Arousal Styles during Public Speaking

Abstract

The nature of the public-speaking context as a physiologically arousing communication context is well-known. During public speaking, a significant increase in heart rate level above the baseline has been found in various studies. In these studies, arousal styles during speaking have generally been described on the basis of mean heart rates among a group of participants. Individual variation in HR responses has not received much attention. The purpose of the present study was to examine individual differences in heart rate responses during public speaking and to account for these differences in terms of particular explanatory variables. The heart rate curves of 47 speakers were examined one by one in order to see what different arousal styles emerged. As a result, four styles were distinguished: the confrontation style, inflexible style, insensitive style, and average style. Different combinations of the speaker's subjectively experienced state, level of trait anxiety, and public speaking experience were typically associated with each of these styles.