The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) is the most widely used laboratory stress protocol in psychoneuroendocrinology. Despite its popularity, surprisingly few attempts have been made to explore the ecological validity of the TSST. In the present study, 31 young healthy subjects (24 females) were exposed to the TSST about 4 weeks before completing an oral exam on a separate day. Salivary cortisol levels increased significantly in response to both stimuli (TSST: F(2.21, 66.33)=5.73, p=0.004; oral exam: F(1.98, 59.28)=4.38, p=0.017) with similar mean response curves and significant correlations between cortisol increases and areas under the response curves (increase: r=0.67; AUC: r=0.56; both p≤0.01). Correspondingly, changes in positive and negative affect did also show significant correlations between conditions (increase: positive affect: r=0.36; negative affect: r=0.50; both: p≤0.05; AUC: positive affect: r=0.81; negative affect: r=0.70; both p≤0.01) while mean time course dynamics were significantly different (positive affect: F(2.55, 76.60)=10.15, p=0.001; negative affect: F(1.56, 46.82)=23.32, p=0.001), indicating that the oral exam had a more pronounced impact on affect than the TSST. Our findings provide new evidence for the view that cortisol as well as subjective stress responses to the TSST are indeed significantly associated with acute stress responses in real life.

Previous research on risk-glorifying media has provided encompassing evidence for a positive connection between risk-glorifying contents and (a) risk-positive emotions, (b) risk-positive cognitions and attitudes, and (c) risk-positive behavioral inclinations. Nevertheless, little evidence shows whether risk-glorifying content increases actual risk behavior. We conducted three experimental studies to assess whether risk-glorifying commercials increase risk behavior. In all studies, participants were randomly assigned to a risk-glorifying or a neutral commercial. Additionally, in Study 2 participants were randomly assigned to an arousal or a non-arousal condition to test the mediating effect of arousal. In Study 3, we tested the mediating effect of the accessibility to risk-positive cognitions. We measured participants’ risk behavior via the risk assessment ramp (RAR). Our results revealed that participants who watched the risk-glorifying commercial walked faster to the jumping-off point (Studies 1, 2, & 3) and would have jumped from a higher level (Studies 2 & 3), thus, indicating the exposure to risk-glorifying media content increases people’s risk behavior. Neither arousal nor the accessibility to risk-positive cognitions mediated the effect of risk-glorifying media content. Beyond our findings, we offer a new tool to assess risk behavior that is effective and easy to apply.

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In March 1964, a man chased a woman in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York City. After he caught her, he stabbed her, raped her, left, returned, stabbed her again, and, finally, left her to die in front of her apartment. This murder case was one out of 9,360 killings in the United States in 1964, which did not attract much media attention in the beginning. However, after a meeting between a police commissioner and the New York Times editor, this murder attracted massive media attention. In that meeting, the police commissioner claimed that he had the names of allegedly thirty-eight neighbors who watched the attack from the safety of their apartments without assisting the victim, Catherine “Kitty” Genovese (see Historical Background – The Kitty Genovese Case), for over half an hour. The media coverage was echoed by a huge public debate. In this debate, many experts testified the breakdown of moral and social values. Particularly, they claimed that, in general, witnesses of an emergency (bystanders) are apathetic, indifferent, and unconcerned. However, the social scientists Bibb Latané and John M. Darley were not convinced by claims that Kitty’s murder reflected processes of a social breakdown. Instead, they argued that maybe more generic psychological factors might be at work during the intervention process that hinders intervention. Latané and Darley argued furthermore that when each member of a group of bystanders is aware that other people are also present, each would be less likely to notice the emergency, less likely to decide that it is an emergency, and less likely to act. Consequently, they concluded that the presence of other people inhibits the impulse to help. To test this conclusion, Latané and Darley designed some of the most influential experiments in the history of social psychology. In those experiments, participants were faced with a variety of staged emergencies, either alone or in the presence of other people. These classic experiments provided encompassing evidence for the bystander effect, that is, that the presence of others decreases the likelihood of intervention in emergencies. Although the bystander effect has been one of the most robust and reliable findings in social psychology, more recent research also shows that the presence of others reduces or even reverses the bystander effect. In sum, research on bystander behavior has provided evidence that the presence of others can both inhibit and foster emergency intervention.