Authenticity and Physiological Changes during Defensive Verbal Response

Abstract

Defensiveness affects people negatively in terms of their psychological and physical well-being. Curbing one's defensive response is especially difficult when the individual does not acknowledge how their cognition and physiology change when they respond defensively. Authentic disposition involves a flexible self-concept, which facilitates cognitive and physiological self-regulation in difficult situations. In the current study, participants answered personally threatening questions while their physiological state was measured. Galvanic skin response and heart rate were used to examine arousal and respiratory sinus arrhythmia was calculated to examine the degree of emotional regulation. Authenticity, assessed by self-report, was used to predict to what degree participants were aroused by the stress of revealing sensitive information about the self, and how well they were able to regulate their emotional state. Results of the study showed that defensive verbal response predicted higher physiological arousal measured in terms of changes in skin conductance and heart rate throughout the four stages of experiment, and behavioral authenticity predicted lower physiological response during the four stages. Meanwhile, high authenticity predicted better recovery after the interview. These findings indicate that while defensive verbal response results in increased arousal during a sensitive conversation, authentic disposition may act as a buffer for the negative effects of such arousal.