Social-evaluative Stressor Research Articles

Emotion regulation and cortisol reactivity during a social evaluative stressor: A study of post-institutionalized youth.

In the current study, we compared emotion regulation abilities between post-institutionalized (PI; N=124) and never-institutionalized non-adopted (NA; N=172) children and adolescents (7-15years). We assessed cortisol reactivity and coded emotion regulation during the speech portion of Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-M). Parents reported on their children's social, academic, and behavioral adjustment. Results suggest that emotion regulation abilities increased with age, but this increase was greater for NA than PI youth. With regard to cortisol, piecewise growth modeling revealed that at higher levels of emotion regulation PI youth had greater baseline values (after a period of time allowing for acclimation to the laboratory) and had steeper recovery slopes than NA youth. There was also a main effect of emotion regulation on the reactivity slope suggesting that for both groups, as emotion regulation increased, the cortisol reactivity slope decreased. Finally, greater emotion regulation predicted fewer internalizing behavior problems for PI youth but not for NA youth.

Physiologic reactivity to and recovery from acute social-evaluative stress: Differential associations with preadolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problems

Physiologic reactivity to and recovery from acute social-evaluative stress: Differential associations with preadolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problems

Diminished cardiovascular stress reactivity is associated with lower levels of social participation

Diminished cardiac reactions to acute psychological stress are associated with adverse behavioral and health-relevant outcomes. It has been proposed that diminished cardiac reactivity may be a marker for deficits in motivational functioning both at the biological and behavioral levels. Social participation reflects the frequency with which individuals participate in social events and has motivational components. As such, it is a distinct construct from other constructs such as social integration, which measures the number of social roles an individual has. Additionally, lower levels of social participation and diminished reactivity have been associated with similar adverse health outcomes. Therefore, it is possible that diminished cardiac reactivity is associated with lower levels of social participation. We aimed to examine whether diminished cardiovascular reactivity in response to an acute lab stressor was associated with reported social participation. The analyses were conducted using publicly available data from the Pittsburgh Cold Study 3 (PCS3). The PCS3 was a prospective viral-challenge study, which included participants completing an in-lab social evaluative stressor (N = 202, Age = M = 29.71, SD = 10.66) and measuring cardiovascular responses at baseline and in response to the stressor. Separate regression analyses for each cardiovascular variable (SBP, DBP, MAP, and HR) demonstrated that lower cardiovascular reactivity was associated with less social participation. These associations were still evident following adjustment for respective baseline cardiovascular levels, age, sex, race, depressive symptomology, body mass index, socioeconomic status, smoking status, and levels of social integration (R2 changes: ≥ 0.017; ps ≤ 0.02) The findings provide initial evidence that blunted cardiac reactivity may be a precursor to low levels of social participation.

Comparing stress and arousal systems in response to different social contexts in children with ASD

Response to psychological stress can vary based on the extent to which the context is perceived as stressful, especially under different social conditions. The purpose of this preliminary study was to compare physiological stress (cortisol) and regulation (respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA) of 10–12 year old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD, n = 31) or typical development (TD, n = 25) when exposed to two social stress protocols. The extent to which perceived emotion (affect recognition) and anxiety (state and trait) mediate the stress response was also explored. Results revealed different patterns of stress responses dependent on the type of stressor. During a friendly social interaction, both groups generally showed an adaptive, synergistic response between cortisol and RSA. In response to social evaluation, however, the ASD group did not show correlating responses between physiological systems, which was likely due to a blunted stress response to the social evaluative stressor. The ability to recognize neutral faces mediated the relationship between diagnostic group and physiological response to social evaluation, indicating that perception of threat is essential to triggering a stress response. The current study emphasizes the need to consider the important role of social context, social perception, and perceived anxiety when examining social interaction and stress.

Social identification and contagious stress reactions

Contagious stress describes the transmission of stress from a stressed person to an observer, which we examined at the neuroendocrine and the affective level. We tested whether a shared social identity moderates contagious stress. Ninety-four participants participated in groups of four. After inducing either a shared social or a personal identity, participants observed a confederate undergoing the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), a standardized social-evaluative stressor. Salivary cortisol and affective stress were assessed multiple times before and after the observation of the TSST. We found a physiologically significant contagious stress reaction on a neuroendocrine level for 17% of all participants. Additionally, we found an increase in observers’ self-reported stress. Contrary to our expectations, the manipulation of social identity had no effect on contagious stress. Our variation of the TSST is a viable methodological strategy to increase standardization as well as experimental economy in studies examining contagious stress.

Basal testosterone’s relationship with dictator game decision-making depends on cortisol reactivity to acute stress: A dual-hormone perspective on dominant behavior during resource allocation

The dual-hormone hypothesis proposes that testosterone’s relationship with status-seeking behavior is moderated by cortisol. However, research testing this hypothesis has focused on basal cortisol; the potential moderating effect of the acute cortisol response to stress has been largely overlooked. The present research investigated the moderating role of cortisol responses to an acute stressor on basal testosterone’s link with dominant, status-relevant decision-making. Also, given the multifaceted nature of the response to acute stress, cardiovascular and affective responses to the stressor were examined as alternative moderators of the testosterone-behavior relationship. Participants (N = 112; 56% female) were exposed to a social-evaluative stressor, and their stress responses were measured. Participants subsequently engaged in a one-shot dictator game, wherein they were asked to split money ($10) with a confederate counterpart. The amount of money participants decided to keep for themselves was treated as a metric of dominant status-seeking behavior. For individuals who demonstrated lower cortisol responses to the stressor, basal testosterone was positively associated with more dominant behavior (i.e., keeping more money for oneself), but for those who showed higher cortisol responses, the testosterone-behavior relationship was suppressed. Moreover, other aspects of the stress response (i.e., cardiovascular and affective responses) did not moderate the relationship between basal testosterone and dictator game behavior. These results provide unique support for the dual-hormone hypothesis using markers of stress-induced cortisol change. The findings also suggest that the antagonistic effects of stress on testosterone’s role in motivating status-relevant behavior may be specific to cortisol’s role in the acute stress response.

Salivary uric acid: Associations with resting and reactive blood pressure response to social evaluative stress in healthy African Americans

High levels of uric acid are associated with greater risk of stress-related cardiovascular illnesses that occur disproportionately among African Americans. Whether hyperuricemia affects biological response to acute stress remains largely unknown, suggesting a need to clarify this potential connection. The current study examined how salivary uric acid (sUA) is associated with resting and reactive blood pressure – two robust predictors of hypertension and related cardiovascular disease and disparity. Healthy African Americans (N = 107; 32% male; M age = 31.74 years), completed the Trier Social Stress Test to induce social-evaluative stress. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings were recorded before, during, and after the task to assess resting and reactive change in blood pressure. Participants also provided a saliva sample at baseline that was assayed for sUA. At rest, and controlling for age, sUA was modestly associated with higher systolic (r = .201, p = .044), but not diastolic (r = .100, p = .319) blood pressure. In response to the stressor task, and once again controlling for age, sUA was also associated with higher total activation of both systolic (r = .219, p = .025) and diastolic blood pressure (r = .198, p < .044). A subsequent moderation analysis showed that associations between sUA and BP measures were significant for females, but not for males. Findings suggest that uric acid may be implicated in hypertension and cardiovascular health disparities through associations with elevated blood pressure responses to acute social stress, and that low levels of uric acid might be protective, particularly for females.

Paranoid Delusions as an Adaptive Response to Social Evaluative Stress?

Abstract. Learning mechanisms may serve as a framework for understanding the formation of paranoia. Specifically, if paranoid thoughts after social stressors produce a short-term benefit for coping (e.g., downregulating arousal), the encountered negative reinforcement could lead to their excessive application and subsequently to long-term maladaptive convictions. The Trier Social Stress Test was utilized in healthy participants to examine this putative benefit. Participants rated paranoia at baseline and after the stressor. Subjective stress levels, negative affect, heart rate, and heart rate variability were assessed in the following rest phase (N = 59). Semipartial correlations showed that participants who responded with larger increases in paranoia were characterized by a lower heart rate in the subsequent rest phase. No associations were found with heart rate variability or psychological measures. Thus, paranoid thinking in healthy individuals could be an adaptive means for reestablishing some aspects of physiological homeostasis after a social stressor but further research is needed.

Emotion regulation as a predictor of the endocrine, autonomic, affective, and symptomatic stress response and recovery

Stress is associated with the development of mental disorders such as depression and psychosis. The ability to regulate emotions is likely to influence how individuals respond to and recover from acute stress, and may thus be relevant to symptom development. To test this, we investigated whether self-reported emotion regulation predicts the endocrine, autonomic, affective, and symptomatic response to and recovery from a stressor. Social-evaluative stress was induced by the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) in N = 67 healthy individuals (53.7% female, Mage = 29.9). Self-reported habitual emotion regulation skills were assessed at baseline. We measured salivary cortisol, heart rate, negative affect, state depression and state paranoia at three time points: pre-TSST, post-TSST, and after a 10 min recovery phase. Repeated-measures ANOVA showed all indicators to significantly increase in response to the stressor (p < .001) and decrease during the recovery phase (p < .001), except for salivary cortisol, which showed a linear increase (p < .001). The habitual use of maladaptive emotion regulation (e.g., rumination, catastrophizing) significantly predicted an increased affective and reduced cortisol response. Adaptive emotion regulation (e.g., acceptance, reappraisal) was not predictive of the stress response for any of the indicators. Neither type of emotion regulation predicted response during the stress recovery phase. Individuals who habitually resort to maladaptive emotion regulation strategies show a stronger affective and a blunted endocrine stress response, which may make them vulnerable to mental health problems. However, further research is needed to identify the full scope of skills required for effective stress-regulation before this knowledge can be used to develop effective prevention programs.

Is cortisol production in response to an acute stressor associated with diurnal cortisol production during adolescence?

The goal of the current study was to examine the extent to which cortisol responding to an acute stressor is related to diurnal cortisol patterns during adolescence. Participants were 105 adolescents (10-17 years of age) who experienced a robust social-evaluative stressor and provided saliva samples (before and immediately after, as well as 10, 20, and 30 min after the stressor) to assess both cortisol reactivity and recovery and also provided saliva samples (at wake-up, 30 min after wake-up, 4 pm, and at bedtime) on two consecutive days to measure diurnal cortisol production. Dual process latent growth curve models, one for cortisol reactivity and one for diurnal cortisol, indicated that dampened cortisol reactivity and prolonged cortisol recovery (i.e., less cortisol produced during reactivity but more cortisol produced during recovery) were associated with dampened decreases in cortisol production across the day, suggesting that adolescents are likely to show attenuation in multiple components of HPA axis functioning.

Neural Bases on Cognitive Aspect of Landscape Evaluation: A Study Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Background: When developing social infrastructures, people look towards urban planning to promote a comfortable and healthy daily life. Urbanization is hypothesised to lead to various mental disorders. Further, urban upbringing and city living are reported to have dissociable effects on social evaluative stress processing. This necessitates the evaluation of the medical impact of the appearance of cityscapes. However, the neural processes for cityscape perception are still unknown. Methods and Findings: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we show that two kinds of landscape pictures, Japanese traditional architecture/ nature images (JTANs) and modern cityscapes (MCs), have distinct effects on human brain activation. While participants viewed pictures of the above-mentioned landscapes, their brain activity was more prominent in the dorsal than the ventral visual pathway, and activation in the right precuneus was evident during the viewing of the JTAN pictures. Moreover, the cerebellum and hippocampus were activated during the viewing of unpleasant MC pictures. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the dorsal pathway and the right precuneus play important roles in scenery evaluation, while the ventral pathway and the left lingual gyrus are involved in unpleasant emotion generation.

Post-event Processing Predicts Impaired Cortisol Recovery Following Social Stressor: The Moderating Role of Social Anxiety.

There is growing evidence that individuals with social anxiety show impaired cortisol recovery after experiencing social evaluative stressors. Yet, little is known regarding the cognitive processes underlying such impaired cortisol recovery. The present study examined the effect of post-event processing (PEP), referred to as repetitive thinking about social situations, on cortisol recovery following a social stressor. Forty-two non-clinical university students (23 women, 19 men, mean age = 22.0 ± 2.0 years) completed the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), followed by a thought sampling procedure which assessed the frequency of PEP reflecting the TSST. A growth curve model showed PEP and social anxiety interactively predicted cortisol recovery. In particular, PEP predicted impaired cortisol recovery in those with low levels of social anxiety but not in those with high levels of social anxiety, which contradicted the initial hypothesis. These findings suggest that PEP is differentially associated with cortisol recovery depending on levels of social anxiety. The possible mechanisms underlying these findings were discussed in terms of protective inhibition framework.

Subjective Socioeconomic Status Matters Less When Perceived Social Support Is High: A Study of Cortisol Responses to Stress

Low objective and subjective socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with the experience of frequent stressors known to have physiological costs. We tested whether perceived social support, a key health-protective resource, buffered the association between lower subjective SES and cortisol responses to an acute stressor. Participants (N = 115; 54.78% female; age M = 19.56) reported subjective SES and perceived support, completed a social-evaluative stressor task, and provided saliva for cortisol assessment. There was a significant interaction of subjective SES with support predicting linear change in cortisol stress responses, γ = .08, z = 2.34, p = .02. When support was low, subjective SES was strongly related to cortisol, and those who reported lower subjective SES exhibited higher cortisol during recovery than those who reported higher subjective SES. When support was high, those who reported higher and lower subjective SES exhibited similar cortisol responses. These results highlight the important protective role that supportive relationships can have when subjective SES is low.

Childhood stress, grown-up brain networks: corticolimbic correlates of threat-related early life stress and adult stress response.

Exposure to threat-related early life stress (ELS) has been related to vulnerability for stress-related disorders in adulthood, putatively via disrupted corticolimbic circuits involved in stress response and regulation. However, previous research on ELS has not examined both the intrinsic strength and flexibility of corticolimbic circuits, which may be particularly important for adaptive stress responding, or associations between these dimensions of corticolimbic dysfunction and acute stress response in adulthood. Seventy unmedicated women varying in history of threat-related ELS completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan to evaluate voxelwise static (overall) and dynamic (variability over a series of sliding windows) resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) of bilateral amygdala. In a separate session and subset of participants (n = 42), measures of salivary cortisol and affect were collected during a social-evaluative stress challenge. Higher severity of threat-related ELS was related to more strongly negative static RSFC between amygdala and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and elevated dynamic RSFC between amygdala and rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC). Static amygdala-DLPFC antagonism mediated the relationship between higher severity of threat-related ELS and blunted cortisol response to stress, but increased dynamic amygdala-rACC connectivity weakened this mediated effect and was related to more positive post-stress mood. Threat-related ELS was associated with RSFC within lateral corticolimbic circuits, which in turn was related to blunted physiological response to acute stress. Notably, increased flexibility between the amygdala and rACC compensated for this static disruption, suggesting that more dynamic medial corticolimbic circuits might be key to restoring healthy stress response.

Physiological tests of the cheater hypothesis for the Dark Triad traits: Testosterone, cortisol, and a social stressor

In order to test the cheater hypothesis in relation to the Dark Triad traits (i.e., psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism), we conducted (N=25 men) a pre- and post-test assessment of testosterone and cortisol with a social evaluative stress (i.e., lying while being video-taped) in between. Machiavellianism was positively correlated with pre-test testosterone, while psychopathy and Machiavellianism were positively correlated with pre-test cortisol. Cortisol decreased in men who were higher in Machiavellianism immediately after completing the lie-task and the patterns for narcissism and psychopathy were in the same direction, suggesting that these individuals were less stressed after the two truths and a lie task. Testosterone increased in those high in psychopathy and narcissism post-task, possibly reflecting, at least among narcissists, their enjoyment of the challenge to deceive others. Results provide physiological support to the hypothesis of the Dark Triad traits represent a “cheater strategy”.

Telomere length and procedural justice predict stress reactivity responses to unfair outcomes in African Americans

This experiment demonstrates that chromosomal telomere length (TL) moderates response to injustice among African Americans. Based on worldview verification theory – an emerging psychosocial framework for understanding stress – we predicted that acute stress responses would be most pronounced when individual-level expectancies for justice were discordant with justice experiences. Healthy African Americans (N=118; 30% male; M age=31.63years) provided dried blood spot samples that were assayed for TL, and completed a social-evaluative stressor task during which high versus low levels of distributive (outcome) and procedural (decision process) justice were simultaneously manipulated. African Americans with longer telomeres appeared more resilient (in emotional and neuroendocrine response–higher DHEAs:cortisol) to receiving an unfair outcome when a fair decision process was used, whereas African Americans with shorter telomeres appeared more resilient when an unfair decision process was used. TL may indicate personal histories of adversity and associated stress-related expectancies that influence responses to injustice.

Cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase trajectories following a group social-evaluative stressor with adolescents

Intraindividual variability in stress responsivity and the interrelationship of multiple neuroendocrine systems make a multisystem analytic approach to examining the human stress response challenging. The present study makes use of an efficient social-evaluative stress paradigm – the Group Public Speaking Task for Adolescents (GPST-A) – to examine the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA)-axis and Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) reactivity profiles of 54 adolescents with salivary cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA). First, we account for individuals’ time latency of hormone concentrations between individuals. Second, we use a two-piece multilevel growth curve model with landmark registration to examine the reactivity and recovery periods of the stress response separately. This analytic approach increases the models’ sensitivity to detecting trajectory differences in the reactivity and recovery phases of the stress response and allows for interindividual variation in the timing of participants’ peak response following a social-evaluative stressor.The GPST-A evoked typical cortisol and sAA responses in both males and females. Males’ cortisol concentrations were significantly higher than females’ during each phase of the response. We found no gender difference in the sAA response. However, the rate of increase in sAA as well as overall sAA secretion across the study were associated with steeper rates of cortisol reactivity and recovery.This study demonstrates a way to model the response trajectories of salivary biomarkers of the HPA-axis and ANS when taking a multisystem approach to neuroendocrine research that enables researchers to make conclusions about the reactivity and recovery phases of the HPA-axis and ANS responses. As the study of the human stress response progresses toward a multisystem analytic approach, it is critical that individual variability in peak latency be taken into consideration and that accurate modeling techniques capture individual variability in the stress response so that accurate conclusions can be made about separate phases of the response.

Exogenous testosterone enhances cortisol and affective responses to social-evaluative stress in dominant men

Stress often precedes the onset of mental health disorders and is linked to negative impacts on physical health as well. Prior research indicates that testosterone levels are related to reduced stress reactivity in some cases but correlate with increased stress responses in other cases. To resolve these inconsistencies, we tested the causal influence of testosterone on stress reactivity to a social-evaluative stressor. Further, prior work has failed to consider status-relevant individual differences such as trait dominance that may modulate the influence of testosterone on responses to stressors. Participants (n=120 males) were randomly assigned to receive exogenous testosterone or placebo (n=60 testosterone treatment group) via topical gel prior to a well-validated social-evaluative stressor. Compared to placebo, testosterone significantly increased cortisol and negative affect in response to the stressor, especially for men high in trait dominance (95% confidence intervals did not contain zero). The findings suggest that the combination of high testosterone and exposure to status-relevant social stress may confer increased risk for stress-mediated disorders, particularly for individuals high in trait dominance.

Basal cortisol’s relation to testosterone changes may not be driven by social challenges

Multiple studies show a negative correlation between basal cortisol and testosterone changes in the presence of competition and social-evaluative stressors. These negative associations are proposed to be derived from psychological responses to competition and social-evaluative stress. However, we argue that the association between basal cortisol and testosterone change may instead be a statistical consequence of positively associated variables. In this paper, we present a mathematical rationale for this alternative explanation and examples from two studies that are consistent with this alternative explanation. Both studies show that the associations between basal cortisol and testosterone change have covariance patterns consistent with this alternative possibility. We conclude that the often-found positive association between basal cortisol and basal testosterone opens the door for alternative explanations of the basal cortisol-testosterone change association rooted in the patterns of associations between hormones measured over time. We also suggest future research directions and methods for testing alternative explanations.

Effect of Parenting and Peer Stressors on Cognitive Vulnerability and Risk for Depression among Youth.

Parenting behaviors influence clinical depression among youth, but little is known about the developmental processes that may account for this association. This study investigated whether parenting is associated with the onset of clinical depression and depressive symptoms through negative cognitive style, particularly under conditions of high exposure to stressors, in a community sample of children and adolescents (N=275; 59% girls). Observational methods were used to assess positive and negative parenting during a laboratory social-evaluative stressor task. Depressive symptoms and clinical depressive episodes were repeatedly assessed over an 18-month prospective follow-up period. Results supported a conditional indirect effect in which low levels of observed positive parenting during a youth stressor task were indirectly associated with an increased likelihood of experiencing an episode of depression and worsening depressive symptoms over the course of the study through youth negative cognitive style, but only for youth who also experienced a high number of peer stressors. These findings elucidate mechanisms through which problematic parenting may contribute to risk for the development of clinical depression during the transition into and across adolescence. Implications for depression interventions are discussed.