Effects of imposed monitoring and blunting strategies on emotional reactivity

The present study examined the effects of imposed monitoring and blunting coping strategies on emotional reactivity in 40 subjects who prepared themselves for upcoming neutral and aversive slides. Besides subjective indices, electrodermal measures and eye blink startle responses were used to evaluate the effect of preparatory strategies. In order to investigate whether effects of strategies are modulated by individual differences in coping style, habitual monitoring was assessed with the Miller Behavioral Style Scale (MBSS; Miller, 1987). It was found that monitoring instructions resulted in higher levels of subjective anxiety during the anticipation of aversive slides than blunting instructions. In addition, when confronted with the frightening and neutral stimuli, monitoring instruction subjects showed smaller electrodermal reactivity than blunting instruction subjects. These effects were not found to be modulated by habitual coping style. Overall, the startle measure yielded no meaningful effects. Taken together, the results seem to indicate that emotional reactivity under threatening conditions is more affected by imposed coping strategies than by habitual coping styles as indexed by the MBSS.