Trier Social Stress Test Elevates Blood Pressure, Heart Rate, and Anxiety, But a Singing Test or Unsolvable Anagrams Only Elevates Heart Rate, among Healthy Young Adults

Isabelle K Sequeira,Addie S Longmire,Naomi J Mckay

doi:10.3390/psych3020015

Isabelle K Sequeira, Addie S Longmire + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/psych3020015

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Abstract

The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) is a psychosocial stressor that effectively stimulates the stress response but is labor and time intensive. Although other psychological stressors are often used experimentally, none are known to comparably elevate stress. Two stressors that may potentially elevate stress are a singing task (ST) and unsolvable anagrams, but there are not enough data to support their effectiveness. In the current experiment, 53 undergraduate males and females (mean age = 21.9 years) were brought into the laboratory, and baseline blood pressure, heart rate, self-rated anxiety, and salivary cortisol were recorded. Then, participants were randomly assigned to one of three stress conditions: TSST (n = 24), ST (n = 14), or an unsolvable anagram task (n = 15). Stress measures were taken again after the stressor and during recovery. The TSST significantly elevated systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, and self-rated anxiety from pre-stress levels, replicating its stress-inducing properties. However, the ST and unsolvable anagrams only elevated heart rate, indicating that these methods are not as able to stimulate physiological or psychological stress. Overall, results indicate that out of these three laboratory stressors, the TSST clearly engages the stress response over the ST or unsolvable anagrams.

Highlights

Introduction and Letizia PalombaHuman research on stress often employs acute laboratory stressors to induce various elements of the stress response in participants
Considering the importance of establishing a purely psychological stressor that is less cumbersome to employ than the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), the purpose of the current study was twofold: to assess the stress response in reaction to several promising laboratory stressors that previously have been understudied in this regard, and to compare their stress-inducing properties to that of the TSST
Unsolvable anagrams condition only exhibited an elevation in heart rate

Summary

Introduction

Introduction and Letizia PalombaHuman research on stress often employs acute laboratory stressors to induce various elements of the stress response in participants. One major difficulty in this area of research is that many different techniques are used to induce stress, with little evidence of how psychological or physiological stress markers are comparable between them. The purpose of the current research was two-fold: first, to compare markers of stress between three psychological stressors to identify if there is a comparable stimulation of stress, and second, to use these data to establish reliability for a relatively easy way to stimulate acute stress in a laboratory setting. Acute laboratory stressors are often subdivided as either psychological or physical stressors. Psychological stressors elevate energy intake [1,2]; the use of a physical stressor, such as the cold pressure test, does not reliably elevate energy intake [3].

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