Analyzing affective responses to past events: women's reactions to a childbearing year.
Applied content analysis scales on the work of Gottschalk and Gleser (1969) to 200 women's recollections of four stages of a recently completed child-bearing 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 birth.
D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D001293:Attitude to Death; D003071:Cognition; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006167:Guilt; D006760:Hospitalization; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D007743:Labor, Obstetric; D008568:Memory; D049590:Postpartum Period; D011247:Pregnancy