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Analyzing affective responses to past events: Women's reactions to a childbearing year
Author(s) -
Westbrook Mary T.
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/1097-4679(197810)34:4<967::aid-jclp2270340430>3.0.co;2-i
Subject(s) - hostility , anxiety , psychology , shame , arousal , ambivalence , pregnancy , clinical psychology , cognition , developmental psychology , psychiatry , social psychology , biology , genetics
Applied content analysis scales on the work of Gottschalk and Gleser (1969) to 200 women's recollections of four stages of a recently completed childbearing year. On 11 of 13 affective indices, significant differences were found. Pregnancy was characterized by diffuse and cognitive anxiety and hostility directed inward, and labor by mutilation anxiety. During both pregnancy and labor, general anxiety, death anxiety, ambivalent hostility, and affective costs were comparatively high. Mothers revealed least affective arousal during hospitalization. Considerable guilt and shame anxiety were experienced in the months after the brith.