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Acute psychosocial stress: Does the emotional stress response correspond with physiological responses?
Abstract
Most stress experiences are accompanied by physiological and psychological responses. Laboratory stressors such as the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) induce reliable stress responses, which are mainly assessed for biological parameters such as cortisol. The associations between physiological and psychological responses to the TSST have been rarely investigated and are addressed in this review. Up to August 2011, 358 studies were published in PubMed examining the impact of the TSST (71%) or variations of the protocol. A total of 49 studies were considered based on the following three inclusion criteria: (1) exposure to the standard TSST or slightly modified TSST versions, (2) at least one assessment of subjective emotional stress experience before, during or after the TSST, (3) reported associations between acute physiological and emotional stress measures. Significant correlations between cortisol responses and perceived emotional stress variables were found in approximately 25% of the studies. Our descriptive analysis revealed various essential elements that potentially contribute to this apparent dissociation, reaching from differing assessment approaches and methodological features of the stress protocols to possible mediating factors and interindividual differences in the degree of psychophysiological correspondence.
... Studies examining physiology and emotion also rarely account for individual differences in interoception, while inversely, studies on interoception and emotion rarely account for individual differences in physiology, despite good reasons to do so. For instance, the effect sizes linking physiological reactivity and self-reported emotions or stress are often small-to-medium (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Feldman et al., 1999;Mauss et al., 2005;Siegel et al., 2018), which could be due in part to unmodeled associations with interoception. Similarly, when measuring interoception, it is critical to consider state or trait differences in physiological intensity, which may alter the threshold for accessing internal sensations (Blascovich et al., 1992;Fairclough & Goodwin, 2007;Herbert et al., 2012;. ...
... However, the association between physiological reactivity and self-reports (emotion, stress) is small or weak (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Feldman et al., 1999;Siegel et al., 2018), suggesting that certain moderators may alter the extent to which physiological dynamics contribute to emotional experiences. For instance, some individuals exhibit greater concordance between their physiology and emotion reports relative to others (Brown et al., 2019;Mauss et al., 2005;Sommerfeldt et al., 2019;Sze et al., 2010;Van Doren et al., 2021). ...
... Prior studies that found a significant main effect between heartbeat detection performance and emotional arousal observed small-to-moderate effects (e.g., r= .23 in Barrett et al., 2004;rs= -.30, -.58 in Blascovich et al., 1992). Meta-analyses also reveal small-to-moderate associations (rs~ .10-.50) between measures of cardiovascular reactivity to acute stressors and selfreported emotion (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Feldman et al., 1999). Power analyses in G*power (Faul et al., 2007) suggested that a sample of N=84 would have 80% power to detect small-to-moderate main effect size (d= .30) ...
Growing work suggests that interoception, i.e., representations of one’s internal bodily changes, plays a role in shaping emotional experiences. Past studies primarily examine how behavioral accuracy in detecting interoceptive signals (interoceptive ability) relates to emotional states, with less work examining self-reported interoceptive facets such as the characterizations of one’s interoceptive abilities (interoceptive sensibility) or evaluative beliefs about the value vs. danger of interoceptive signals (interoceptive beliefs). However, existing studies rarely examine physiological reactivity, behavioral, and self-reported dimensions of interoception together in the same sample. As such, it remains unclear whether and how much individual differences in interoceptive facets uniquely and in interaction with physiological reactivity may matter for emotional experience. Herein, 250 healthy young adults completed a heartbeat detection task assessing interoceptive ability and questionnaire measures of interoceptive sensibility and beliefs during an initial laboratory visit. At a follow-up session, 227 participants returned to undergo an acute psychosocial stressor. Measures of physiological arousal such as pre-ejection period and heart rate variability were acquired throughout the stressor with self-reported emotions acquired immediately after. Linear regressions revealed that greater sympathetic nervous system reactivity (i.e., pre-ejection period), poorer interoceptive ability (i.e., accuracy), and less positive interoceptive beliefs were related to more intense high arousal emotions during the stressor. Importantly, across models, interoceptive beliefs was the only interoceptive facet to moderate the concordance between physiological and emotional arousal. Implications for psychological theories of emotion, stress, and interoception are discussed.
... cortisol responses-then this may lead to detrimental outcomes. Second, the alignment between self-stated stress and cortisol responses has shown mixed-results in the literature (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012). We contribute by showing (partial) correlations between multiple self-stated stress measures and cortisol responses. ...
... Studying the relationship between cortisol and emotional stress responses has also attracted much scientific interest. Campbell and Ehlert (2012) discuss several studies that document such correspondence for studies that use the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) as a stressor. 36 Approximately 25 percent of the reviewed studies show a statistically significant association between biological processes and subjective emotional responses. ...
... "The Trier Social Stress Test[…] has become one of the most popular methods for the experimental induction of acute psychosocial stress. Its highly standardized protocol comprises the delivery of a free speech for a job interview and an orally performed serial subtraction in front of an audience of supposed experts."(Ehlert and Campbell, 2012). ...
We conduct a laboratory experiment among male participants to investigate whether rewarding schemes that depend on work performance—in particular, tournament incentives—induce more stress than schemes that are independent of performance—fixed payment scheme. Stress is measured over the entire course of the experiment at both the hormonal and psychological level. Hormonal stress responses are captured by measuring salivary cortisol levels. Psychological stress responses are measured by self-reported feelings of stress and primary appraisals. We find that tournament incentives induce a stress response whereas a fixed payment does not induce stress. This stress response does not differ significantly across situations in which winners and losers of the tournament are publically announced and situations in which this information remains private. Biological and psychological stress measures are positively correlated, i.e. increased levels of cortisol are associated with stronger feelings of stress. Nevertheless, neither perceived psychological stress nor elevated cortisol levels in a previous tournament predict a subsequent choice between tournaments and fixed payment schemes, indicating that stress induced by incentives schemes is not a relevant criterion for sorting decisions in our experiment. Finally, we find that cortisol levels are severely elevated at the beginning of the experiment, suggesting that participants experience stress in anticipation of the experiment per se, potentially due to uncertainties associated with the unknown lab situation. We call this the novelty effect.
... In contrast, negative health outcomes are related to negative affect (Diener et al., 2017). In laboratory studies, the physiological and affective (i.e., self-reported) stress responses measured in situation tend to be weakly and rather inconsistently related (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012). Furthermore, the suppression of physiological stress response does not involve the decrease in emotional response (Ali et al., 2017). ...
... Furthermore, the suppression of physiological stress response does not involve the decrease in emotional response (Ali et al., 2017). Inconsistent associations are partly explained by methodological issues (see Campbell and Ehlert, 2012 for a review) and might be partly due to the heterogeneity of the sample of participants as shown in Simon et al. (2022). ...
... Jõgi et al. Psychoneuroendocrinology xxx (xxxx) 106028 indicated a weak relationship between physiological stress and emotional response (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012). Recently, it has been proposed that associations between physiological and psychological indicators might be heterogenous in the sample (Simon et al., 2022). ...
Since teaching is a demanding and stressful profession, the study of teachers’ physiological stress in the classroom setting is an emerging field. In cross-sectional studies self-reported stress and affect are related, but less is known about the intraindividual relations between situational physiological stress and corresponding positive and negative affect. The aim of our study was to investigate the associations between situational physiological stress (six salivary cortisol samples per day) and self-reported situational affect (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule four times a day) among 61 Finnish primary school teachers over two workdays.
We present a novel multilevel structural equation model (MSEM) that includes cortisol, with time since awakening as a flexibly coded time-varying covariate and affect with time since cortisol measurement as a time-varying covariate. Higher levels of teachers’ situational physiological stress were related to lower situational positive affect (e.g., enthusiasm) and higher negative affect (e.g., nervousness), demonstrating the acute/situational effects of stress on affect. In our discussion, we emphasize the importance of the sequence of sampling and observations for further theoretical modeling of relations between stress and affect. We also propose practical implications for improving teachers’ awareness of their well-being.
... Our results further revealed that there was no direct mapping between the psychological, and physiological relaxation response: While subjective markers did not differ between the experimental groups, the increase in HF-HRV was significantly higher in both massage groups compared to the control group. This discrepancy corresponds with the often-reported lack of correspondence of the psychological and physiological responses to stress (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012). Potentially, this non-correspondence might also be evident in other psychophysiological states. ...
... This divergence of subjective and objective markers is in line with previous studies from our lab (Meier, Wirz, et al., 2021), and with other studies in psychoneuroendocrinology (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004). It has been proposed that subjective arousal is more strongly related to ANS as compared to HPA axis activity. ...
... These facts raise the questions of whether the incoherence is due to methodological imperfections in the design of our subjective scales, or whether it is inherent to the nature of our minds, and even meaningful and predictive in the context of health and disease (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012). With our current state of knowledge, these questions cannot be answered clearly, which also implies that, to date, the functioning of physiological systems cannot be determined by assessing subjective markers alone. ...
... Table 3 contains the model fit information for latent class models with 1 to 6 classes. Weighing statistical criteria for cluster 1 Approximately 75% of existing studies do not report a link between subjective stress and cortisol levels, an effect that strengthens when single measures are aggregated and mean changes are correlated (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012). To additionally examine the validity of the two stress- identification, we selected the four-classes solution for subsequent analysis, which appeared to fit the data best, although the fit indices provided a somewhat mixed indication of the best-fitting number of classes. 2 The information criteria (AIC, BIC, ssaBIC) favored the four-classes solution reflecting a diminishing decrement in information criteria values for each added class (the so-called "elbow"). ...
... First, future studies might replicate the current investigation with larger samples that might reveal smaller but significant effects that we could not detect in this case (Field, 2009). However, multiple-measurement studies assessing both affective and endocrinological stress responses are complex and often limited to sample sizes between about 50 and 100 participants for practical reasons (e.g., Zeidner, 1998;Campbell and Ehlert, 2012;Graham et al., 2022). Second, we used self-report measures for students' anticipated grades, personal relevance, emotions, stress, and perceived behavior. ...
... Reporting only the significant correlations, results show that perceived stress (T1) is significantly positively correlated with cortisol values at T2 (r = 0.234, p = 0.048) and T4 (r = 0.240, p = 0.041) and that perceived stress at T2 is significantly positively correlated with cortisol values at T4 (r = 0.266, p = 0.021). These correlations show time-lagged associations between perceived stress and subsequent cortisol responses during the examination period, corroborating time-lagged associations around r = 0.20(Campbell and Ehlert, 2012). ...
Introduction
Based on self-determination theory, we investigated whether examinees are classifiable into profiles based on basic need strength and perceived need support that differ in stress parameters and achievement in the context of a standardized oral exam.
Methods
92 students reported their basic need strength before and perceived need support provided by the examiner once after the exam. Students indicated their emotions and stress perception at four measurement points and we measured their saliva cortisol concurrently, analyzing stress-related changes over time.
Results
Latent class analyses revealed two higher-quality (low/high, high/high) and two lower-quality (low/low, high/low) need strength/need support classes. Physio-affective stress development was typical of exam situations. Higher-quality classes that met or exceeded the needs displayed more beneficial stress and emotion response patterns than lower-quality classes. Gain-related emotions mediated achievement in the higher-quality classes.
Discussion
Need-supportive examiners can promote student well-being and achievement when they succeed in providing high need satisfaction.
... Salivary cortisol is measured from small saliva samples, having research participants spit into a small tube, and can be repeated as often as desired to measure changes in stress in response to an experimental situation (Kirschbaum et al., 1993). A stress response can be observed in the measurement of cortisol within 15 min (Campbell and Ehlert, 2011). Because physiological and psychological stress have been shown to not always covary (Hjortskov et al., 2004;Campbell and Ehlert, 2011;Ali et al., 2017), it is possible that the effects of smartphone use on psychological and physiological stress are distinct. ...
... A stress response can be observed in the measurement of cortisol within 15 min (Campbell and Ehlert, 2011). Because physiological and psychological stress have been shown to not always covary (Hjortskov et al., 2004;Campbell and Ehlert, 2011;Ali et al., 2017), it is possible that the effects of smartphone use on psychological and physiological stress are distinct. ...
... While the research of Hunter et al. (2018) found no effect of smartphone use on salivary cortisol, Riedl et al. (2012) found that the use of technology tends to be associated with an increase in salivary cortisol. As previously mentioned, measures of psychological and physiological measures of stress do not always correlate (Hjortskov et al., 2004;Campbell and Ehlert, 2011;Ali et al., 2017). It is possible that the scale employed, the short form of the State Anxiety Inventory (SAI) did not capture the overall stress response experienced by the participants. ...
Texting while walking (TWW) is a dangerous behavior that can lead to injury and even death. While several studies have examined the relationship between smartphone use and stress, to our knowledge no studies have yet investigated the relationship between stress and TWW. The objective of the present study was to investigate this relationship by examining the effects of stress on TWW, the effects of TWW on subsequent stress, and the effect of stress on multitasking performance. A total of 80 participants completed two sequential tasks in a laboratory while they walked on a treadmill and responded to a biological motion stimulus imitating the movement of another pedestrian. In the unrestricted task, participants were given the choice to use their personal phones. In the controlled task, they carried a text conversation with a research assistant while they walked and responded to the stimulus. Stress was measured via questionnaire and saliva collection for measure of cortisol (a stress hormone) before and after each task. Results show that greater psychological stress and cortisol variations were associated with a greater number of phone uses during the unrestricted task. Greater phone use during the unrestricted task was associated with lower subsequent psychological stress in women and total time of phone use was correlated with subsequent cortisol levels. Stress measured before the controlled task had no effect on multitasking performance, but participants with moderate performance were those with the highest cortisol levels. Our results suggest that stress could be a precursor to TWW and that it could affect a pedestrian’s ability to stay safe when using their smartphone.
... Interestingly, studies have often failed to find a significant association between HCC and perceived stress ratings (e.g., Boesch et al., 2015;Stalder et al., 2017). However, the lack of association with self-reported stress is not only restricted to HCC, but is true also for other HPA axis indices, with literature pointing to at least partial dissociation between the psychological experience and physiological stress responses (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012). Appraisals of perceived environmental demands and of available resources are key elements of the transactional stress theory by Lazarus and Folkman (1984), with appraised resources counteracting appraised demands. ...
... Since teachers are by the nature of their job most often socially exposed, individuals with a higher "pressure to perform" have probably regularly higher acute cortisol stress responses, which then can potentially lead to higher HCC. On the one hand, the weak association between HCC and self-rated chronic stress is in line with the literature, which often fails to find a significant association (e.g., Boesch et al., 2015;Stalder et al., 2017), and which reveals limited match between self-rated and biological stress variables (e.g., Campbell and Ehlert, 2012;Rohleder, 2018). On the other hand, van der Meij et al. (2018) found that self-reported stress was related to HCC, but only in a high workload sample and only for variables represented in the effort-reward-imbalance (ERI) model. ...
Challenging interactions are the main source of teacher’ stress in the classroom. We investigated the association of chronic stress and characteristics of teacher-student interactions with teachers’ Hair Cortisol Concentration (HCC). Forty-one teachers (27 women; Mage = 39.65 ± 12.14 years; Mlesson number = 23.15 ± 3.99 lessons per
week; grade: elementary, secondary, high, and vocational school teachers) participated in the present study, with participation lasting over the length of one year. HCC was assessed from a 3 cm hair segment near the scalp. Self reported chronic stress in the last three months was further assessed using the ‘Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress’ (TICS). Additionally, four consecutive, same-day lectures of each teacher were videotaped and coded offline in an event sampling procedure by trained external observers. The videos were analyzed for two stressors, i.e., classroom disruptions and total student aggression, as well as two resources, i.e., teacher-student relationship and classroom management. Overall, hair samples were collected M = 120.34 days (SD = 84.39) after the distribution of the questionnaires, and M = 67.63 days (SD = 18.40) prior to the observations. Lesson number, classroom disruptions, as well as total student aggression were all significantly positively correlated with HCC. In addition, both teacher-student relationship and classroom management were significantly negatively related to
HCC. With regard to self-rated chronic stress, only the TICS subscale ‘Pressure to perform’ was positively related to HCC. Exploratory moderation analyses revealed that an increasingly good, observed teacher-student relationship buffered the positive association between lesson number and HCC. Our findings show significant associations between HCC and mainly objectively assessable stress, supporting HCC as a biological indicator of
chronic stress. In this association, a good relationship between teachers and students acts as a buffer. While the findings underline the importance of examining objective and behavioral data for better understanding the psychobiology of stress, they also support the importance of boostering teachers’ (social) resources to increase
their overall resilience.
... This owes to the fact that from the standpoint of straightforward correlative analytics, it is known that there is not a direct monotonic correlation between the emotional perception of stress an individual may feel and the manifestation of the underlying physiological stress response. A meta-analysis in the social stress domains, for instance, has recently shown that merely 25% of studies in the domain demonstrated a significant correlation between physiological stress and perceived emotional stress [14]. ...
... Given that self-reports of perceived stress often do not contain information on the physiological stress response, understanding the complex relationship between the two becomes a crucial matter [14]. It is also plausible to assume that such complexity also arises from various other confounding factors (e.g., demographics, occupation, and other mental health disorders such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can influence how prone someone is to stress). ...
Recent advances in remote health monitoring systems have significantly benefited patients and played a crucial role in improving their quality of life. However, while physiological health-focused solutions have demonstrated increasing success and maturity, mental health-focused applications have seen comparatively limited success in spite of the fact that stress and anxiety disorders are among the most common issues people deal with in their daily lives. In the hopes of furthering progress in this domain through the development of a more robust analytic framework for the measurement of indicators of mental health, we propose a multi-modal semi-supervised framework for tracking physiological precursors of the stress response. Our methodology enables utilizing multi-modal data of differing domains and resolutions from wearable devices and leveraging them to map short-term episodes to semantically efficient embeddings for a given task. Additionally, we leverage an inter-modality contrastive objective, with the advantages of rendering our framework both modular and scalable. The focus on optimizing both local and global aspects of our embeddings via a hierarchical structure renders transferring knowledge and compatibility with other devices easier to achieve. In our pipeline, a task-specific pooling based on an attention mechanism, which estimates the contribution of each modality on an instance level, computes the final embeddings for observations. This additionally provides a thorough diagnostic insight into the data characteristics and highlights the importance of signals in the broader view of predicting episodes annotated per mental health status. We perform training experiments using a corpus of real-world data on perceived stress, and our results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach in performance improvements.
... Consequently, by drawing on the assumptions of the BPSM, we realized a design with repeated assessments of psychological and physiological challenge/threat responses throughout a stress-inducing presentation because changes in cognitions, emotions, and cortisol are primarily expected after the onset of a motivating social-evaluative performance situation (cf. Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004). In particular, we applied latent growth modeling to examine how university students' psychological (here: cognitions and emotions) and physiological (here: saliva cortisol concentration) challenge and threat responses change during a presentation situation and whether the intensity and change gradients in these variables are related among each other, to self-efficacy, and to behavioral indicators of presentation performance. ...
... Second, the size of the sample was relatively small. However, it is relatively problematic to recruit bigger samples considering the complexity of the study design and its procedures (e.g., Campbell & Ehlert, 2012). Especially the repeated collection of saliva samples appeared to be a disincentive for potential participants and may thus have reduced their willingness to participate. ...
The current study investigated how changes in psychological (cognitions and emotions) and physiological (cortisol concentrations) threat/challenge responses develop over the course of a presentation and whether initial intensity levels and their changes are related to self-efficacy and presentation performance. Based on the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), 123 students held video-recorded presentations about their dream job, which were evaluated by three raters. Selfefficacy was measured before the TSST, saliva cortisol concentrations and psychological threat and challenge responses three times during the TSST. Data were analyzed with latent growth modeling. Threat and cortisol increased during the presentation, while challenge decreased. The growth curve coefficients of challenge correlated negatively with the respective coefficients of threat. Also, initial intensity of challenge responses correlated positively with corresponding cortisol concentrations. Higher self-efficacy was associated with higher initial intensity of challenge responses, lower corresponding concentrations of cortisol, and a smaller cortisol increase, but neither with the growth curve coefficients of threat responses nor with presentation performance. Better performance was associated with lower initial intensity of threat and a smaller increase in cortisol. Threat responses and increasing cortisol concentration appear to inhibit presentation performance, while self-efficacy may strengthen challenge responses and reduce corresponding levels of cortisol concentration as well as its increase.
... Therefore, acute stress may be captured through several components of the psychological response. For example, questionnaires that assess degrees of perceived stress, valence and arousal are reflective of acute stress [50]. Technology has facilitated the collection of momentary stress experiences and events throughout the day (i.e., Ecological Momentary Assessment, EMA [16]) in real-world environments, such as the workplace. ...
... Although the different psychobiological stress responses are often closely associated with one another, they do not always align [50]. Therefore, researchers have frequently collected data from multiple modalities and found that the combination of different modalities generally improves the performance of stress detection models [29,67,70]. ...
Background and objective:
Work-related stress affects a large part of today's workforce and is known to have detrimental effects on physical and mental health. Continuous and unobtrusive stress detection may help prevent and reduce stress by providing personalised feedback and allowing for the development of just-in-time adaptive health interventions for stress management. Previous studies on stress detection in work environments have often struggled to adequately reflect real-world conditions in controlled laboratory experiments. To close this gap, in this paper, we present a machine learning methodology for stress detection based on multimodal data collected from unobtrusive sources in an experiment simulating a realistic group office environment (N=90).
Methods:
We derive mouse, keyboard and heart rate variability features to detect three levels of perceived stress, valence and arousal with support vector machines, random forests and gradient boosting models using 10-fold cross-validation. We interpret the contributions of features to the model predictions with SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) value plots.
Results:
The gradient boosting models based on mouse and keyboard features obtained the highest average F1 scores of 0.625, 0.631 and 0.775 for the multiclass prediction of perceived stress, arousal and valence, respectively. Our results indicate that the combination of mouse and keyboard features may be better suited to detect stress in office environments than heart rate variability, despite physiological signal-based stress detection being more established in theory and research. The analysis of SHAP value plots shows that specific mouse movement and typing behaviours may characterise different levels of stress.
Conclusions:
Our study fills different methodological gaps in the research on the automated detection of stress in office environments, such as approximating real-life conditions in a laboratory and combining physiological and behavioral data sources. Implications for field studies on personalised, interpretable ML-based systems for the real-time detection of stress in real office environments are also discussed.
... serum cortisol) and subjective indices (e.g. perceived stress), is unsurprising given the different ways in which the responses to stressors are regulated (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012). Discrepant outcomes between tasks and other major limitations such as lack of placebo-control, brief duration of effect, inability to manipulate stressor severity, and habituation contribute to disparate findings and small effect sizes reported in meta-analyses (Boesch et al., 2014;Gerra et al., 2001;Shields et al., 2016a). ...
... Mood and emotional reactivity are key outcomes in therapeutic applications of stress amelioration. When exposed to stressors, individuals experience increased anxiety and negative affect (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012;Zapater-Fajarí et al., 2021). Negative mood and emotions caused by stressors are associated with a variety of additional negative outcomes (Du et al., 2018;Ford et al., 2018;Young et al., 2019). ...
Physiological and psychological stressors can exert wide-ranging effects on the human brain and behavior. Research has improved understanding of how the sympatho-adreno-medullary (SAM) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axes respond to stressors and the differential responses that occur depending on stressor type. Although the physiological function of SAM and HPA responses is to promote survival and safety, exaggerated psychobiological reactivity can occur in psychiatric disorders. Exaggerated reactivity may occur more for certain types of stressors, specifically, psychosocial stressors. Understanding stressor effects and how the body regulates these responses can provide insight into ways that psychobiological reactivity can be modulated. Non-invasive neuromodulation is one way that responding to stressors may be altered; research into these interventions may provide further insights into the brain circuits that modulate stress reactivity. This review focuses on the effects of acute psychosocial stressors and how neuromodulation might be effective in altering stress reactivity. Although considerable research into stress interventions focuses on treating pathology, it is imperative to first understand these mechanisms in non-clinical populations; therefore, this review will emphasize populations with no known pathology and consider how these results may translate to those with psychiatric pathologies.
... Also, it might be highly instructive to extend our results on the linkages between physical intimacy and daily cortisol obtained in Study 3 by examining the perceived stress reported by participants. Perceived stress and physiological stress are different and unique dimensions of the larger construct space that are only weakly correlated (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012). Initial evidence exists that experiencing affectionate touch is associated with less self-reported stress (Jakubiak & Feeney, 2018), but it is possible that the pattern of results would differ for perceived and psychological stress when additionally considering physical intimacy wished. ...
... We speculate that larger everyday discrepancies in partners' perceptions and needs for intimacy undermine relationship functioning (see Orr et al., 2019). Acknowledging that perceived stress and physiological markers of stress represent different and unique dimensions of the larger construct space (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012), we hypothesize that experiencing physical intimacy might be associated with less self-reported stress, and more physical intimacy wished with more self-reported stress (see also Jakubiak & Feeney, 2018). We also note that other stress dynamics may have emerged had we moved from cortisol as a physiological stress measure to cardiovascular outcomes (heart rate; blood pressure). ...
Die Altersforschung beleuchtete in den letzten Dekaden diverse Aspekte von sozialen Beziehungen im Alter, dabei blieb Sexualität allerdings häufig unberücksichtigt. Gleichzeitig zeigte die Sexualforschung, dass viele ältere Erwachsene davon berichten, sexuell aktiv zu sein, und dass sexuelle Aktivität im Alter mit Indikatoren erfolgreichen Alterns zusammenhängt. Im Rahmen dieser Dissertation wurden drei empirische Studien durchgeführt, um neue Erkenntnisse über die Sexualität im Alter und ihre Korrelate zu gewinnen. Sexualität wurde dabei als ein facettenreiches Konstrukt verstanden, was zu dem Ansatz führte, verschiedene Aspekte von Sexualität zu unterscheiden: sexuelle Aktivität, sexuelle Gedanken, Intimität, Bedeutsamkeit der Sexualität, sexuelles Vergnügen, erlebte körperliche Nähe und gewünschte körperliche Nähe. Um neue Erkenntnisse über die Natur der Sexualität im Alter zu gewinnen, wurden Zusammenhänge von Sexualität mit dem Alter und der Zugehörigkeit zu einer bestimmten Geburtskohorte untersucht, sowie berichtete Alltagsschwankungen in erlebter und gewünschter körperlicher Nähe. Für ein breiteres Verständnis der Korrelate der Sexualität im Alter wurden Zusammenhänge mit mehreren psychosozialen Faktoren unter gleichzeitiger Berücksichtigung soziodemographischer Merkmale und physischer Gesundheit analysiert. Das Ergebnismuster in Bezug auf die Zusammenhänge mit psychosozialen Faktoren ergab relevante Unterschiede. Zum Beispiel hing eine bestehende Partnerschaft mit häufigerer sexueller Aktivität, häufigeren sexuellen Gedanken und mehr erlebten Intimitätsgefühlen zusammen. Dafür sagte eine längere Beziehungsdauer weniger sexuelle Aktivität und weniger sexuelle Gedanken, aber nicht weniger Intimitätsgefühle voraus. Die Nützlichkeit der Unterscheidung verschiedener Facetten von Sexualität wird diskutiert und der notwendige Einbezug von Sexualität als ein Aspekt enger sozialer Beziehungen im Alter betont.
... Although this might be plausible for a general stress state detection, the underlying stress dimension (e.g., subjective, observed or biological) that the models learn remains unclear. Previous work has outlined the complexity of different systems, such as the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), and cognitive-emotional experiences, involved in the stress response and their interplay [20], [21]. A recent review of 36 studies [9] found a significant positive association between self-reported stress and cardiovascular measure in 28% of studies but also highlighted the heterogeneity in measures and methods as a limitation for comparability. ...
... In our experimental dataset cortisol and sAA indices were significantly correlated but did not show significant associations to other stress assessments (self-reported, observed stress levels). This is in line with some previous works on the interplay of physiological and subjective stress [21], [27], [56] and on studies of multidimensional stress detection [8], whereas other studies did find significant associations [57], [58]. ...
... So können sie selbstberichtete Parameter zielführend ergänzen. Gleichwohl eine gewisse Konvergenz der unterschiedlichen Entspannungsreaktionsebenen angenommen wird (Mauss et al., 2005, Mauss & Robinson, 2009, sind die empirischen Befunde indes häufiger unklar und zeigen Inkonsistenzen zwischen psychophysiologischen und selbstberichteten Zielvariablen (Campbell et al., 2012;Dalile et al., 2022;Gal & Lazarus, 1975). ...
... Allgemein wird die Divergenz in den Ent-bzw. Anspannungsreaktionsebenen auch in anderen Forschungsgebieten und über mehrere Jahre beobachtet (Campbell et al., 2012;Dalile et al., 2022;Gal & Lazarus, 1975). Dennoch scheint die multimodale Entspannungsoperationalisierung geeignet zu sein, um die Entspannung möglichst umfassend wiedergeben zu können. ...
Durch die fortschreitende Digitalisierung gewinnen virtuelle Entspannungsinterventionen, insbesondere monoskopische 360°Naturaufnahmen, zunehmend an Bedeutung. Während der bisherige Fokus auf der Wirksamkeit monoskopischer 360°Naturaufnahmen lag, haben nur wenige Studien die zugrundeliegenden Wirkfaktoren untersucht.
Hierfür untersucht diese Sekundäranalyse, ob die räumliche Präsenz den Einfluss der Immersivität einer monoskopischen 360°Strandaufnahme auf die selbstberichtete und psychophysiologische Entspannung (Hautleitfähigkeit und Herzrate) mediiert. Explorativ wurde überprüft, ob dieser Mediationseffekt durch das Alter, Geschlecht oder die Technologieängstlichkeit der Teilnehmer beeinflusst wird.
Insgesamt nahmen 102 junge Erwachsene (40.5% weiblich) an einem randomisiert kontrollierten Innersubjektexperiment teil. Alle Teilnehmer durchliefen drei Erholungsbedingungen, in denen sie eine monoskopische 360°Strandaufnahme über ein head-mounted display (HMD) und einen Computerbildschirm sahen und eine Kontrollbedingung ohne Strandvideo durchliefen. Vor der jeweiligen Erholungsbedingung wurden, um das physiologische Aktivierungsniveau zu erhöhen, den Teilnehmern Kopfrechenaufgaben gestellt.
Die Multilevel Mediationsanalyse ergab, dass die Strandaufnahme via HMD signifikant entspannender erlebt wurde als über den Computerbildschirm. Dieser Unterschied wurde durch die räumliche Präsenz mediiert. Explorative Analysen zeigten, dass der Mediationseffekt nicht durch das Alter, Geschlecht oder die Technologieängstlichkeit der Teilnehmer beeinflusst wurde. Entgegen den Erwartungen wurden keine Unterschiede in der Hautleitfähigkeit und Herzrate zwischen den Bedingungen und auch kein mediierender Einfluss der räumlichen Präsenz auf die Psychophysiologie festgestellt.
Diese Studie konnte erstmalig aufzeigen, dass die räumliche Präsenz ein bedeutsamer Wirkfaktor für die selbstberichtete Entspannung einer monoskopischen 360°Strandaufnahme ist, welcher nicht durch das Alter, Geschlecht oder die Technologieängstlichkeit beeinflusst wird. Allerdings ist die Aussagekraft durch fehlende psychophysiologische Entspannungsunterschiede zwischen den beiden Bedingungen eingeschränkt. Entsprechend werden weiterführende Studien zu den Wirkfaktoren monoskopischer 360°Naturvideos benötigt.
... However, it is now widely understood that although different stress response systems are interrelated, there may be a lack of strong coherence among them (Mauss, Levenson, McCarter, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2005) and considerable individual differences in their degree of concordance (Sommerfeldt, Schaefer, Brauer, Ryff, & Davidson, 2019). A review of 30 studies that examined associations between cortisol reactivity and self-reported responses to social stress among healthy controls found that only 27% (n = 8) reported significant correlations among physiological and self-reported responses (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012). ...
... Within-person (rather than between-person) concordance indices reflect the theorised coherence among emotional/stress response systems (Mauss, 2005). Despite suggestions of a lack of coherence or discordance between anxiety and salivary cortisol reactivity to social stress in healthy individuals (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012) and individuals with SAD (Klumbies et al., 2014), there are limitations to these conclusions. That is, these studies have examined the relationship between physiological and self-reported stress reactivity independently rather than directly testing their relations, and have often not accounted for the differences in temporal dynamics of the response systems. ...
Background:
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterised by an excessive fear of negative social evaluation. There is a limited understanding of how individuals with SAD react physiologically and subjectively to social stress.
Method:
The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), an acute social stress task, was completed by 40 SAD individuals (50% female) and 41 healthy controls (matched on age, sex, and education) to examine salivary cortisol and self-reported stress reactivity. Salivary cortisol concentrations and self-reported affect (anxiety, sadness, tiredness, withdrawal, and happiness) were assessed at baseline and across nine-time points during the TSST.
Results:
Bayesian salivary cortisol analyses revealed no group differences in salivary cortisol levels at baseline or during the TSST, with results comparative after the removal of 17 cortisol non-responders (21%). Contrastingly, the groups significantly differed on self-reported affect. At baseline, the SAD group (vs. controls) reported heightened negative affect and diminished happiness. In response to the TSST, the SAD group (vs. controls) displayed greater negative affect reactivity and diminished happiness reactivity, and significantly higher rates of change in their anxiety and sadness over time. After accounting for differences in the temporal resolution of self-reported versus cortisol responses, a moderate positive association was found between salivary cortisol and anxiety reactivity to social stress that was comparable between the groups.
Conclusions:
Despite elevated subjective anxiety, our findings suggest concordance in psychobiological stress reactivity in SAD and healthy controls. We discuss the possibility of heightened subjective sensitivity to social evaluative stress as a core treatment target for SAD.
... This may explain why meta-analytical work that included 208 studies covering a broad spectrum of laboratory stressors revealed no linear associations between CORT responses and subjective distress (Dickerson and Kemeny, 2004). A more recent review found that only 25 % of studies report on a correspondence between physiological cardiovascular measures and psychological stress responses, and only 27 % of studies report on a correspondence between stress-induced CORT release and psychological stress responses (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012). To add to the confusion, even among individuals diagnosed with stress-related psychopathologies, exaggerated, but also blunted, reactivity across several ANS and CNS response pathways have been reported, compared to healthy controls (Carroll et al., 2017;Hamilton and Alloy, 2016). ...
... However, another critical factor may relate to the fact that majority of studies to date attempted to establish a link between a single physiological response trajectory and a given psychological outcome. In their review, Campbell and Ehlert (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012) covered a total of 359 acute stress studies, and identified that only 13.6 % of studies employed a combination of physiological and psychological stress measures. Even further, only 6.1 % of studies employed measures of both SAM and HPA physiological response pathways, alongside psychological evaluation of the response to stress. ...
Encounter with an acute stressor elicits multiple physiological and psychological response trajectories that spread at different times-scales and directions. Associating a single physiological response trajectory with a specific psychological response has remained a challenge, due to putative interactions between the different stress response pathways. Hence, multidimensional analysis of stress response trajectories may be better suited to account for response variability. To test this, 96 healthy female participants underwent a robust acute laboratory stress induction procedure while their psychological [positive and negative affect (PANAS)] and physiological [heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), saliva cortisol (CORT)] responses were recorded before, during and after stress. Combining these data using unsupervised group-based multi-trajectory modelling uncovered three latent classes that best accounted for variability across psychological and physiological stress response trajectories. These classes were labelled based on their psychological response patterns as: A prototypical response group that depict a moderate increase in negative and decrease in positive affect during stress, with both patterns recovering after stress offset (n=55); A heightened response group that depict excessive affective responses during stress that recover after stress offset (n=24); and a lack of recovery group that depict a moderate increase in negative and decrease in positive affect during stress, with both patterns not recovering after stress offset (n=17). With respect to physiological acute stress trajectories, all three groups exhibited comparable increases in HR and CORT during stress that recovered after stress offset, yet only the prototypical group expressed the expected stress-induced reduction in HRV, while the other two groups exhibited blunted HRV response. Critically, focusing on a single physiological stress response trajectory, including HRV, did not account for psychological response variability and vice versa. Taken together, a multi-trajectory approach may better account for the multidimensionality of acute stress response and uncover latent associations between psychological and physiological response patterns. Compared to the other two groups, the prototypical group also exhibited significantly lower overall stress scores based on the DASS-21 scale. This, alongside the uncovered response patterns, suggest that latent psycho-physiological associations may shed light on stress response adaptivity or lack thereof.
... Apart from the high association between cortisol increases and the AUC values (AUCg and AUCi) in both samples, heart rate responses were only weakly associated with cortisol in the fNIRS-TSST sample whereas no association emerged for the ScanSTRESS sample. Likewise, affective ratings were weakly associated with cortisol confirming the conclusions by Campbell and Ehlert [45] that affective and endocrine stress responses typically show only little correspondence. Similar, weak, and ambiguous patterns were found regarding the correlation of the other variables. ...
... Therefore, future fMRI studies should also focus on associations with cortical responses, as the present results again suggest that the direction of these associations varies from study to study. Taken together, the present analysis illustrates the methodological difficulties inherent in the systematic investigation of associations between different stress activation systems [45] but points to the importance to elaborate these interactions in more detail. ...
The present post-hoc analysis of two independent studies conducted in different laboratories aimed at comparing reactions of stress activation systems in response to two different psychosocial stress induction paradigms. Both paradigms are based on the Trier Social Stress Test and suited for neuroimaging environments.
In an in-depth analysis, data from 67 participants (36 men, 31 women) from a functional magnetic resonance imaging study implementing ScanSTRESS were compared with data from a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study implementing the so-called ’fNIRS-TSST’ including 45 participants (8 men, 37 women). We tested the equivalence of correlation patterns between the stress response measures cortisol, heart rate, affect, and neural responses in the two samples. Moreover, direct comparisons of affective and neural responses were made.
Similar correlation structures were identified for all stress activation systems, except for neural contrasts of paradigm conditions (stress vs. control) showing significant differences in association with cortisol, heart rate, and affective variables between the two samples. Furthermore, both stress paradigms elicited comparable affective and cortical stress responses.
Apart from methodological differences (e.g., procedure, timing of the paradigms) the present analysis suggests that both paradigms are capable of inducing moderate acute psychosocial stress to a comparable extent with regard to affective and cortical stress responses. Moreover, similar association structures between different stress response systems were found in both studies. Thus, depending on the study objective and the respective advantages of each imaging approach, both paradigms have demonstrated their usefulness for future studies.
... This indicates, that there might be some differences between physiological and psychological relaxation, perhaps depending on the study design, or the population sample. This "dissociation" of subjective and objective measures has also been reported in stress research (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004) and thus seems to be generalizable across different psychophysiological states. It seems therefore good advice to always assess both when implementing a relaxation intervention. ...
... Overall, psychological and physiological stress-related consequences were not associated, albeit with a few exceptions. This finding corresponds with a review of 49 studies examining the association between psychological and physiological stress responses, which only revealed significant correlations between acute cortisol responses and perceived emotional stress variables in approximately 25% of the studies [97]. ...
Teacher stress significantly challenges teachers' health, teaching quality, and students' motivation and achievement. Thus, it is crucial to identify factors that effectively prevent it. Using a LASSO regression approach, we examined which factors predict teachers' psychological strain and allostatic load over two years. The study included 42 teachers (28 female, Mage = 39.66, SD = 11.99) and three measurement time points: At baseline, we assessed teachers' (a) self-reports (i.e., on personality, coping styles, and psychological strain), (b) behavioral data (i.e., videotaped lessons), and (c) allostatic load (i.e., body mass index, blood pressure, and hair cortisol concentration). At 1-and 2-year follow-ups, psychological strain and allostatic load biomarkers were reassessed. Neuroticism and perceived student disruptions at baseline emerged as the most significant risk factors regarding teachers' psychological strain two years later, while a positive core self-evaluation was the most important protective factor. Perceived support from other teachers and the school administration as well as adaptive coping styles were protective factors against allostatic load after two years. The findings suggest that teachers' psychological strain and allostatic load do not primarily originate from objective classroom conditions but are attributable to teachers' idiosyncratic perception of this environment through the lens of personality and coping strategies.
... De acordo com as diretrizes relativas ao protocolo do TSST de Birkett Estudos que analisaram a reação face ao stress não são concordantes entre as medidas de autorrelato e as medidas fisiológicas. Este facto, pode ser o resultado de 1) um padrão de reatividade natural e/ou 2) resultado de problemas metodológicos (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012). (Kudielka, Hellhammer, & Kirschbaum, 2007 As instruções estão de acordo com a taxonomia e descrição presente em Webb, et al. (2012), tendo sido igualmente utilizadas noutros estudos na área (e.g. ...
In the emotion regulation processes during a high stress event, the selection of the most adaptive strategies can be determinant for one to achieve his/her goal, maintaining wellbeing, reducing anxiety and balancing the psychophysiological response. This study examines the impact of two combined cognitive reappraisal strategies (CCR: acceptance and perspective taking) as opposed to suppression (SUP). A three-dimensional evaluation methodology was used (i.e., physiology, psychology and behaviour), to which individual satisfaction with the process and performance was added. Participants (N = 70, Mage = 26.93) were exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test and randomly assigned to one of the conditions (CCR or SUP). Participants in the CCR group were more satisfied with their emotional regulation process and with their TSST performance, they were also perceived
as more adequate and persuasive, comparing with SUP group. The RCC group maintained normal heart rate variability (HRV) values even during TSST, and stress levels did not change significantly. In contrast, in the SUP group, differences in stress levels were recorded and HRV values reduced significantly during TSST. There were no differences between groups in subjective affect. The social anxiety level trait is correlated with HRV during the task only for the suppression group and after the task for the CCR group. CCR seems to be an adaptive strategies combination for use in a situation of high social stress, mirroring a flexible regulatory process.
... Consequently, no significant relationship to self-reports can be found. Finally, the missing association between self-reported stress levels and HCC may be due to difficulties in perceiving one's own (physiological) state adequately (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Gidlow et al., 2016;Mauss & Robinson, 2009;Pennebaker, 1982;Stalder et al., 2017;Wettstein, 2012). The latter could lead to teachers suffering from unfavorable physiological stress consequences that endanger their health in the long run without realizing it. ...
Aggressive student behavior is considered a leading risk factor for teacher stress. However, teachers’ coping styles may affect how they perceive and respond to aggressive student behavior. This study tests whether teachers’ perceptions of aggressive student behavior mainly mirror objectively observed aggression in presence of the teacher (as coded by external observers) or whether teachers’ perception of aggressive student behavior primarily reflects teachers’ avoidant coping styles, such as chronic worry and resignation. Finally, we examine whether observed and teacher-perceived aggression relates to increased vital exhaustion and psychophysiological stress among teachers (i.e., higher hair cortisol concentration). In an ambulatory assessment study, we administered self-reports to 42 Swiss teachers to assess perceived student aggression, chronic worry, resignation, and vital exhaustion. Additionally, four consecutive lessons per teacher were filmed, and aggressive student behavior in presence of the teacher was coded by four trained external observers. The concentration of cortisol was assessed in hair samples. Results showed that teacher-perceived and observed aggression were moderately associated. Observed aggression was related to teacher perceptions to a much lesser extent than teachers’ avoidant coping styles, that is, chronic worry and resignation. While teacher-perceived student aggression was associated with teachers’ self-reported vital exhaustion, we did not find any significant association with hair-cortisol concentration. Our findings suggest that teachers perceive student aggression through the lens of their coping styles. Teachers’ dysfunctional coping styles are associated with an overestimation of student aggression. Teachers’ overestimation of student aggression relates to higher levels of vital exhaustion. Therefore, it is crucial to identify and change teachers’ dysfunctional coping styles to prevent a vicious cycle of dysfunctional teacher–student interactions.
... Additionally, effect sizes provide information on the strength of the relations, which facilitates interpreting the clinical significance of the findings. Furthermore, we will conduct subgroup analyses (e.g., age; gender; pubertal status, see [139]) to make statements about the generalizability of the findings. For further hypotheses testing, we will apply different structural equation models (e.g., cross-lagged analyses, latent-growth modelling). ...
Background
Self-regulation (SR) as the ability to regulate one’s own physical state, emotions, cognitions, and behavior, is considered to play a pivotal role in the concurrent and subsequent mental and physical health of an individual. Although SR skills encompass numerous sub-facets, previous research has often focused on only one or a few of these sub-facets, and only rarely on adolescence. Therefore, little is known about the development of the sub-facets, their interplay, and their specific contributions to future developmental outcomes, particularly in adolescence. To fill these research gaps, this study aims to prospectively examine (1) the development of SR and (2) their influence on adolescent-specific developmental outcomes in a large community sample.
Methods/design
Based on previously collected data from the Potsdam Intrapersonal Developmental Risk (PIER) study with three measurement points, the present prospective, longitudinal study aims to add a fourth measurement point (PIERYOUTH). We aim to retain at least 1074 participants now between 16 and 23 years of the initially 1657 participants (6–11 years of age at the first measurement point in 2012/2013; 52.2% female). The study will continue to follow a multi-method (questionnaires, physiological assessments, performance-based computer tasks), multi-facet (assessing various domains of SR), and multi-rater (self-, parent-, and teacher-report) approach. In addition, a broad range of adolescent-specific developmental outcomes is considered. In doing so, we will cover the development of SR and relevant outcomes over the period of 10 years. In addition, we intend to conduct a fifth measurement point (given prolonged funding) to investigate development up to young adulthood.
Discussion
With its broad and multimethodological approach, PIERYOUTH aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the development and role of various SR sub-facets from middle childhood to adolescence. The large sample size and low drop-out rates in the first three measurements points form a sound database for our present prospective research.
Trial registration German Clinical Trials Register, registration number DRKS00030847.
... Furthermore, for making stress situations in horses more objectifiable on a biochemical level, a call for suitable parameters has been made. Cortisol is the main stress parameter known to increase after stressful events [16], but little is known about its association with emotional stress [17]. In this study, the usability of substance P (SP) as a stress parameter in horses was evaluated. ...
Stress has a significant impact on equine welfare. There are some studies on the stress response in horses ridden with tight nosebands, but little is known about other stress parameters than cortisol, which potentially could address an emotional component. In this study, blood samples of a total of 74 warmblood horses were used to establish reference values for plasma substance P (SP) concentrations. Moreover, 16 of these warmblood horses were included in a stress model. Four different stress levels (level 1: horses ridden with loose noseband, level 2: tight noseband, level 3: loose noseband and overground endoscope, level 4: tight noseband and overground endoscope) were applied to evaluate SP as a potential stress parameter in horses. Blood samples were taken at rest (t0) and directly after inducing stress (noseband tightening, insertion of endoscope; t1), as well as after 20 min of riding at all gaits (t2). A ridden horse ethogram was applied and showed that horses in the tight noseband group resorted to other stress-related behavioral issues than horses with loose nosebands. Serum cortisol showed a linear increase concurrent with the increase in stress levels with a significant difference between level 1 and level 4 (p = 0.043), proving that stress factors were adequate to evaluate the stress response, whereas SP did not show a correlation with the stress levels. Furthermore, concentrations of SP differed widely between horses but stayed within more narrow limits in the individual horse. As a conclusion, SP might not be a reliable stress parameter in horses in the applied minor stress model.
... Since the stress response is largely dependent on psychological appraisal, model calibration has been attempted using subjective rating [30]. However, additional challenges may arise from attempting to use subjective questionnaires to calibrate the models, as subjective stress metrics have been shown to have a poor correlation to the physiological stress response [98]. Both the reported real-time system and future stress detection systems need a way to occasionally adjust their models to account for how the individual changes over time. ...
When training for hazardous operations, real-time stress detection is an asset for optimizing task performance and reducing stress. Stress detection systems train a machine-learning model with physiological signals to classify stress levels of unseen data. Unfortunately, individual differences and the time-series nature of physiological signals limit the effectiveness of generalized models and hinder both post-hoc stress detection and real-time monitoring. This study evaluated a personalized stress detection system that selects a personalized subset of features for model training. The system was evaluated post-hoc for real-time deployment. Further, traditional classifiers were assessed for error caused by indirect approximations against a benchmark, optimal probability classifier (Approximate Bayes; ABayes). Healthy participants completed a task with three levels of stressors (low, medium, high), either a complex task in virtual reality (responding to spaceflight emergency fires, n=27) or a simple laboratory-based task (N-back, n=14). Heart rate, blood pressure, electrodermal activity, and respiration were assessed. Personalized features and different interval window sizes were compared. Classification performance was compared for ABayes, support vector machine, decision tree, and random forest. The results demonstrate that a personalized model with time series intervals can classify three stress levels with high accuracy better than a generalized model. However, cross-validation and holdout performance varied for traditional classifiers vs. ABayes, suggesting error from indirect approximations. The selected features changed with windows size and differed between tasks, but blood pressure contributed to the most prominent features. The capability to account for individual difference is a prominent advantage of personalized models, and will likely have a growing presence in future detection systems.
... Physiological and emotional responses can coincide during a stressful situation [214], and the degree of correlation has shown to be dependent on factors including underlying psychological traits and states, e. g., social desirability, or physiological dispositions, e. g., brain morphology [215]. During a stress-inducing situation, heart-rate, and breath become varied [216], along with the voice [112] (which is related strongly to perceived affect [217]). ...
This thesis is focused on the application of computer audition (i. e., machine listening) methodologies for monitoring states of emotional wellbeing. Computer audition is a growing field and has been successfully applied to an array of use cases in recent years. There are several advantages to audio-based computational analysis; for example, audio can be recorded non-invasively, stored economically, and can capture rich information on happenings in a given environment, e. g., human behaviour. With this in mind, maintaining emotional wellbeing is a challenge for humans and emotion-altering conditions, including stress and anxiety, have become increasingly common in recent years. Such conditions manifest in the body, inherently changing how we express ourselves. Research shows these alterations are perceivable within vocalisation, suggesting that speech-based audio monitoring may be valuable for developing artificially intelligent systems that target improved wellbeing. Furthermore, computer audition applies machine learning and other computational techniques to audio understanding, and so by combining computer audition with applications in the domain of computational paralinguistics and emotional wellbeing, this research concerns the broader field of empathy for Artificial Intelligence (AI). To this end, speech-based audio modelling that incorporates and understands paralinguistic wellbeing-related states may be a vital cornerstone for improving the degree of empathy that an artificial intelligence has. To summarise, this thesis investigates the extent to which speech-based computer audition methodologies can be utilised to understand human emotional wellbeing. A fundamental background on the fields in question as they pertain to emotional wellbeing is first presented, followed by an outline of the applied audio-based methodologies. Next, detail is provided for several machine learning experiments focused on emotional wellbeing applications, including analysis and recognition of under-researched phenomena in speech, e. g., anxiety, and markers of stress. Core contributions from this thesis include the collection of several related datasets, hybrid fusion strategies for an emotional gold standard, novel machine learning strategies for data interpretation, and an in-depth acoustic-based computational evaluation of several human states. All of these contributions focus on ascertaining the advantage of audio in the context of modelling emotional wellbeing. Given the sensitive nature of human wellbeing, the ethical implications involved with developing and applying such systems are discussed throughout.
... Although multiple reports suggest that subjective stress was related to alcohol use during the pandemic (Schmidt et al., 2021), no studies have assessed the role of the physiological stress response. Yet, a wealth of literature suggests that subjective and physiological measures of stress are not always correlated (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012;Hjortskov et al., 2004;Lupien et al., 2022). Therefore, to better understand the role of the stress response on alcohol use during the pandemic, it is essential to assess both subjective and physiological stress measures. ...
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by an increase in alcohol use in a third of the population worldwide. To date, the literature shows that subjective reports of stress predicted increased alcohol use during the early stages of the pandemic. However, no studies have investigated the effect of physiological stress (via the stress hormone cortisol) on alcohol use during the pandemic. This study aimed to identify the predictive value of cortisol and/or subjective stress on alcohol use during the first year of the pandemic. Every three months, between June 2020 and March 2021, 79 healthy adults (19-54 years old) answered online questionnaires assessing alcohol use. In May 2020, participants reported pre-pandemic alcohol use, while in June 2020, participants reported current alcohol use, subjective stress measures, and provided a 6 cm hair sample. The latter allowed us to quantify the cumulative levels of cortisol produced in the three months prior to and following the start of the mandatory lockdown measures in March 2020 in Quebec, Canada. A relative change in hair cortisol was computed to quantify the physiological stress response. While controlling for sex, age, and psychiatric diagnoses, multilevel linear regressions revealed that alcohol use increased only among people with concomitant high subjective stress and elevated hair cortisol concentrations. Moreover, this increased alcohol use remained elevated one year later. This study documents the importance of simultaneously considering stress biomarkers and subjective stress to identify people at risk of increasing their alcohol use during major stressful life events.
... Different factors may account for these null results. First, regarding self-report measures, a dissociation between the psychological and endocrine aspects of stress is a well-described phenomenon in the literature (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012;Dalile et al., 2022;Engert et al., 2018;Schlotz et al., 2008). While different factors may contribute to this "lack of psychoendocrine covariance", biases in retrospective self-report methods, such as social desirability or recall bias, likely play a prominent role (Althubaiti, 2016). ...
Exposure to excessive and long-term stress may result in dysregulation of the stress system, including the acute stress response. In particular, failure to downregulate stress-related reactivity may lead to prolonged stress responses and the accumulation of allostatic load. However, the contribution of altered acute cortisol recovery to chronic stress and associated health impairments has often been neglected. Addressing this lack of research, we explored whether recovery from - more so than reactivity to - acute stress captures the basal stress load of an individual. Using Piecewise Growth Curve Models with Landmark Registration, we analyzed cortisol reactivity and recovery slopes of 130 healthy participants exposed to a standardized psychosocial laboratory stressor. Reactivity and recovery were predicted by measures indicative of long-term stress and its downstream effects, including self-report questionnaires, diurnal cortisol indices [cortisol awakening response (CAR); diurnal cortisol slope], markers of pro-inflammatory activity (interleukin-6; high-sensitive C-reactive protein), and hippocampal volume (HCV). Among these measures, only an increased CAR was specifically and consistently associated with relatively impaired recovery. Since the CAR represents the physiological enhancement needed to meet the anticipated demands of the forthcoming day, this finding may highlight the contribution of cognitive processes in determining both CAR and acute stress recovery. Furthermore, greater cortisol reactivity covaried with smaller HCV, showing that increased acute reactivity translates to health-relevant downstream effects. The lack of further associations between long-term and acute stress measures may arise from biases in self-reported chronic stress and the rigorously health-screened study sample. Overall, our findings suggest that while cortisol stress recovery might not supersede reactivity as an indicator of the long-term stress load or associated health effects, recovery and reactivity have differential utility in describing individuals' allostatic states.
... This is Table 4 Reward response bias as a function of stress, ELA, and inflammatory reactivity. consistent with what has been observed in the broader stress reactivity literature (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012), and suggests that our results reflect a physiological process that is not driven simply by the subjective negative affective response to psychosocial stress. Furthermore, some of the changes in performance from pre-to post-stress were likely the result of practice effects for the tasks themselves rather than changes in the psychological processes the tasks were designed to measure. ...
Background:
Early life adversity (ELA) has long been associated with increased risk for stress-related psychopathology, particularly depression. The neuroimmune network hypothesis posits that ELA increases sensitivity to psychosocial stress, moderating the association between increases in peripheral markers of inflammation and decreases in reward outcomes linked to anhedonia and risk-taking behaviors. The present study examined this hypothesis in a sample of adolescents by using acute psychosocial stress to probe the role of inflammatory signaling in behavioral measures of reward and risk processing.
Method:
80 adolescents [13.86 years (SD=1.54); 45% female], oversampled for ELA, underwent the Trier Social Stress Test for Children while providing blood samples immediately before and 60-minutes after stress onset. Blood samples were assayed for plasma IL-6. One hour before stress onset, and then 60 minutes after, participants completed computer-administered behavioral tasks measuring reward (Pirate Task) and risk (Balloon Analog Risk Task).
Results:
ELA moderated the association between increases in IL-6 and decreases in risk tolerance in pursuit of rewards (p = .003) and reward response bias (p = .04). Stress-induced increases in IL-6 were associated with decreases in pumps for rewards among adolescents exposed to high, relative to little or no, ELA. Further, greater IL-6 increases were associated with increases in bias toward high relative to low value rewards among adolescents with low adversity exposure but not among those exposed to higher adversity.
Conclusions:
The present study provides the first evidence in a pediatric sample that ELA may alter the role of stress-induced inflammation in reward and risk processing, and may extend our understanding of why stress leads to depression in this high-risk population.
... However, autonomic arousal may not always reflect self-perceived anxiety (Gross, 1998;Scovel, 1978), especially if interlocutors downgrade their subjective experience with stress or worry. In fact, this disassociation between self-reported anxiety and physiological response has also been found in studies that measured cortisol levels, which have suggested that interindividual differences, such as trait personality characteristics, emotional regulation, reappraisal processes, or metacognitive awareness of L2 speaking, may play a role in the amount of correspondence between self-perceived and biological stress experience (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Fischer et al., 2019). Because these interindividual differences were not controlled or measured in this dataset, they may have masked potential links between a physiological index of anxiety and selfreports of trait-and state-anxiety. ...
Second language (L2) researchers have long acknowledged the role of language anxiety in communication processes, such that learners with greater language anxiety tend to be less willing to engage in communication. However, little research has explored links between L2 speakers’ perceptions of conversation and dynamic measures of anxiety. Therefore, this study measured 60 L2 English speakers’ galvanic skin response (a physiological index of anxiety) during conversation. After the conversation, speakers evaluated themselves and their partner in terms of speech fluency and comprehensibility, engagement, and anxiety, and responded to trait-anxiety and social network questionnaires. Correlational analyses explored relationships between speakers’ trait-anxiety, social network characteristics, self- and peer-perceptions and five levels of physiological response during conversation. Findings revealed that high arousal during interaction was related to speakers’ negative self-perceptions of speech fluency and negative perceptions of their partner’s engagement. Implications are discussed regarding state-anxiety as triggered by partner- or task-specific experiences.
... The Trier Social Stress Test for Groups [TSST-G (31)] is suitable for this purpose and is therefore used as a standard tool in psychobiological research. The applicability for inducing multidimensional stress in participants (HPA-axis response, SAM system activation and subjective emotional stress) has been frequently tested (32,33). The TSST can be used for measuring repeated stress, whereas the protocol is often slightly adapted over time. ...
Soldiers regularly participate in missions abroad and subjectively adapt to this situation. However, they have an increased lifetime cardiovascular risk compared to other occupational groups. To test the hypothesis that foreign deployment results in different stress habituation patterns, we investigated long-term psychological and bio-physiological stress responses to a repeated social stress task in healthy soldiers with and without foreign deployment. Ninety-one female and male soldiers from the BEST study (German armed forces deployment and stress) participated three times in the Trier Social Stress Test for groups (TSST-G) prior to, 6–8 weeks after and 1 year after the mission abroad and were compared to a control group without foreign deployment during the study period. They completed the State-Trait-Anxiety Inventory scale (STAI), the Primary Appraisal Secondary Appraisal questionnaire (PASA) and the Multidimensional Mood State Questionnaire (MDBF). Salivary cortisol and α-amylase, blood pressure, heart rate and heart rate variability were determined. Soldiers showed mental habituation over the three times with a significant decrease after the TSST-G in anxiousness (STAI) and cognitive stress appraisal (PASA), they were calmer and reported better mood (MDBF). Prior to the social stress part, the mood (MDBF) declined significantly. None of the biological and physiological markers showed any adaptation to the TSST-G. Mission abroad did not significantly influence any measured psychobiological marker when compared to soldiers without foreign deployment. Foreign deployment does not result in alterations in psychobiological social stress response patterns over 1 year after mission abroad which indicates that adaptation to acute social stress is highly maintained in healthy soldiers. The discrepancy between subjective perception and objective stress response has numerous clinical implications and should receive more attention.
... physiological responses, yet, experimentally, subjective and objective measures of stress only correlate approximately 25 % of the time (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012). Thus, psychological (mood) and physiological (HR) stress reactivity were measured. ...
Everyday stressors are a normal part of adolescence, yet young people differ markedly in their responses. Emotional intelligence (EI), a set of emotion-related adaptive traits and skills, is thought to be an important individual difference that acts as a ‘stress buffer’ to safeguard adolescent well-being. EI correlates with reduced perceived life stress levels, but, to date, there is no attempt to understand how EI might underpin young people's responses to acute, situational stress. This paper explores how EI, measured as both an ability (AEI) and trait (TEI), regulates induced acute stress, using a novel, potent social stressor. Across two studies, we tested the extent to which EI moderated attention allocation to emotion (eye movements), psychological reactivity (mood), and physiological reactivity (heart rate) in older adolescents (study 1 n = 58; study 2 n = 60; age 16–18 years). Findings suggest that higher TEI (but not AEI) can ‘dampen’ the physiological stress response (study 1), facilitating protection against allostatic overload. However, being better at perceiving emotion (but not TEI) predicted attention towards happy stimuli when stressed (study 2). Preliminary findings suggest that, while TEI and AEI contribute differentially to stress regulation mechanisms, higher AEI may not necessarily be adaptive for young people facing social stressors.
... Variations in the face of different stressors will occur within the individual, but on the whole, the magnitude of the response is reflective of that individual's usual response style, not their stress perception. Indeed many blunted reactivity studies show that the magnitude of the biological stress response is independent of the psychological perception of stressfulness (e.g., Bibbey et al., 2013;Heaney et al., 2011) or emotional responses to the task (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012). This trait-like characteristic of reactivity has been demonstrated with cardiovascular reactivity in young adulthood predictive of reactivity in later adulthood (Hassellunud et al., 2010;Sherwood et al., 1997), as well as evidence of consistency in children and adult's hemodynamic responses to different laboratory stressors (Ginty et al., , 2019Musante et al., 1994). ...
Life event stress has been associated with blunted cardiovascular reactivity to acute psychological stress. However, recent studies have suggested that blunted reactivity to stress only arises when the laboratory tasks are not personally salient to the individual. We re‐analyzed data from 136 healthy young adults where we had previously reported a negative association between life event stress and cardiovascular reactivity to two combined stressors. Participants completed a mental arithmetic task and a personally salient speech task, following a formal baseline period with Finometer‐assessed cardiovascular parameters. The reanalyses examined reactivity to the verbal mental arithmetic (personally non‐salient) and speech (personally salient) tasks separately and found that life event stress was negatively associated with diastolic blood pressure reactivity, to both the personally non‐salient, β = −.20, p = .023, and personally salient stressors, β = −.24, p = .004. Life event stress was negatively associated with systolic blood pressure reactivity to the personally salient stressor only, β = −.20, p = .021, and was not associated with heart rate reactivity. This study provides evidence against the argument that blunted reactivity to stress emerges as a result of stressor context, with findings indicating that low reactors show lower reactivity to both personally salient and personally non‐salient stress. Recent research has identified that blunted cardiovascular reactions to stress may arise as laboratory tasks employed have low personal salience. Our research challenges this proposition. Our findings show that blunted cardiovascular reactions to stress arise to both personally salient and personally non‐salient stress‐tasks. Patterns of low or high reactivity exhibited by individuals maintained across both personally salient and non‐salient stressors.
... The lasting impacts of chronic adolescent stress are of particular significance, as self-reported distress in the present study was not associated with physiological changes in HCC. An individual's subjective appraisal of a stressor often does not directly predict the subsequent degree of HPA axis activation, both in acute and chronic stress conditions (Campbell and Ehlert, 2012;O'Brien et al., 2013). Some youth may not have reported the pandemic as a highly stressful event; however, this lack of endorsed distress does not necessarily signify those same individuals did not mount a substantial cortisol response. ...
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused massive disruptions to daily life in the United States, closing schools and businesses and increasing physical and social isolation, leading to deteriorations in mental health and well-being in people of all ages. Many studies have linked chronic stress with long-term changes in cortisol secretion, which has been implicated in many stress-related physical and mental health problems that commonly emerge in adolescence. However, the physiological consequences of the pandemic in youth remain understudied. Using hair cortisol concentrations (HCC), we quantified average longitudinal changes in cortisol secretion across a four-month period capturing before, during, and after the transition to pandemic-lockdown conditions in a sample of healthy youth (n = 49). Longitudinal changes in HCC were analyzed using linear mixed-effects models. Perceived levels of pandemic-related stress were measured and compared to the physiological changes in HCC. In children and adolescents, cortisol levels significantly increased across the course of the pandemic. These youth reported a multitude of stressors during this time, although changes in HCC were not associated with self-reported levels of COVID-19-related distress. We provide evidence that youth are experiencing significant physiological changes in cortisol activity across the COVID-19 pandemic, yet these biological responses are not associated with perceived stress levels. Youth may be especially vulnerable to the deleterious impacts of chronic cortisol exposure due to their current status in the sensitive periods for development, and the incongruency between biological and psychological stress responses may further complicate these developmental problems.
... Subjective stress experience throughout the stress session was assessed using the 20-item state scale of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory [36] which targets feelings of apprehension, nervousness, tension, worry, and activation/arousal of the autonomic nervous system. The state scale of the STAI has been validated as a measure of subjective stress experience across numerous studies [37]. ...
Through the long-term activation of sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, chronic psychosocial stress can compromise mental and bodily health. Psychosocial stress is determined by the perception of social interactions as ego-threatening, and thus strongly influenced by individual social processing capacities. In the current study, we investigated whether three key components of social processing are linked to how individuals respond to the experience of acute psychosocial stress exposure. Empathy, compassion, and Theory of Mind (ToM) were assessed using a state-of-the-art paradigm, the EmpaToM. Participants (N = 118) also underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), a standardized psychosocial laboratory stress test. Stress responses were measured in terms of salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase, heart-rate, high-frequency heart-rate variability (HF-HRV), and subjective stress experience. ToM performance correlated with different aspects of the acute psychosocial stress response. More specifically, higher levels of ToM were linked to increased alpha-amylase and reduced HF-HRV sensitivity to stress. Empathy and compassion levels had no influence on stress sensitivity. We conclude that ToM performance has a stable albeit contradictory association with acute psychosocial stress, while empathy and compassion tendencies appear to be largely unrelated. Overall, the relationship between EmpaToM-derived empathy, compassion, and ToM characteristics with stress sensitivity in the TSST is relatively weak.
Although central to theories of emotion, emotional response coherence, that is, coordination among various emotion response systems, has received inconsistent empirical support. This study tests a basic assumption of response coherence, that is, that it characterizes emotional states defining their beginning and end. To do so, we (a) compare response coherence between emotional versus non-emotional states and (b) examine how emotional coherence changes over time, before, during, and after an emotional episode. Seventy-nine participants viewed neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant film clips and rated continuously how pleasant they felt (experience) before (anticipation), during, and after (recovery) each clip. Autonomic physiological arousal responses (skin conductance level, heart rate; physiology) and facial expressions (corrugator, zygomatic activity; expression) were recorded. Within-person cross-correlations between all emotional response pairs were calculated for each phase. Analyses comparing coherence during emotional versus neutral film viewing showed that only experience-expression coherence was higher for emotional versus neutral films, indicating specificity for emotional states. Examining coherence across phases indicated that coherence increased from anticipation to emotional film viewing, as expected, for experience-expression and experience-physiology pairs (SCL only). Of those pairs, increased coherence returned to baseline during recovery, as theoretically assumed, only for experience-corrugator activity coherence. Current findings provide empirical support for theoretical views of response coherence as a defining feature of emotional episodes, but mostly for the coherence between experience and facial expressions. Further research needs to investigate the role of sympathetic arousal indices, as well as the role of response coherence in emotional recovery.
Despite that behavioral engagement is integral to mental health, surprisingly little is known about the relationship of psychosocial stress and behavioral engagement. The current study developed an observer-rated measure of behavioral engagement for lab-based stress inductions, then examined its relationship with stress-responsive biomarkers and affect. Young adults (N = 109, Mage=19.4, SDage=1.59, 57% female) completed one of three Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) conditions-non-stressful Control, Intermediate, or an Explicit Negative Evaluative-and at four timepoints provided self-reports of positive and negative affect and saliva samples for cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA). Trained study staff (experimenters and TSST judges) completed a programmed questionnaire measure of the novel behavioral engagement measure after the participants completed the TSST. Psychometric review and EFA of the behavioral engagement items resulted in a final 8-item measure with good interrater reliability and well-fitting 2-factor structure, capturing Persistence (4 items; loadings=.41-.89), and Quality of Speech (4 items; loadings=.53-.92). Results indicated that the relationship of positive affect growth and biomarker level to behavioral engagement varied substantially as a function of context: As negative evaluation level strengthened, behavioral engagement became more tightly associated with relative preservation of positive affect. For both cortisol and sAA, the relationship between biomarker levels (but not reactivity) and behavioral engagement varied significantly by condition, such that under milder conditions and elevated levels of biomarkers, engagement was greater, but under Explicit Negative Evaluation, and elevated levels of biomarkers, engagement was less, suggesting behavioral withdrawal. Findings reveal the critical role of context-especially negative evaluation-in the relationship of biomarkers with behavioral engagement.
Emotion differentiation (ED) — the tendency to experience one’s emotions with specificity — is a well-established predictor of adaptive responses to daily life stress. Yet, there is little research testing the role of ED in self-reported and physiological responses to an acute stressor. In the current study, we investigate the effects of negative emotion differentiation (NED) and positive emotion differentiation (PED) on participants’ self-reported emotions and cardiac-mediated sympathetic nervous system reactivity (i.e., pre-ejection period) in response to a stressful task. Healthy young adults enrolled in a two-session study. At an initial session, participants completed a modified experience sampling procedure (i.e., the Day Reconstruction Method). At session 2, 195 completed the Trier Social Stress Test while cardiac impedance was acquired throughout. Linear regressions demonstrated that higher NED, but not PED, was associated with experiencing less intense self-reported negative, high arousal emotions (e.g., irritated, panicky) during the stressor (β = − .15, p < .05) although people with higher NED also exhibited greater sympathetic reactivity (β = .16, p < .05). In exploratory analyses, we tested whether the effect of NED on self-reported stress was mediated by the tendency to make internally focus (or self-focused) attributions about performance on the task but did not find a significant indirect effect (p = .085). These results both complement prior work and provide a more complex picture of the role of NED in adaptive responses to stressful life events, suggesting that people with higher NED may experience their emotions as more manageable regardless of their level of physiological arousal.
In this study, a single high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (HF-rTMS) session was applied over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) after a moderate-to-intense stressor to investigate whether left DLPFC stimulation could regulate cortisol concentration after stress induction. Participants were randomly divided into three groups (stress-TMS, stress, and placebo-stress). Stress was induced in both the stress-TMS and stress groups using the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). The placebo-stress group received a placebo TSST. In the stress-TMS group, a single HF-rTMS session was applied over the left DLPFC after TSST. Cortisol was measured across the different groups, and each group's responses to the stress-related questionnaire were recorded. After TSST, both the stress-TMS and stress groups reported increased self-reported stress, state anxiety, negative affect, and cortisol concentration compared with the placebo-stress group, indicating that TSST successfully induced a stress response. Compared with the stress group, the stress-TMS group exhibited reduced cortisol levels at 0, 15, 30, and 45 min after HF-rTMS. These results suggest that left DLPFC stimulation after stress induction might accelerate the stress recovery.
Background:
Prolonged and constant stress from work often leads to numerous adverse health effects. In recent years, interest in probiotics, living microorganisms that can benefit their host when consumed in adequate amounts, to aid health and well-being has increased. This scoping review is to systematically evaluate the current state of science on the effects of probiotic supplements on health, stress, and stress-related symptoms among working adults in occupational settings.
Methods:
We performed a systematic scoping review following the Arksey and O'Malley Framework. Studies that examined the effects of probiotics on workers' health and stress-related indicators/outcomes in occupational settings were included. A comprehensive search was performed from November 2021 to January 2022 using MEDLINE/PubMed, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, PsychInfo, Scopus, and Embase.
Results:
A total of 14 papers met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Probiotics consisted primarily of Lactobacillus and/or Bifidobacterium strains in various forms and doses. Three out of eight studies reported statistical differences in inflammatory markers or stress hormone levels between probiotic and placebo groups. Three of six reported reduced respiratory tract infection incidents in the probiotic groups and three out of four studies reported no differences in anxiety and depression between groups. Lastly, three studies found that absenteeism and presentism were lower in probiotic groups compared with placebo groups.
Conclusion:
The potential benefits of probiotics exist; however, the measurements of outcomes, the types of probiotics used, and the characteristics of the intervention varied across studies. Further research is needed focusing on probiotics' direct and indirect mechanisms of action on the stress response and the standardization of strains and dosing.
Childhood adversity is a leading transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology, being associated with an estimated 31-62% of childhood-onset disorders and 23-42% of adult-onset disorders (Kessler et al., 2010). Major unresolved theoretical challenges stem from the nonspecific and probabilistic nature of the links between childhood adversity and psychopathology. The links are nonspecific because childhood adversity increases risk, through a range of mechanisms, for diverse forms of psychopathology and are probabilistic because not all individuals exposed to childhood adversity develop psychopathology. In this article, we propose a path forward by focusing on stress phenotypes, defined as biobehavioral patterns activated in response to stressors that can disrupt future functioning when persistent (e.g., reward seeking, social withdrawal, aggression). This review centers on the accumulating evidence that psychopathology appears to be more strongly predicted by behavior and biology during states of stress. Building on this observation, our theoretical framework proposes that we can model pathways from childhood adversity to psychopathology with greater specificity and certainty by understanding stress phenotypes, defined as patterns of behavior and their corresponding biological substrates that are elicited by stressors. This approach aims to advance our conceptualization of mediating pathways from childhood adversity to psychopathology. Understanding stress phenotypes will bring us closer to "precision mental health," a person-centered approach to identifying, preventing, and treating psychopathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
Women often report more anxiety than men, but there are divergent results regarding the putative correlation between physiological variables, such as cortisol, blood pressure and heart rate and the experienced emotional states. The aim of the present study was to evaluate sex differences in anxiety, and the relation to serum cortisol, blood pressure and heart rate. We used data from two pooled studies with participants from the same population (N = 405) facing a real-life stressor, bronchoscopy, as part of examination for lung cancer. At admission, blood pressure and heart rate were recorded, and a blood sample was taken for analysis of serum cortisol. Participants then completed Spielberger's State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Patients had elevated anxiety measured with STAI state compared to relevant age and sex stratified norm scores. Women had significantly higher STAI state score than men (M = 44.9, SD = 13.2 vs M = 36.2, SD = 10.7; t(403) = 7.25, p < 0.001). Mean serum cortisol, systolic blood pressure and heart rate showed no significant sex difference. There was a weak but significant correlation between state anxiety and heart rate and cortisol but none between blood pressure and anxiety. This study adds an important confirmation of sex differences in anxiety in a real-life setting, where women report significantly more anxiety than men do. However, the physiological markers only show a weak link with experienced anxiety, and exhibit no sex differences.
Stressor exposure affects food intake as well as the preference for high or low palatability foods, but little is known about how stressor types impact the visual attention to food images. We used eye tracking methodology in humans to determine if activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic nervous system is associated with changes in attention to food images as determined by measuring changes in oculomotor activity. Specifically, we tested two questions: 1) Do categorically distinct stressors alter aspects of visual attention to food images as determined by oculomotor activity (i.e., saccade latency, gaze duration, and saccade bouts)? 2) Do categorically distinct stressors differentially affect visual attention to food images of high or low palatability? A total of sixty participants were randomly divided into one of three test groups: controls, an anticipatory stressor group, or a reactive stressor group. We measured salivary cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) before and after stressor exposure to confirm activation of the HPA axis and sympathetic nervous system, respectively. Following stressor exposure participants performed an eye-tracking test using a standardized food picture database (Food-pics). We analyzed saccade latency, gaze duration, and saccade bouts in balanced pairs of food and non-food images. Salivary cortisol was elevated by both stressors, although the elevation in salivary cortisol to the reactive stressor was driven by women only. sAA was elevated only by the anticipatory stressor. There were main effects of image type for all three eye-tracking variables, with initial saccades of shorter latency to food images and longer gaze duration and more saccade bouts with food images. Participants exposed to the reactive stressor reduced gaze duration on food images relative to controls, and this affect was not linked to palatability or salivary cortisol levels. We conclude that reactive stressor decrease time spent looking at food, but not non-food, images. These data are partly consistent with the idea that reactive stressors reduce attention to non-critical visual signals.
O objetivo do estudo foi avaliar os níveis de Cortisol e Alfa-amilase salivar, relacionando-os com o nível de estresse e desempenho acadêmico de calouros do curso de Enfermagem, durante a primeira avaliação prática da disciplina de Anatomia Humana. Os procedimentos de coleta de saliva foram realizados antes e após a aplicação da avaliação prática de Anatomia Humana. As concentrações de Cortisol e Alfa-amilase salivar foram avaliadas pelo método ELISA. Foi utilizada a versão reduzida do questionário de Avaliação de Estresse em Estudantes de Enfermagem. Resultados: Foi observado que a concentração média de cortisol salivar foi de 0,421 ± 0,076 µg/dL e final de 0,572 ± 0,096 µg/dL, caracterizando aumento significativo de 35,8% (p<0,0001). Semelhantes resultados foram observados para as concentrações de alfa-amilase salivar (Inicial: 100,70 ± 7,37 U/mL e Final: 135,64 ± 10,85 U/mL), com aumento significativo de 34,7% da concentração (p<0,0001). O índice de avaliação, possibilitou identificar três fatores explicativos (comportamentais, estressores e organizacionais) Assim, foi detectado em 67% da amostra, nível leve de estresse para o fator explicativo comportamental). Para o fator explicativo estressor foi observado nível moderado em 53% da amostra. Ainda, foi observado nível elevado de estresse quanto ao fator explicativo organizacional em 80% . Foi observado pico médio de cortisol de 36,5 ± 9,6% (Final - Inicial %) e percentual de desempenho acadêmico de 75,9 ± 16,4%, que demostra influencia negativa do percentual dos níveis de estresse no desempenho dos participantes. Conclusão: A ansiedade perante exames de avaliação gera resultados negativos no desempenho dos acadêmicos.
Stress is linked to emotional eating among adolescents, which in turn increases risk for overweight/obesity (OW/OB) development and continuation. There is a lack of research disentangling chronic and acute stress as predictors of adolescent emotional eating. Further, there is a corresponding need to understand the effects of acute physiological stress reactivity within the context of adolescent emotional eating. The primary aim of this study was to examine the impact of cortisol stress reactivity on emotional eating in adolescents, above and beyond the effects of perceived chronic stress. The impact of subjective stress reactivity was also explored. Adolescents' (N = 49) intake of highly palatable snack foods was measured on separate control and stress-induction (following the Trier Social Stress Test for Children) days. A multi-method approach was used to assess objective (caloric intake) and subjective (self-report) emotional eating. Results indicated that greater cortisol reactivity, but not subjective stress reactivity, predicted subjective emotional eating, beyond the impact of chronic stress. Neither chronic stress nor subjective or objective stress reactivity predicted objective emotional eating following stress-induction. Findings point to the role of chronic stress and cortisol reactivity as risks for greater perceived emotional eating among adolescents, while elucidating differences between perceived and objective emotional eating. Future research should explore how chronic versus acute stress differentially contribute to adolescent weight management.
A great deal of empirical research on the consequences of a psychological contract breach (PCB) has overlooked the role of time in understanding individuals’ reactions to a PCB. Moreover, psychological contract research primarily focuses on how employees react to perceptions of a PCB, while questions regarding how the organization’s responsiveness (i.e., social account) might impact these reactions remain unanswered. We aimed to enhance the understanding of stress reactions and recovery that are triggered by PCB perceptions and stimulate empirical research that treats psychological contracts as a dynamic phenomenon. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we investigated how social account delivery timing—and its subjective experience—influences individuals’ stress resolution processes in the aftermath of a PCB. To this end, we used an experimental design and assessed participants’ physiological (i.e., heart rate) and psychological (i.e., self-report) stress reactions after inducing a breach. Our results underscore that a PCB is experienced as a stressful event. In addition, we find that social account timing influences heart rate recovery following a PCB. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and offer recommendations for practitioners.
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is the study of how psychological, neural, and immunologic processes interact and affect human health and behavior. Although once a relatively small field, some of the most exciting discoveries in psychopathology and mental health research have recently involved ideas and methods from PNI. In reviewing this work, I first summarize the structure and function of the human immune system, focusing primarily on inflammation. Second, I describe neural and physiologic pathways that link the brain and immune system, which give neurocognitive processes the ability to regulate the immune system and immunologic processes the ability to affect neural, cognitive-emotional, and behavioral outcomes. Third, I review studies examining associations between life stress and inflammation, and inflammation and mental health. Finally, I highlight several promising avenues for future research. Overall, despite the notable impact that PNI has already had on our understanding of mental and physical health, many important questions remain unanswered.
Background: The endocannabinoid system (ECS) is increasingly being recognized as key regulatory system coupled with the glucocorticoid system implicated in the pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). However, prior studies examining the ECS in MDD have been inconclusive, of small sample size or of cross-sectional nature limiting interpretation of causal inferences or time-dependent effects.
Methods: In a prospective community-based cohort study including 128 individuals (women: 108), depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) as well as hair cortisol and endocannabinoids were measured annually over four years (T1-T4). Cortisol, N-arachidonoylethanolamine (AEA), and 2-arachidonoyl-sn-glycerol/1-arachidonoyl-sn-glycerol (2-AG/1-AG) were extracted from 3 cm hair segments reflecting cumulative concentrations of the last three months prior sampling.
Results: Cross-sectional group comparisons at baseline revealed reduced AEA and cortisol levels in the group with a positive MDD screening compared to individuals with low depressive symptomatology (both p < .05). Cross-lagged panel models showed that AEA levels at T2 were negatively associated with depressive symptoms at T3 (p < .05). Also, depressive symptoms at T3 were negatively associated with AEA levels at T4 (p < .01). The direction of association was reversed for 2-AG/1-AG, as 2-AG/1-AG levels at T1 were positively associated with depressive symptoms at T2 (p < .01).
Conclusions: While cross-sectional analyses suggest higher depressive symptomatology to be associated with reduced AEA and cortisol release, longitudinal analyses reveal that primarily AEA levels are negatively associated with depressive symptoms. These longitudinal associations elucidate time-dependent relationships between depressive symptomatology and the ECS and further highlight AEA as potential treatment target in MDD.
Background
This systematic review evaluated whether there is evidence for (i) increased emotional stress levels, and (ii) a different biological stress response or rhythm [i.e., cortisol stress response, diurnal rhythm, or cortisol awakening response (CAR)] in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) relative to controls. Thirdly, the evidence for an association between emotional and biological stress in ASD was reviewed.
Method
MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, and SAGE journals were searched until December 2020. In this review, there were no limitations regarding age, sex, or intelligence quotient. Studies were only reviewed if results were compared with controls without a developmental disorder. Only salivary cortisol was considered as biological stress measure.
Results
Thirty-one studies were reviewed. Significantly higher self- and parent-reported emotional stress levels were found in individuals with ASD compared to controls. Regarding biological stress, the few studies in adults reported comparable cortisol stress responses and rhythms between both groups. In children/adolescents with ASD relative to controls, an increased, blunted, or similar cortisol stress response was reported, whereas the CAR did not differ in most studies, and diurnal rhythm was described as blunted or similar. Most studies found no significant association between parent-reported emotional stress and biological stress in ASD.
Conclusions
Current findings suggest that heightened emotional stress is a clinically significant factor in ASD. To unravel the cortisol response and rhythm, research in specific subgroups within the ASD spectrum is warranted, aiming at a higher frequency of cortisol measurements, preferably combined with momentary emotional stress measurements.
Background
Higher resting parasympathetic nervous system activity, as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), has been considered a marker of emotion regulatory capacity and is consistently related to better mental health. However, it remains unclear how resting RSA relates to emotion reactivity to acute social-evaluative stress, a potent predictor of depression and other negative outcomes.
Method
A sample of 89 participants (Mage = 18.36, SD = 0.51; 58.43 % female) provided measures of RSA at rest and then completed the Trier Social Stress Test, a standardized laboratory-based social-evaluative stress task that involves public speaking and mental arithmetic while being evaluated by two confederate judges. Participants reported a variety of emotions (i.e., negative emotion, positive emotion) at baseline and immediately after the stress task.
Results
Participants with higher resting RSA showed greater increases in negative emotion, guilt, depressive emotion, and anger, as well as greater decreases in positive emotion after the task.
Limitation
Data were limited to a relatively small sample of late adolescents, who may be particularly responsive to social-evaluative stress compared to adults.
Conclusions
Findings suggest that higher resting RSA may enhance emotion responses to social-evaluative stress in adolescents, potentially due to active engagement and responding to rather than passively viewing stimuli. Higher resting RSA may promote flexible emotion responses to the social environment, which may account for the associations between higher RSA and better mental health.
One pathway through which stressors are thought to influence physiology is through their effects on emotion. We used meta-analytic statistical techniques with data from nine studies to test the effects of acute laboratory stressors (speech, star mirror-image tracing, handgrip) on emotional (undifferentiated negative emotion, anger, anxiety) and cardiovascular (CV) response. In all of the studies, participants responded to stressors with both increased CV response and increased negative emotion. Increases in negative emotion were associated with increases in CV response across tasks, however, these associations were small. The range of variance accounted for was between 2% and 12%. Thus, the contribution of negative emotion, as assessed in these studies, to physiological responses to acute laboratory stressors was limited. Although these results raise questions about the role of emotion in mediating stress-elicited physiological responses, the nature of the acute laboratory stress paradigm may contribute to the lack of a strong association.
One hundred fifteen college students were exposed to an evaluative speech task twice, separated by 2 weeks. At both sessions,
we assessed cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, and psychological response at baseline and during the task. We found stability
across sessions for stress-induced increases in anxiety and task engagement, heart rate, blood pressure, norpinephrine (but
not epinephrine), cortisol, natural killer cell cytotoxicity, and numbers of circulating CD3+, CD8+, and CD56+ (but not CD4+
or CD19+) lymphocytes. The stable cardiovascular, immune, and endocrine reactivities were intercorrelated, providing evidence
of a unified physiological stress response across these outcomes. Although stable stress-induced increases in task engagement
were associated with the physiological stress responses, stress-induced anxiety was not.
Researchers have theorized that changing the way we think about our bodily responses can improve our physiological and cognitive reactions to stressful events. However, the underlying processes through which mental states improve downstream outcomes are not well understood. To this end, we examined whether reappraising stress-induced arousal could improve cardiovascular outcomes and decrease attentional bias for emotionally negative information. Participants were randomly assigned to either a reappraisal condition in which they were instructed to think about their physiological arousal during a stressful task as functional and adaptive, or to 1 of 2 control conditions: attention reorientation and no instructions. Relative to controls, participants instructed to reappraise their arousal exhibited more adaptive cardiovascular stress responses-increased cardiac efficiency and lower vascular resistance-and decreased attentional bias. Thus, reappraising arousal shows physiological and cognitive benefits. Implications for health and potential clinical applications are discussed.
It is well established that a lack of social support constitutes a major risk factor for morbidity and mortality, comparable to risk factors such as smoking, obesity, and high blood pressure. Although it has been hypothesized that social support may benefit health by reducing physiological reactivity to stressors, the mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. Moreover, to date, no studies have investigated the neurocognitive mechanisms that translate experiences of social support into the health outcomes that follow. To investigate these processes, thirty participants completed three tasks in which daily social support, neurocognitive reactivity to a social stressor, and neuroendocrine responses to a social stressor were assessed. Individuals who interacted regularly with supportive individuals across a 10-day period showed diminished cortisol reactivity to a social stressor. Moreover, greater social support and diminished cortisol responses were associated with diminished activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and Brodmann's area (BA) 8, regions previously associated with the distress of social separation. Lastly, individual differences in dACC and BA 8 reactivity mediated the relationship between high daily social support and low cortisol reactivity, such that supported individuals showed reduced neurocognitive reactivity to social stressors, which in turn was associated with reduced neuroendocrine stress responses. This study is the first to investigate the neural underpinnings of the social support-health relationship and provides evidence that social support may ultimately benefit health by diminishing neural and physiological reactivity to social stressors.
Although previous studies of emotional responding have found that women are more emotionally expressive than men, it remains unclear whether men and women differ in other domains of emotional response. We assessed the expressive, experiential, and physiological emotional responses of men and women in 2 studies. In Study 1, undergraduates viewed emotional films. Compared with men, women were more expressive, did not differ in reports of experienced emotion, and demonstrated different patterns of skin conductance responding. In Study 2, undergraduate men and women viewed emotional films and completed self-report scales of expressivity, gender role characteristics, and family expressiveness. Results replicated those from Study 1, and gender role characteristics and family expressiveness moderated the relationship between sex and expressivity.
Abuse and neglect are highly prevalent in children and have enduring neurobiological effects. Stressful early life environments perturb the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which in turn may predispose to psychiatric disorders in adulthood. However, studies of childhood maltreatment and adult HPA function have not yet rigorously investigated the differential effects of maltreatment subtypes, including physical abuse.
In this study, we sought to replicate our previous finding that childhood maltreatment was associated with attenuated cortisol responses to stress and determine whether the type of maltreatment was a determinant of the stress response.
Salivary cortisol response to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) was examined in a non-clinical sample of women (n = 110). Subjects had no acute medical problems and were not seeking psychiatric treatment. Effects of five maltreatment types, as measured by the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, on cortisol response to the TSST were investigated. To further examine the significant (p < 0.005) effect of one maltreatment type, women with childhood physical abuse (PA) (n = 20) were compared to those without past PA (n = 90).
Women reporting childhood PA displayed a significantly blunted cortisol response to the TSST compared with subjects without PA, after controlling for estrogen use, age, other forms of maltreatment, and other potential confounds. There were no differences between PA and control groups with regard to physiological arousal during the stress challenge.
In a non-clinical sample of women with minimal or no current psychopathology, physical abuse is associated with a blunted cortisol response to a psychosocial stress task.
Anxiety vulnerability is associated with biases in attention: a tendency to selectively process negative relative to neutral or positive information. It is not clear whether this bias is: 1) related to the physiological response to stressful events, and 2) causally related to the development of anxiety disorders.
We tested the predictive value of both preconscious and conscious attention biases in a prospective study of stress reactivity in a nonclinical sample. One hundred four male participants were assessed at baseline and then again 4 months (n = 82) and 8 months later (n = 70). Salivary cortisol and self-report measures were obtained at the baseline testing session in addition to measures of biased attention. Subsequent emotional reactivity was assessed by means of salivary cortisol and self-reported state-anxiety responses during a laboratory-based stressor (4 months later) as well as during a real-life stressor 8 months later (i.e., examination period).
Regression analyses indicated that a preconscious negative processing bias was the best predictor of the cortisol response to stressful events. Importantly, a measure of selective processing provided a better indicator of subsequent emotional reactivity than self-report measures of neuroticism, trait-anxiety, and extraversion.
These results suggest that preconscious biases toward negative material play a causal role in heightened anxiety vulnerability. Our results illustrate the potential utility of preconscious biases in attention in providing an early marker of anxiety vulnerability and a potential target for treatment intervention.
Sex differences in emotional responding have been repeatedly postulated but less consistently shown in empirical studies. Because emotional reactions are modulated by cognitive appraisal, sex differences in emotional responding might depend on differences in emotion regulation. In this study, we investigated sex differences in emotional reactivity and emotion regulation using a delayed cognitive reappraisal paradigm and measured whole-brain BOLD signal in 17 men and 16 women. During fMRI, participants were instructed to increase, decrease, or maintain their emotional reactions evoked by negative pictures in terms of cognitive reappraisal. We analyzed BOLD responses to aversive compared to neutral pictures in the initial viewing phase and the effect of cognitive reappraisal in the subsequent regulation phase. Women showed enhanced amygdala responding to aversive stimuli in the initial viewing phase, together with increased activity in small clusters within the prefrontal cortex and the temporal cortex. During cognitively decreasing emotional reactions, women recruited parts of the orbitofrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to a lesser extent than men, while there was no sex effect on amygdala activity. In contrast, compared to women, men showed an increased recruitment of regulatory cortical areas during cognitively increasing initial emotional reactions, which was associated with an increase in amygdala activity. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Home baseline and laboratory stressor (Trier Social Stress Test for Children) measures of salivary cortisol were obtained from 82 participants (40 girls) aged 9, 11, 13, and 15 years. Measures of pubertal development, self-reported stress, parent reports of child depressive symptoms and fearful temperament, and cardiac measures of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity were also obtained. Significant increases in the home cortisol baselines were found with age and pubertal development. Cortisol stress reactivity differed by age group with 11-year-olds and 13-year-old boys showing blunted reactivity and 9-year-olds, 13-year-old girls, and 15-year-olds showing significant cortisol reactions. Cortisol reactivity correlated marginally with sexual maturation. Measures of sympathetic activity revealed increased sympathetic modulation with age. Higher sympathetic tone was associated with more fearful temperament, whereas greater cortisol reactivity was associated with more anxious and depressed symptoms for girls. The importance of these findings for the hypothesis that puberty-associated increases in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity heightens the risk of psychopathology is discussed.
The brain circuitry underlying emotion includes several territories of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate, and related structures. In general, the PFC represents emotion in the absence of immediately present incentives and thus plays a crucial role in the anticipation of the future affective consequences of action, as well as in the persistence of emotion following the offset of an elicitor. The functions of the other structures in this circuit are also considered. Individual differences in this circuitry are reviewed with an emphasis on asymmetry within the PFC and activation of the amygdala as 2 key components of affective style. These individual differences are related to both behavioral and biological variables associated with affective style and emotion regulation. Plasticity in this circuitry and its implications for transforming emotion and cultivating positive affect and resilience are considered.
A review of 41 clinical and 54 analogue studies was undertaken to evaluate the relationship between anxiety response channels—physiological, behavioral and cognitive. The results indicated that congruence among response channels tended to be higher for the clinical populations than for the analogue populations. The data tend best to support Hodgson and Rachman's (1974) theory that anxiety channel congruence increases as a function of intensity of the anxiety. Tentative support was found for Bernstein and Paul's (1971) assertion that analogue and clinical subjects are sufficiently dissimilar as to obstruct the generalization of findings from one population to the other. Lastly, the congruence patterns suggest that behavioral and cognitive measures are less reliable indices of anxiety than physiological measures, especially in analogue samples.
Despite strong popular conceptions of gender differences in emotionality and striking gender differences in the prevalence of disorders thought to involve emotion dysregulation, the literature on the neural bases of emotion regulation is nearly silent regarding gender differences (Gross, 2007; Ochsner & Gross, in press). The purpose of the present study was to address this gap in the literature. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we asked male and female participants to use a cognitive emotion regulation strategy (reappraisal) to down-regulate their emotional responses to negatively valenced pictures. Behaviorally, men and women evidenced comparable decreases in negative emotion experience. Neurally, however, gender differences emerged. Compared with women, men showed (a) lesser increases in prefrontal regions that are associated with reappraisal, (b) greater decreases in the amygdala, which is associated with emotional responding, and (c) lesser engagement of ventral striatal regions, which are associated with reward processing. We consider two non-competing explanations for these differences. First, men may expend less effort when using cognitive regulation, perhaps due to greater use of automatic emotion regulation. Second, women may use positive emotions in the service of reappraising negative emotions to a greater degree. We then consider the implications of gender differences in emotion regulation for understanding gender differences in emotional processing in general, and gender differences in affective disorders.
Emotions seem to come and go as they please. However, we actually hold considerable sway over our emotions: We influence which emotions we have and how we experience and express these emotions. The process model of emotion regulation described here suggests that how we regulate our emotions matters. Regulatory strategies that act early in the emotion-generative process should have quite different outcomes than strategies that act later. This review focuses on two widely used strategies for down-regulating emotion. The first, reappraisal, comes early in the emotion-generative process. It consists of changing how we think about a situation in order to decrease its emotional impact. The second, suppression, comes later in the emotion-generative process. It involves inhibiting the outward signs of emotion. Theory and research suggest that reappraisal is more effective than suppression. Reappraisal decreases the experience and behavioral expression of emotion, and has no impact on memory. By contrast, suppression decreases behavioral expression, but fails to decrease the experience of emotion, and actually impairs memory. Suppression also increases physiological responding in both the suppressors and their social partners.
Under social-evaluative stress, self-reported anxiety (cognitive and somatic),behavioural anxiety (motor, facial, verbal and social), physiological arousal (heart rate and skinresistance level), and task performance (cognitive and motor) were recorded. There was low, buttheoretically meaningful, concordance across response systems: significant relationshipsappeared among measures of cognitive aspects, and among those concerned with somaticaspects, but not between these two areas. Furthermore, concordance was higher in females thanin males specifically between the two response systems that can be voluntarily controlled (i.e.,self-report and behaviour) and the noncontrollable system (i.e., physiological arousal). Thesedifferences in concordance as a function of gender are explained in terms of emotional responsesuppression or masking in males.
Researchers interested in emotion have long struggled with the problem of how to elicit emotional responses in the laboratory. In this article, we summarise five years of work to develop a set of films that reliably elicit each of eight emotional states (amusement, anger, contentment, disgust, fear, neutral, sadness, and surprise). After evaluating over 250 films, we showed selected film clips to an ethnically diverse sample of 494 English-speaking subjects. We then chose the two best films for each of the eight target emotions based on the intensity and discreteness of subjects' responses to each film. We found that our set of 16 films successfully elicited amusement, anger, contentment. disgust, sadness, surprise, a relatively neutral state, and, to a lesser extent, fear. We compare this set of films with another set recently described by Philippot (1993), and indicate that detailed instructions for creating our set of film stimuli will be provided on request.
In recent studies of the structure of affect, positive and negative affect have consistently emerged as two dominant and relatively independent dimensions. A number of mood scales have been created to measure these factors; however, many existing measures are inadequate, showing low reliability or poor convergent or discriminant validity. To fill the need for reliable and valid Positive Affect and Negative Affect scales that are also brief and easy to administer, we developed two 10-item mood scales that comprise the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The scales are shown to be highly internally consistent, largely uncorrelated, and stable at appropriate levels over a 2-month time period. Normative data and factorial and external evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the scales are also presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Objective: In the vulnerability-stress concept of schizophrenia, schizophrenic patients are thought to display increased sensitivity
to stress. Little is known about the biological mechanisms that are involved in stress processing in schizophrenic patients.
In this study, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function in schizophrenic patients was studied for its essential role
in stress processing and adaptation to the environment. Methods: Eighteen schizophrenic patients were compared to 21 healthy controls in their salivary cortisol response to a physical (bicycle
ergometry) and a psychosocial (public speaking) stressor. Coping questionnaires were included as a measure of stress processing
at the psychological level. Basal HPA function was assessed by measuring cortisol day profiles and feedback activity by using
dexamethasone and hydrocortisone. Results: Schizophrenic patients showed blunted cortisol responses to the psychosocial stressor, but not to the physical stressor,
in spite of similar increases in heart rate. The cortisol response to the psychosocial stressor tended to be negatively correlated
to the use of passive and avoidant coping strategies. Basal HPA function appeared intact in the schizophrenic patients. Conclusions: The findings show a selective impairment in the response to psychosocial stress in schizophrenic patients. This suggests
the involvement of brain systems that play a role in the activation of the HPA system to psychosocial stress, like arginin-vasopressin
(AVP), and cognitive processes, like coping.
Recent behavioral medicine studies have revealed that some hormones secreted in human body sensitively changes according to his/her mental stress. Thus it is expected as an objective measurement of mental stress. However this newly developed interdisciplinary studies frequently showed inconsistent results. Some technical reasons were indicated for this discrepancy. Above all, we focused on the fact that in all these studies the only method introduced to estimate the relationship between the level of hormones and the subjective stress scale was the correlation analysis. In this study we employed Rough set analysis in place of conventional linear correlation analysis for mining the relationship between a subjective stress scale, “Profile of Mood Scale” (POMS), and a well known stress biomarker, salivary cortisol. As a developing result, numbers of items (inquiries in POMS) which relatively associated with cortisol level were found, whereas no significant linear correlation was obtained between them.
Recent findings suggest that elevated stress levels during the pre- and postpartum period are related to poor maternal and infant health outcomes; yet, few studies have prospectively examined the efficacy of stress management interventions on regulating stress levels among mothers and their infants. The current study examined whether a prenatal cognitive behavioral stress management (CBSM) intervention would be effective in regulating salivary cortisol (a biological marker of stress) and self-reported stress levels among mothers and their infants at six and 18 months postpartum, relative to two control groups. Our sample was comprised of predominantly Spanish-speaking, low-income women (80%; mean age=25±5 years) who were screened for depression during their second trimester of pregnancy (M=16±5 weeks of gestation). Women at high risk for depression [i.e., having either a past history of major depression or current elevated symptoms of depression (≥16 on CES-D)] were randomized to either a CBSM group (n=24) or a usual care (UC) group (n=33), while a low risk comparison (LRC) group (n=29) was comprised of women not meeting either depression criteria. ANCOVA analyses demonstrated that: (1) infants of women in the CBSM and LRC groups had significantly lower cortisol levels than infants of women in the UC group at six months postpartum (p<.001); and (2) women in the CBSM group had lower cortisol levels than women in the UC group at 18 months postpartum (p<.01). These results suggest that prenatal CBSM interventions may be efficacious in regulating biological markers of stress among mothers and their infants, thereby decreasing their risk for developing health complications over time.
Studies regarding the interrelation of perceived and physiological stress indices have shown diverging results. Using a population sample of adolescents (N=715, 50.9% girls, mean age 16.11 years, SD=0.59), we tested three hypotheses: (1) perceived responses during social stress covary with concurrent physiological stress responses; (2) high pretest levels of perceived stress predict large physiological responses; and (3) large physiological responses to social stress predict low posttest perceived stress levels. Perceived arousal, unpleasantness, and dominance were related to heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and cortisol responses to a laboratory social stress test. Although effect sizes were small, the results suggest covariation of perceived stress and concurrent physiological stress responses in both the ANS and the HPA axis, as well as inverse associations between heart rate responsiveness and the subsequent appraisal of stress.
Food consumption in stressful situations vary as a function of individual difference factors (e.g., emotional vs. non-emotional eating), and may be related to hormonal responses elicited by the stressful event. These hormonal responses may be tied to specific emotions elicited by the stressful event. The present investigation examined the emotional and hormonal (cortisol, ghrelin) responses of high and low emotional eaters following a laboratory stressor (Trier Social Stress Test; TSST). Women (n=48) either high or low in emotional eating status were tested in a TSST or served as controls during which blood samples were taken for analysis of cortisol and ghrelin, both of which have been implicated in eating and in response to stressors. The TSST promoted elevated cortisol levels, being somewhat more pronounced in emotional than in non-emotional eaters. Both shame and anger were provoked by the TSST, and although both these emotions were correlated with cortisol levels, only anger significantly mediated the relationship between the stressor and cortisol levels. As well, baseline ghrelin levels in low emotional eaters exceeded that of high emotional eaters, and increased moderately in response to the stressor situation, irrespective of emotional eating status. Interestingly, when provided with food, ghrelin levels declined in the non-emotional eaters, but not in emotional eaters. The possibility is offered that the lack of a decline of ghrelin in emotional eaters may sustain eating in these individuals.