Coping with Cuisine

Anticipation can be a scary thing whether it be positive or negative news. Coping usually follows suit, and can take form in a variety of ways. It wouldn’t be shocking to see ourselves reaching for that bag of chips, or a stick of chocolate. As students, it’s not unusual we find ourselves in such scenarios which involve a degree of uncertainty and stress.

With the prevalence of these stressful situations and consequent health effects, it is critical to obtain a thorough understanding of why we behave the way we do. A cognitive and emotional perspective would be suitable for gaining further insight. Researchers at the University of California employed this approach to study how individuals coped in uncertain situations.

Jennifer L. Howell and Kate Sweeny sought to explore behaviours in uncertain situations across different circumstances and groups of individuals. Whats more appropriate to begin with, than exploring how US citizens reacted to Trump’s election in 2016? Next a group of law grads awaiting their bar exam results, were studied. Lastly, freshly minted PhDs on the hunt for jobs were examined. All of these scenarios were characterized by themes of uncertainty and anxiety.

Across all these situations, researchers explored positive and negative dimensions of behaviour: consuming healthy diets (fruits/veggies/adequate water), exercising (aerobic/strength) and alcohol use.

To delve deeper, the relationships between particular emotions and alcohol/health behaviours were unveiled.

For negative coping, worry was only linked to increased alcohol use in the election & bar exam situations. Bracing for negative outcomes, was only linked to increased alcohol use in the election situation.

Conversely with healthy coping, positive outcome expectation was linked to increased healthy behaviours in the bar and job hunt situations. Positive emotion and hope/optimism was linked to increased healthy behaviours in the job hunt. Hope was linked to lower alcohol use in the job hunt situation.

It is important to note that while these events shared the aspect of anticipation, the “type” of waiting in each scenario differed in the sense that outcomes were either fixed, permanent, or malleable. This fact can explain the differing effects emotions can have on healthy behaviours and coping mechanisms.

Thus in exploring how individuals behaved while waiting for important news in various contexts, we acquired a picture of how positive emotions is linked to greater well being, and negative thinking can be linked to worse health outcomes, in these particular times. It brings our attention to be more cognizant of the way we think, how it may affect our desired healthy regimens, and overall the importance of remaining positive.

With the mixed findings in mind, it will be intriguing if researchers can continue to shed light on what types of emotions are most vulnerable within particular (uncertain) scenarios, and which (emotions) to enhance, in order to counteract potential negative coping mechanisms.

---

Source:

• Howell, J. L., & Sweeny, K. (2020). Health behavior during periods of stressful uncertainty: associations with emotions, cognitions, and expectation management. Psychology & Health, 1-21.