Search results for "SOCIAL STRESS"
showing 10 items of 138 documents
Acute stress and working memory in older people.
2015
Several studies have shown that acute stress affects working memory (WM) in young adults, but the effect in older people is understudied. As observed in other types of memory, older people may be less sensitive to acute effects of stress on WM. We performed two independent studies with healthy older men and women (from 55 to 77 years old) to investigate the effects of acute stress (Trier Social Stress Test; TSST) and cortisol on WM. In study 1 (n = 63), after the TSST women (but not men) improved their performance on Digit Span Forward (a measure of the memory span component of WM) but not on Digit Span Backward (a measure of both memory span and the executive component of WM). Furthermore,…
Glucose but Not Protein or Fat Load Amplifies the Cortisol Response to Psychosocial Stress
2002
We previously reported that glucose intake amplifies cortisol response to psychosocial stress and smoking in healthy young men, while low blood glucose levels prevented the stress-induced activation of the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. However, it remains unknown whether this modulation is specific for glucose load or a more common effect of energy availability. To elucidate this question, 37 healthy men, who fasted for at least 8 h before the experiment, were randomly assigned to four experimental groups, who received glucose (n = 8), protein (n = 10), fat (n = 10), and water (n = 9), one h before their exposure to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Blood glucose levels were…
Coping with an acute psychosocial challenge: behavioral and physiological responses in young women.
2014
Despite the relevance of behavior in understanding individual differences in the strategies used to cope with stressors, behavioral responses and their relationships with psychobiological changes have received little attention. In this study on young women, we aimed at analyzing the associations among different components of the stress response and behavioral coping using a laboratory psychosocial stressor. The Ethological Coding System for Interviews, as well as neuroendocrine, autonomic and mood parameters, were used to measure the stress response in 34 young women (17 free-cycling women in their early follicular phase and 17 oral contraceptive users) subjected to the Trier Social Stress …
Is comfort food actually comforting for emotional eaters? A (moderated) mediation analysis
2019
Item does not contain fulltext An important but unreplicated earlier finding on comfort eating was that the association between food intake and immediate mood improvement appeared to be mediated by the palatability of the food, and that this effect was more pronounced for high than for low emotional eaters [26]. This has not yet been formally tested using mediation and moderated mediation analysis. We conducted these analyses using data from two experiments on non-obese female students (n = 29 and n = 74). Mood and eating satisfaction in Study 1, and mood, tastiness and emotional eating in Study 2 were all self-reported. In Study 1, using a sad mood induction procedure, emotional eaters ate…
Salivary alpha-amylase response to acute psychosocial stress: The impact of age
2011
a b s t r a c t The impact of stress on health varies across the different stages of human life. Aging is associated with psychobiological changes that could limit our ability to cope with stressors. Therefore, it is crucial to clarify the physiological mechanisms that underlie the stress response and the changes that occur in them as we age. Our aim was to investigate age differences in the salivary alpha amylase (sAA) response to stress, and its relationship with other typical stress biomarkers such as cortisol and heart rate (HR). Sixty-two participants divided into two age groups (younger group: N = 31, age range: 18-35 years; older group: N = 31, age range: 54-71 years) were exposed to…
Searching for a job: Cardiac responses to acute stress and the mediating role of threat appraisal in young people.
2016
Being unemployed and looking for a job has become a source of stress for many people in several European countries. However, little attention has been paid to the impact of this stressful situation on the individuals' psychophysiological stress responses. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of being an unemployed job seeker on cognitive threat appraisal and cardiac responses to a psychosocial stressor. We exposed a group of unemployed job seekers (N = 42) and a matched group of unemployed non-job seekers (N = 40) to a standardized social stressor in form of job interview, the Trier Social Stress Test. Our results showed that unemployed job seekers manifest lower cardiac resp…
Does being a Stranger make it Difficult to Cooperate?
2017
AbstractCompetition and cooperation are two somewhat opposed strategies for interpersonal social interaction that help us to achieve both individual and shared goals. The main aim of this study was to explore which type of social interaction (cooperative or competitive) is more stressful in a face-to-face same-sex dyad in healthy young participants (n = 178), considering outcome obtained in these tasks (positive or negative) and sex as moderating variables, and performance of the task alone as a control condition. Salivary cortisol (Csal) was measured in one sample obtained before task and four obtained after the task (+0, +15, +30 and +45 minutes after). Anxiety-state was assessed before a…
Immunoglobulin A response to acute stress in intimate partner violence perpetrators: the role of anger expression-out and testosterone.
2014
Aggressive behavior and immune activity are shown to be positively associated in perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV). This relationship follows an inverted-U curve, with the most violent individuals showing lower levels of immunocompetence than those with a history of moderate violence. Moreover, the activational and organizational effects of testosterone (T) may indirectly stimulate the immune response. Given this, we used the Trier Social Stress Test to establish whether the salivary immunoglobulin A (sIgA) response to acute stress was a specific psychobiological feature in perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV perpetrators showed higher sIgA levels than control…
Skin conductance rises in preparation and recovery to psychosocial stress and its relationship with impulsivity and testosterone in intimate partner …
2013
Intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators were categorized into 2 groups using Gottman et al.'s (1995) typology depending on their skin conductance (SC) reactivity to stress. Overall, type I perpetrators tend to show autonomic underarousal, whereas type II perpetrators present a preparatory hyperreactivity to confront stress. Moreover, impulsivity traits and testosterone (T) levels may modulate SC responses to increase the risk of proneness to violence. In this study, SC response to stress was assessed by comparing IPV perpetrators with non-violent controls while performing a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Subjects with a history of IPV demonstrated higher non-s…
Gender differences in cardiovascular and electrodermal responses to public speaking task: the role of anxiety and mood states
2002
Gender moderates psychophysiological responses to stress. In addition to the hormonal background, different psychological states related to social stressors, such as anxiety and mood, could affect this response. The purpose of this study was to examine the existence of gender differences in the cardiovascular and electrodermal responses to a speech task and their relationship with anxiety and the mood variations experienced. For this, non-specific skin conductance responses (NSRs), heart rate (HR), and finger pulse volume (FPV) were measured at rest, and during preparation, task and recovery periods of an academic career speech in undergraduate men (n=15) and women (n=23), with assessment o…