Personality in Extreme Situations: Thinking (or Not) under Acute Stress☆

Abstract To investigate the role of emotional experience and understanding in acute stress situations, the relations between three individual difference variables (clarity, attention, and intensity) and cognitive difficulties under acute stress were examined. Fifty-nine firefighter trainees completed personality measures several weeks before engaging in a series of four live-fire exercises. Individuals who were typically clear about their emotions (high clarity) reported fewer instances of cognitive difficulties, such as “blanking out” and being unable to think clearly during the exercises. Emotional intensity and attention to emotion were unrelated to reports of these symptoms.

[1]  Stephen Worchel,et al.  The role of attribution in the experience of crowding , 1979 .

[2]  Ellen B. Braaten,et al.  Emotional intensity: Measurement and theoretical implications , 1994 .

[3]  James W. Pennebaker,et al.  Emotion, Disclosure, and Health , 1995 .

[4]  P. Ackerman,et al.  Motivation and cognitive abilities: an integrative/aptitude-treatment interaction approach to skill acquisition , 1989 .

[5]  Irwin G. Sarason,et al.  Test anxiety : theory, research, and applications , 1980 .

[6]  R. Larsen,et al.  Affect intensity as an individual difference characteristic: A review , 1987 .

[7]  G. Clore,et al.  Individual Differences in Emotional Experience: Mapping Available Scales to Processes , 2000 .

[8]  Alan D. Baddeley,et al.  Human factors in hazardous situations. , 1990, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[9]  D. Clark.  A cognitive model of panic attacks. , 1988 .

[10]  P. Salovey,et al.  Models of emotional intelligence , 2000 .

[11]  R. Sternberg,et al.  Handbook of Intelligence , 2000 .

[12]  T. Marteau,et al.  The development of a six-item short-form of the state scale of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). , 1992, The British journal of clinical psychology.

[13]  E. Salas,et al.  Linking Expertise and Naturalistic Decision Making , 2001 .

[14]  D. C. Glass,et al.  Reappraisal of the relationship between noise and human performance by means of a subsidiary task measure. , 1970, The Journal of applied psychology.

[15]  Amy Y. C. Chan,et al.  A critical evaluation of the emotional intelligence construct. , 2000 .

[16]  G. Keinan.  Decision making under stress: scanning of alternatives under controllable and uncontrollable threats. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[17]  Eduardo Salas,et al.  Stress and human performance , 1996 .

[18]  Traci A. Giuliano,et al.  The Measurement and Conceptualization of Mood Awareness: Monitoring and Labeling One's Mood States , 1995 .

[19]  J. Maser,et al.  Panic: Psychological Perspectives , 1988 .

[20]  D. Dörner.  The logic of failure. , 1990, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[21]  J. R. Simon,et al.  Differential effect of noise on tasks of varying complexity. , 1968, The Journal of applied psychology.

[22]  T. Palfai,et al.  Emotional attention, clarity, and repair : Exploring emotional intelligence using the Trait Meta-Mood Scale , 1995 .

[23]  Mark A. Davis,et al.  Cognitive and emotional components of anxiety: literature review and a revised worry-emotionality scale. , 1981, Journal of educational psychology.