Social-evaluative threat, cognitive load, and the cortisol and cardiovascular stress response

Psychoneuroendocrinology
Alex WoodySally S Dickerson

Abstract

Current evidence suggests that exposure to social-evaluative threat (SET) can elicit a physiological stress response, especially cortisol, which is an important regulatory hormone. However, an alternative explanation of these findings is that social-evaluative laboratory tasks are more difficult, or confer greater cognitive load, than non-evaluative tasks. Thus, the current experiment tested whether social-evaluative threat, rather than cognitive load, is truly an "active ingredient" in eliciting a cortisol response to stressors. Healthy undergraduate students (N = 142, 65% female) were randomly assigned to one of four speech-stressor conditions in a fully-crossed two (social-evaluative threat [SET] manipulation: non-SET versus SET) by two (cognitive load manipulation: low versus high) stressor manipulation. Social-evaluative threat was manipulated by the presence (SET) or absence (non-SET) of two evaluators, while cognitive load was manipulated by the presence (LOAD) or absence (non-LOAD) of a tone-counting task during the speech stressor. Salivary cortisol and cardiovascular measures were taken before, during, and after the speech stressor. Compared to the non-SET condition, SET condition led to greater cortisol and cardiovas...Continue Reading

Citations

May 14, 2019·Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing : Official Publication of the Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nurses, Inc·Brie Chang, Kathleen Delaney
Nov 27, 2019·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Khandis R Blake, Robert C Brooks
Oct 28, 2019·Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience·F U JungC Luck-Sikorski
Dec 29, 2020·Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior·Michael W SchlundErin B Tone
Mar 30, 2021·The European Journal of Neuroscience·Nina M EhrhardtAnna-Katharine Brem
Aug 24, 2021·Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience·Iryna S Palamarchuk, Tracy Vaillancourt

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