The Effectiveness of Attentional Training on Stress and Self-Esteem

Stress has been an immeasurably investigated theme within Neuropsychology since past few years. Attention training is a therapeutic intervention developed by Adrian Wells that involves the training of attentional skills to treat emotional disorders (Wells, 1990). This study investigated whether the Attentional training works as theorised to reduce stress. In addition, self-esteem and stress were investigated as potential moderators of the relationship between Attentional training and/or self-focus on vulnerability to the stressor. Prior research has shown that self-esteem level and self-focus interact such that self-focus predicts vulnerability to stress in people with low self-esteem, but not in those with high self-esteem. In a laboratory setting, 80 undergraduate student participants were exposed to a single session of either an Attention training analogue or a control treatment to see if Attentional training would reduce their stress to a subsequent stressor task. This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License ANN.MS.ID.000505. Archives in Neurology & Neuroscience Volume 1-Issue 1 Citation: Arpita G. The Effectiveness of Attentional Training on Stress AND Self-Esteem. Arch Neurol & Neurosci. 1(1): 2018. ANN. MS.ID.000505. DOI: 10.33552/ANN.2018. 01.000505. Page 2 of 4 Based on previous research this report aimed to look at two different hypotheses. Firstly it was expected that people with higher self-esteem would score less on the Perceived Stress Scale and those with lower self-esteem would score higher. The second hypotheses is that the participants who received ATT (experimental condition) would not show differences in stress level after being stressed with a stress task and their self-esteem would increase. Participants who do not receive ATT (control group) are expected to show higher levels of stress and lower levels of self-esteem after a stressing task than those in the experimental condition. Method Participants The sample consisted of 80 undergraduates (14 men and 66 women) aged in between 18-40 years old. All subjects were randomly allocated into one of two conditions either the experimental condition (find-the-face) or the control condition (find-the-flower). Gender was evenly split into these conditions. Apparatus The Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (SE) [21] consists on ten items and it has excellent internal consistency (Gutman scale coefficient of reproducibility: 0.92), test-retest reliability and validity [22]. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) has 14 questions and it has showed an adequate reliability and validity [23]. To monitor blood pressure an A&D Digital Blood Pressure Monitor was used. A stopwatch and video camera. A computer was used to display either an ATT task or control task. The ATT task consisted of 16 faces, only 1 smiling (Figure 1). Figure 1: Matrix presented to participants in the experimental condition in which they received attentional training (find-thesmile) Dandeneau & Baldwin [19]. Figure 2: Matrix presented to participants in the control task in which participants did not receive attentional training (find-thefive-petaled-flower) Dandeneau & Baldwin [19]. The control task showed a total of 16 flowers with only one flower with five petals (Figure 2). Design Two repeated measures t-test were used to measure scores of stress (PSS and blood pressure) and self-esteem before and after participants received either ATT or the control task. Stress and selfesteem were measured twice: before and after the stressor. ATT was only provided to half of the sample and the control group did a task with no ATT. Participants was randomly assigned to each condition. Procedure Firstly participants completed the PSS and the Self-Esteem Scale and their baseline blood pressure was measured. Then, participants in the experimental condition did the ATT task in which they had to click on the smiling face (or the 5 petaled-flower in the control group) as quickly as possible. Both conditions consisted of 80 trials. In order to create a moderate psychological stress, they had three minutes to prepare a five-minute free speech that they had to speak about in front of a camera. Following, they had to do a mental arithmetic task (2011-13) that involved counting backwards out loud for five minutes and every time they made a mistake they had to start over again. After, their blood pressure was measured, and they completed the PSS and the Self-Esteem questionnaire a second time. Results and Discussion In the group that received ATT the means of the scores before the stressor on Perceived Stress Scale (PSS1), Self-esteem (SE1), Systolic blood pressure (Systolic1) and Diastolic blood pressure (Diastolic1) were not significantly different from the scores after the stressor on PSS2:t(39)=. 705, p>. 05; SE2: t(39)=0; p>. 05. ; Systolic2:t(39)=1.23, p>. 05 and Diastolic2:t(39)=. 897, p>. 05 when ATT was provided in the experimental group. Therefore, stress levels stayed stable even after the stressor, hence, the first null hypotheses of no differences between the means is clearly accepted. Notwithstanding, self-esteem was expected to increase as a result of ATT but it stayed stable (Table 1 & 2).