Stress films, emotion, and cognitive response.

The clinical theory of the repetition compulsion is sometimes taken to mean that neurotic persons, when traumatized, will develop compulsive repetitions of the trauma. Our experiment suggests that there is a more general effect--that various types of persons, after a variety of stressful events, will tend to develop intrusive and stimulus-repetitive thought; the stress itself does not necessarily have to have a negative valence. Equivalent effects were noted after stimuli that aroused positive emotions and after those stimuli that aroused dysphoric affects.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes