“It's Gonna Be a Stressful Day!”: How Stressor Forecasting Moderates Stress and Wellbeing in Real-World Contexts

Abstract

Stressor forecasting predicts the likelihood of a stressful event occurring in an upcoming timeframe and can significantly influence everyday experiences. The current study aimed to understand how stressor forecasting may moderate links between hourly stress and affective experiences over the course of a day. An ecological momentary assessment approach was used to collect data from 304 participants about their predicted stressor forecasting and hourly stress to personally relevant stressors and affective experiences 10 times within a day. We predicted that stressor forecasting would moderate the relationship between stress and affective experiences (separately for negative and positive affect). Stressor forecasting significantly moderated the links between stress and negative affect, but not between stress and positive affect. These findings emphasize the meaningful implications that adverse stressor forecasting can have on daily wellbeing, which may lead to the development and maintenance of chronic stress.

Keywords

affective experiences / ecological momentary assessment / stress / stressor forecasting / wellbeing

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