Dealing with a ‘hidden stressor’: emotional disclosure as a coping strategy to overcome the negative effects of motive incongruence on health

Abstract

Abstract Taking the affiliation motive as an example, present research examines whether the negative effects of implicit–explicit motive incongruence on health is moderated by emotional disclosure. Starting from the point of view that motive incongruence works as a chronic stressor and therefore causes impairment of health, we predicted that participants who use the stress‐reducing coping strategy of emotional disclosure should be less affected by the negative effects of motive incongruence on health than participants who do not use this stress‐coping strategy. Two studies confirmed this hypothesis. Participants with affiliation motive incongruence who practiced emotional disclosure used less medication (Study 1, n = 85) and reported lower somatization symptoms (Study 2, n = 102) than motive incongruent individuals who did not disclose their emotions to others. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.