Study of the relationship between personal characteristics and emotional dynamics in prolonged stressful situations

Abstract

The explicit and implicit positive and negative affects of 151 people were measured daily for a month. During this month the subjects (bachelor students – 85 persons) were in stressful situation caused by participation in intensive educational course and other 66 were newcomers and their stress was caused by adaptation reasons. All subjects are students of Branch Lomonosov Moscow State University in Tashkent (Uzbekistan). Dynamic characteristics for each subject were measure as Shannon entropy and lambda-parameter from logistic map helping to describe the level of each affect at time (n + 1) as function of the same affect at time n. In addition, average and variance for each affect during 30 day as static characteristics were calculated. Also the subjects were tested by methods measuring traits personal potential determining optimal personal functioning (aspects of self-regulation, styles of personal interaction and different types of activity). Static indicators (average and variance) of positive emotions directly related to personal potential, and static indicators of negative emotions related with characteristics that impede the optimal functioning of a person. Signs of correlations of static indicators with personal characteristics are more consistent than signs of correlations of dynamic indicators. So static indicators are higher and more often correlate positively with the characteristics of personal potential and negatively with characteristics that aggravate the experience of stress for positive emotions and vice versa for negative emotions. Emotional activation in the dynamic aspect (the total level of single point attractors of positive and negative emotions in a person) correlates positively with the traits of personal potential. Here a common emotional background – the level of simultaneous expression either positive or negative emotions is important and a sign of emotion is not. The relationship between personal characteristics and indicators of the emotional state manifests itself in different ways for explicit and implicit emotions. At the implicit level, connections with dynamic indicators (entropy, attractor) are more established. At an explicit level, connections with static indicators of emotional states (average, variance) are significant. It can be assumed that emotional states defined on an explicit level reflect stable personal qualities to a greater degree, and not the dynamics of emotional states.