Fig. 3: The moderating effect of trait positive refocusing on the relationship between life stress and SCL-90 score.
From: The interplay of acute cortisol response and trait affectivity in associating with stress resilience
This moderating analysis was conducted using the PROCESS macro implemented in SPSS (pre-set Model No. 1). The test was two-sided. We conducted a Holm–Bonferroni correction procedure to adjust for the two types of positive emotion regulation strategy (positive reappraisal and refocusing) analysed. Positive refocusing significantly and negatively moderated the relationship between major life stress and SCL-90 score (F1, 139 = 3.69, bootstrapped CI = −5.3073 to −0.5542, P = 0.04), while controlling for daily hassle. At a low level of positive refocusing, major life stress correlated positively with SCL-90 score (Spearman’s ρ = 0.52, P = 0.01). This relationship became a positive trend at an intermediate level of positive refocusing (Spearman’s ρ = 0.19, P = 0.08), and insignificant at a high level of positive refocusing (P = 0.29). The relationship is plotted separately for participants with low, medium and high levels of positive refocusing, divided according to 33% and 67% percentiles. Note that the x and y axes include negative values due to the intercept and nuisance variables being regressed out from the dependent and independent variables in partial correlation analysis. ***P < 0.001; **P < 0.01; *P < 0.05.
