Acute psychosocial stress weakens the sense of agency in healthy adults

Abstract

The sense of agency (SoA) refers to the feeling of being in control of one’s actions and the subsequent consequence of these actions. Emotional context seems to alter the strength of sense of agency. The present study explored the influence of acute psychosocial stress on the SoA by means of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Self-assessment manikin (SAM) and objective physiological indicators (e.g. heart rate, electrodermal activity, and salivary cortisol levels) were utilized to evaluate the effect of the TSST. We also employed the temporal binding effect as an implicit assessment of the participant’s SoA. The results indicated that the stress level of the experimental group after TSST was significantly higher than the control group, whilst the temporal binding scores of the experimental group decreased after TSST manipulation. In short, acute psychosocial stress with intense emotional arousal weakened the sense of agency.