The interplay of stress and processing of self-relevant information

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hartmut Schächinger
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2014 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 265686004

Stress is elicited by potentially harmful situations, and consists of physiological, emotional and behavioral responses. Stress responses are modulated by several parameters. Most important for stress processing is that the stressor is identified to be significant for the physical and perceived self. Threatening the self, e.g. by adding a socially evaluating element, enhances stress reactivity. Interestingly, a similar effect can also be found by sole activation of the self: visual self-display during a stressful situation exerted the same effect on stress reactivity as a threatening social evaluation panel. We could recently show that the presentation of self-resembling (morphed) face portraits enhanced positive emotional effects found during appetitive, erotic stimulation. Thus, we postulate that self-resemblance will enhance and modulate emotional/stress effects. Startle and stress experiments are proposed to study the cognitive mechanisms of self-resemblance, whether selfresemblance interacts with affective processes, and whether they are separable from mere familiarity effects.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Johanna Lass-Hennemann