Personal Anxiety and Emotion Regulation in the Context of Study of Post-Traumatic Stress

Abstract

The study presents data of the relationship of personal anxiety with signs of posttraumatic stress. To explain the revealed features of the relationship of these variables, the methods of emotion regulation are used as a complex of mental processes that enhance or constrain emotional experiences of traumatic events of high intensity. The study was carried out in two stages: at the first stage, the specificity of the connection between the personal anxiety and the signs of posttraumatic stress symptoms was studied (486 respondents from Moscow, the Chechen Republic and Transbaikalia), at the second stage, the strategies of emotion regulation in persons with different levels of personal anxiety were studied (70 Moscow students were interviewed). Methods: the Mississippi Scale for Assessment of Posttraumatic Reactions (civil version) (MS), the Questionnaire of Diagnostics of Self-Assessment Charles D. Spielberger and Y. L. Hanina, Life Experience Questionnaire(LEQ), Questionnaire of Cognitive Regulation of Emotion N. Garnefski, the Questionnaire of Emotion Regulation J. Gross's. It is shown that personal anxiety has a positive relationship with the severity of posttraumatic stress. However, 9.6% of respondents with high personal anxiety have low rates of posttraumatic stress. Individuals with high personal anxiety tend to use emotion-management strategies such as self-blame, acceptance, rumination, catastrophization, blaming others and individuals with low personal anxiety use cognitive reassessment strategies associated with cognitive efforts to change attitudes toward a problem situation.

Keywords

• personal anxiety
• posttraumatic stress
• regulation of emotions
• resource
• predictor
• traumatic event
• suppression of emotional expression