Jones, Vincent D Lai, E Lydia Wu-Chung, Nyla Vela, Amanda Perozo, Valentina I Maza, Sierra Wickline, Katherine Beach, Robert Suchting
{"title":"Development and initial testing of an online security prime writing intervention during COVID-19.","authors":"Angie S LeRoy, Andreas Weyland, Jade Kanemitsu, Arya Tsay-Jones, Vincent D Lai, E Lydia Wu-Chung, Nyla Vela, Amanda Perozo, Valentina I Maza, Sierra Wickline, Katherine Beach, Robert Suchting","doi":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2542298","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2542298","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background and objectives: </strong>During the COVID-19 pandemic, we tested the efficacy of a one-week online security prime (SP) writing intervention in reducing distress among 254 adults (60+ years and/or having an underlying health condition). The efficacy of writing interventions can depend on several factors. Attachment orientations, characterized by dimensions of anxiety and avoidance, reflect individuals' tendencies in how they seek proximity to and rely on others for support, and influence how people experience and regulate their emotions.</p><p><strong>Design and methods: </strong>Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: Security Priming (SP), where people wrote about what made them feel safe and secure, Self-regulation (SR), where people wrote about their pandemic-related stressors, coping, and lifestyle changes, or a Control group (C); they also completed pre- and post-intervention measures.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Our hypothesis that the SP condition would outperform the SR and C conditions in reducing distress, was not supported. In the SP condition, attachment avoidance demonstrated a negative relationship with distress at follow-up, unlike the other two conditions. Further, those in the SP condition demonstrated a negative relationship between attachment anxiety and distress at follow-up.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The SP writing intervention was impactful for those insecurely attached and may have utility in other loss-related contexts beyond COVID-19.</p>","PeriodicalId":51415,"journal":{"name":"Anxiety Stress and Coping","volume":" ","pages":"234-247"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145214374","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anxiety Stress and CopingPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-10-15DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2025.2571524
Brianna Harney-Delehanty, Stephen Armeli, Howard Tennen
{"title":"Family history of alcohol use disorder and stress-reactivity.","authors":"Brianna Harney-Delehanty, Stephen Armeli, Howard Tennen","doi":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2571524","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2571524","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Family history of alcohol use disorder (FHA) is posited to convey its risk on problematic drinking partly through how individuals react to stressful situations. Research thus far has found equivocal results, with some studies concluding that FHA is associated with heightened stress-reactivity and others finding FHA associated with blunted stress-reactivity. In addition, the preponderance of this research has been conducted using laboratory-based paradigms, raising questions about the ecological validity of the findings. The purpose of the current study was to further clarify the association between FHA and affective reactions to two types of stress (social and academic stress) using an ecologically valid, intensive-longitudinal research design.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Participants were 1,606 undergraduate students (54% women) who completed a baseline survey, including questions related to family history of alcohol use, and who subsequently completed a 30-day daily diary reporting on their daily stress and affective states.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Results showed a weaker positive association between social stress and anxiety and depressive affect among individuals with more paternal alcohol use disorder symptoms, consistent with a blunted stress-reactivity perspective.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The results add to the current literature, providing a direction for future research to continue to clarify the nature of FHA and stress-reactivity.</p>","PeriodicalId":51415,"journal":{"name":"Anxiety Stress and Coping","volume":" ","pages":"160-170"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145304346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anxiety Stress and CopingPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-09-09DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2025.2554809
Wenrui Zhang, Ting He, Huinan Hu, Chunyan Yang, Xiuyun Lin
{"title":"The mechanisms for maintenance of COVID Stress Syndrome symptom networks: a dynamic network analysis.","authors":"Wenrui Zhang, Ting He, Huinan Hu, Chunyan Yang, Xiuyun Lin","doi":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2554809","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2554809","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background and objectives: </strong>COVID Stress Syndrome (CSS) is a new type of health anxiety triggered by the COVID epidemic. However, we know little about the causal relationship with CSS symptoms and the temporal and dynamic interactions between symptoms and cognitive processes associated with health anxiety.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>During the epidemic of COVID-19, 193 Chinese university students completed experience sampling methods on CSS symptoms and related constructs of health anxiety three times a day for 14 days.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Multilevel vector autoregressive (mlVAR) models were used to estimate contemporaneous and temporal networks at the within-person level.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>(1) The CSS symptoms were divided into two periods of growth and maintenance during these 14 days. (2) The COVID-19 traumatic stress dimension played a crucial role in maintaining the symptom network. (3) Catastrophizing of bodily sensations and rumination formed a positive feedback loop with COVID traumatic stress symptoms dimension of the CSS.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>This study advances the current understanding of CSS at the symptom level and temporal dynamics. The results suggest that the COVID traumatic stress dimension is a core mechanism for CSS maintenance and could be a point of focus for intervention and treatment in clinical practice.</p>","PeriodicalId":51415,"journal":{"name":"Anxiety Stress and Coping","volume":" ","pages":"220-233"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145031114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anxiety Stress and CopingPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-10-29DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2025.2579902
Edward Ashby Weston Hannemann, Anastasia Ejova
{"title":"Cumulative stressful life events and Australian women's depressive symptom trajectories: a longitudinal study of potential non-additive effects.","authors":"Edward Ashby Weston Hannemann, Anastasia Ejova","doi":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2579902","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2579902","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>There is strong evidence that accumulation of stressful life events (SLEs) contributes to depressive episodes, but the effect of cumulative SLEs on longitudinal trajectories of depressive symptoms in the general population is less well understood. In a pre-registered analysis involving multi-group Bayesian piecewise growth curve modeling applied to nationally representative data from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health, we investigated whether, over 36 years, among women aged 45-50 at baseline, the effects of cumulative SLEs on depression symptoms are positive (\"sensitizing\") or negative (\"steeling\"), and additive or non-additive (interaction or threshold). Participants were grouped based on the number of SLEs experienced over the first 24 years of the study period: 0-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-19, or 20-24. Groups were propensity-score-matched at baseline. While groups differed on mental and physical health at baseline, no group exhibited an increase in depressive symptoms following their final SLE. Moreover, groups with the most SLEs exhibited faster declines in depressive symptoms. There was significant heterogeneity of trajectories within groups. The findings contribute to the growing literature supporting the steeling hypothesis, and suggest that, if SLEs increase the severity of depressive symptoms, they do so in small sub-populations that require further research attention.</p>","PeriodicalId":51415,"journal":{"name":"Anxiety Stress and Coping","volume":" ","pages":"189-204"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145395003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Patterns in transitions of coping and their associations with adolescents' post-traumatic distress and growth: a random intercept latent transition analysis.","authors":"Yifan Li, Yingying Ye, Xima Yang, Jiali Huang, Zijian He, Xiao Zhou","doi":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2563397","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2563397","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Objective: </strong>We aimed to investigate whether adolescents employ different profiles of coping, how profiles transition, and how transitions influence adolescents' depressive symptoms, posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), and posttraumatic growth (PTG).</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>We surveyed 585 Chinese adolescents (Age: <i>M</i> = 15.50, <i>SD</i> = 1.58) 12 (T1), 21 (T2), 27 (T3) months after the Jiuzhaigou earthquake. We used latent profile analysis and random intercept latent transition analysis in identifying emergent profiles and transitions of coping, and examined their associations with depressive symptoms, PTSS, and PTG.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We identified three profiles (Low Generic Copers; Problem-focused Copers; High Generic Copers) that formed seven transitions. Stable low or high generic coping and the transition from low to high generic coping were related with high distress and high growth; stable high problem-focused, low emotion-focused coping or transitions from high problem-focused coping to low or high generic coping were related with low distress and high growth; transition from high to low generic coping was related with low distress and low growth.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The findings highlight that adolescent employ heterogeneous coping strategies that dynamically transition over time.</p>","PeriodicalId":51415,"journal":{"name":"Anxiety Stress and Coping","volume":" ","pages":"171-188"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145201987","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anxiety Stress and CopingPub Date : 2026-03-01Epub Date: 2025-08-29DOI: 10.1080/10615806.2025.2551018
Juina Herlitz, Anna Pohl, Alexander L Gerlach
{"title":"Googling as avoidance: anxiety responses to online health information about long COVID.","authors":"Juina Herlitz, Anna Pohl, Alexander L Gerlach","doi":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2551018","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10615806.2025.2551018","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p><b>Background and Objectives:</b>People search the internet for health information, although this increases anxiety and worry, particularly in the health-anxious. Applying the avoidance theory of worrying, we tested whether online health research serves to emotionally distance oneself from illness.<b>Design and Method:</b> Googling long COVID was compared to imagery of suffering from the disease in 60 participants. We assumed that anxiety responses to googling would be lower than during imagery, but higher than during baseline. Self-report, skin conductance (SCL), heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and respiration rate (RR) indicated anxiety.<b>Results:</b> SCL was higher during imagery than googling. However, HR, high frequency HRV and RR signaled stronger activation by googling than imagery. Physiological measures demonstrated a stronger anxiety response to googling compared to baseline. Regarding self-report, an interaction effect of sequence and condition emerged. Those who started with googling reported higher levels of anxiety during imagery. Among participants who began with imagery, anxiety was elevated during googling compared to baseline, but there were no significant differences when compared to anxiety during imagery.<b>Conclusions:</b> Results at least partially support the notion that health-related internet research may serve to avoid the physical and self-reported anxiety responses.</p>","PeriodicalId":51415,"journal":{"name":"Anxiety Stress and Coping","volume":" ","pages":"248-262"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144978007","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laura Oswald, Jeremy P Jamieson, Fabian Dvorak, Markus Heinrichs, Bastian Schiller
{"title":"Reappraising stress-related arousal enhances prosocial behavior in individuals perceiving the intervention as effective.","authors":"Laura Oswald, Jeremy P Jamieson, Fabian Dvorak, Markus Heinrichs, Bastian Schiller","doi":"10.1080/10615806.2026.2615347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2026.2615347","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>While psychological stress is increasing globally, the conditions under which stress facilitates or hinders prosocial behavior remain elusive. To resolve heterogeneous findings, it is essential to consider the modulatory effects of individuals' appraisals of stress as challenging versus threatening. Here, we tested the hypothesis that strengthening an individual's challenge appraisal under stress will enhance prosocial behavior.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>121 individuals (62 women, 59 men) participated in the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups. Participants were instructed to either reappraise their upcoming arousal as adaptive (<i>n</i> = 61) or they performed a reading exercise without instructions on how to cope with the psychosocial stressor (<i>n</i> = 60). Participants then engaged in incentivised resource allocation games. The study's design and sample characteristics were preregistered as a clinical trial (DRKS00027518).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>We observed no general effect of arousal reappraisal on prosocial behavior. However, reappraising stress-related arousal as a functional resource did enhance prosocial behavior in individuals who had internalized the message and found this intervention to be effective.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Our findings suggest that cognitive stress appraisals modulate behavioral stress effects, and appraisals can be leveraged to help improve stress-related response and outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":51415,"journal":{"name":"Anxiety Stress and Coping","volume":" ","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146203803","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Walk it out: acute treadmill walking reduces state anxiety and improves mood in people with multiple sclerosis who have analogue generalized anxiety disorder.","authors":"Petra Šilić, Robert W Motl","doi":"10.1080/10615806.2026.2625841","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2026.2625841","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background/objectives: </strong>Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is prevalent, yet poorly managed in multiple sclerosis(MS), and exercise training may be an effective treatment option. As an initial, foundational step in considering exercise training as a treatment, we examined the effects of an acute bout of moderate-intensity exercise on state anxiety and mood in people with MS prescreened for analogue GAD.</p><p><strong>Design/methods: </strong>This study followed a randomized, counterbalanced crossover experimental design. We administered the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory state subscale (STAI-Y1) and the Profile of Mood States (POMS) before, immediately after, and 20 min after 20-minutes of moderate-intensity treadmill walking exercise and seated quiet rest in people with MS and analogue GAD. The data were analyzed using a condition-by-time analysis of variance.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>There was a large, statistically significant condition-by-time interaction on STAI-Y1 scores (<i>F</i>(2,34) = 5.96, <i>p</i> = .006, <i>η<sup>2</sup></i> = .26). STAI-Y1 scores were reduced immediately after (<i>d</i> = 1.00) and 20 min after the exercise condition (<i>d</i> = .75) with no changes after seated rest. There were similar large improvements in overall POMS scores following exercise, but not seated rest.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>We provide novel evidence for the benefits of acute moderate-intensity walking exercise on state anxiety and mood among people with MS who have analogue GAD, and this exercise stimulus might be appropriate for the management of GAD in MS.</p>","PeriodicalId":51415,"journal":{"name":"Anxiety Stress and Coping","volume":" ","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146151017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is fear of missing out (FOMO) differentially related to underlying dimensions of negative affectivity? Analyzing latent factors of rumination, depression, and negative affect.","authors":"Jon D Elhai, Silvia Casale","doi":"10.1080/10615806.2026.2624434","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10615806.2026.2624434","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background/objectives: </strong>The Fear of Missing Out on rewarding experiences (FOMO) is linked with increased and problematic social media use. FOMO is also robustly correlated with negative affectivity constructs. However, research has not yet examined FOMO's relations with underlying dimensions of negative affectivity variables, to discover more specific aspects of negative affectivity with which FOMO may be most related.</p><p><strong>Design/methods: </strong>We analyzed data from 461 American university students for a web survey conducted in 2024, administering self-report scales assessing FOMO, rumination, negative affect, and depression.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Using confirmatory factor analyses, we discovered that FOMO was significantly more related to rumination's brooding factor than reflection factor. FOMO was equally related to underlying factors of negative affect and depression.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>These results help improve our understanding of the psychopathology of FOMO, elucidating its more granular relationship with the brooding type of rumination, and the mechanisms by which FOMO may related to depression and anxiety. Results are discussed in the context of FOMO's relationship with an increased social comparison orientation and social anxiety.</p>","PeriodicalId":51415,"journal":{"name":"Anxiety Stress and Coping","volume":" ","pages":"1-13"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146100934","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Longitudinal effects of COVID-19 posttraumatic growth on college adjustment, depressive, and anxiety symptoms.","authors":"Minglee Yong","doi":"10.1080/10615806.2026.2620587","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10615806.2026.2620587","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Struggling through the stressful experience of the COVID-19 pandemic can foster posttraumatic growth (PTG), yet its lasting effects are not well understood. The study tracked 2,368 undergraduate and recently graduated students (56% female) between 18 and 30 years old (<i>M</i> = 21.61 years) over four online survey waves, six months apart (September 2022 to May 2024). Path analyses revealed that higher perceived PTG predicted better college adjustment and fewer depressive symptoms one year later, but only among female students. PTG had no effect on anxiety symptoms. COVID-19 stress was linearly associated with PTG, with a weakly curvilinear component. Optimism and social support contributed uniquely to perceived PTG, and social support further moderated the COVID-19 stress-PTG relation such that COVID-19 stress predicted PTG only for students with average and above average social support. These results support the predictive validity of perceived PTG and highlight the value of fostering PTG when coping with adversity, especially among women.</p>","PeriodicalId":51415,"journal":{"name":"Anxiety Stress and Coping","volume":" ","pages":"1-14"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146047406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}