Salivary Cortisol Levels and Depressive Symptomatology in Consumers and Nonconsumers of Self-Help Books: A Pilot Study
Autor: | Marie-France Marin, Robert-Paul Juster, Shireen Sindi, Sonia J. Lupien, Anne Hand, Catherine Raymond |
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Jazyk: | angličtina |
Rok vydání: | 2016 |
Předmět: |
Adult
Male 050103 clinical psychology Hydrocortisone Article Subject media_common.quotation_subject education Pilot Projects lcsh:RC321-571 Self-help 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Humans Personality 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences Saliva Reactivity (psychology) lcsh:Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry Internal-External Control media_common Consumption (economics) Depression Books 05 social sciences Stressor Popularity Preference humanities Self Care Neurology Female Neurology (clinical) Psychology Psychosocial Social psychology Stress Psychological 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Research Article Clinical psychology |
Zdroj: | Neural Plasticity Neural Plasticity, Vol 2016 (2016) |
ISSN: | 2090-5904 |
DOI: | 10.1155/2016/3136743 |
Popis: | The self-help industry generates billions of dollars yearly in North America. Despite the popularity of this movement, there has been surprisingly little research assessing the characteristics of self-help books consumers, and whether this consumption is associated with physiological and/or psychological markers of stress. The goal of this pilot study was to perform the first psychoneuroendocrine analysis of consumers of self-help books in comparison to nonconsumers. We tested diurnal and reactive salivary cortisol levels, personality, and depressive symptoms in 32 consumers and nonconsumers of self-help books. In an explorative secondary analysis, we also split consumers of self-help books as a function of their preference for problem-focusedversusgrowth-oriented self-help books. The results showed that while consumers of growth-oriented self-help books presented increased cortisol reactivity to a psychosocial stressor compared to other groups, consumers of problem-focused self-help books presented higher depressive symptomatology. The results of this pilot study show that consumers with preference for either problem-focused or growth-oriented self-help books present different physiological and psychological markers of stress when compared to nonconsumers of self-help books. This preliminary study underlines the need for additional research on this issue in order to determine the impact the self-help book industry may have on consumers’ stress. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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