Emotional stability and goal-related stress

The experience of anticipatory and reactive stress associated with goals was examined as a function of the trait of emotional stability. During the first few weeks of the academic year, first-year college students completed a measure of emotional stability, provided a set of their goals, rated these goals on anticipated stress, and 6 months later, re-evaluated the same set of goals on reactive stress. Results indicate that emotional stability relates to reactive stress but not anticipatory stress. While this general finding held for the academic, social, pleasure, independence, and moral/religious goal domains, three other content domains required substantive qualifications. Emotional stability related to both anticipatory and reactive stress in the health domain, and to neither kind of stress in the organization and material wealth domains. Potential explanations of these differences and implications for using trait and goal units conjointly are discussed.