A General Enhancement of Autonomic and Cortisol Responses During Social Evaluative Threat

Abstract

Objective The idea that distinct psychosocial factors may underlie specific patterns of neuroendocrine stress responses has been a topic of recurrent debate. We examined a recent contribution to this debate, the Social Self Preservation Theory, which predicts that stressors involving social evaluative threat (SET) characteristically activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Methods Sixty-one healthy university students (31 females) performed a challenging speech task in one of three conditions that aimed to impose increasing levels of SET: performing the task alone (no social evaluation), with 1 evaluating observer, or with 4 evaluating observers. Indices of sympathetic (pre-ejection period) and parasympathetic (heart rate variability) cardiac drive were obtained by impedance- and electrocardiography. Salivary cortisol was used to index HPA activity. Questionnaires assessed affective responses. Results Affective responses (shame/embarrassment, anxiety, negative affect, and self-esteem), cortisol, heart rate, sympathetic, and parasympathetic activation all differentiated evaluative from non-evaluative task conditions (p<.001). The largest effect-sizes were observed for cardiac autonomic responses. Physiological reactivity increased in parallel with increasing audience size (p<.001). A rise in cortisol was predicted by sympathetic activation during the task (p<.001), but not by affective responses. Conclusion It would appear that SET determines the magnitude, rather than the pattern, of physiological activation. This potential to broadly perturb multiple physiological systems may help explain why social stress has been associated with a range of health outcomes. We propose a threshold-activation model as a physiological explanation for why engaging stressors, such as those involving social evaluation or uncontrollability, may appear to selectively induce cortisol release.

Disordered eating behaviour is associated with blunted cortisol and cardiovascular reactions to acute psychological stress

“…Others have proposed that sympathetic and HPA activation can be dissociated in some circumstances (Frankenhaeuser, 1982;Dickerson and Kemeny, 2004). However, there is also substantial evidence that they frequently covary, such that variations in the magnitude of the acute stress reactions of the sympathetic nervous system, as indexed by cardiac reactivity, predict subsequent variation in HPA reactions, as indexed by cortisol reactivity (Cacioppo, 1994;Al'Absi et al, 1997;Bosch et al, 2009). The present results suggest that disordered eating behaviour may be characterised by dysregulation in both branches of the stress response system.…”

Psychological and Salivary Cortisol Responses to an Improvised Speech Without an Audience: Comparison to a Rest Condition

“…This may be explained by the absence of a social evaluative threat as indicated in previous studies (al 'Absi et al, 1997;Bosch et al, 2009;Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004;Gruenewald et al, 2004;Rohleder et al, 2006). The results suggest that a speech without social evaluative threat is not stressful enough to elicit a physiological reaction.…”

“…Thus, it is highly possible that cortisol levels before the speech were similar to or lower than after the speech. The frequently reported, significant increase in salivary cortisol 10 to 20 minutes after a speech (Bosch et al, 2009;Het et al, 2009;Kirschbaum et al, 1993;Rohleder et al, 2006) is another important consideration, which might have caused the cortisol response to the speech observed in this study to be underestimated. It is suggested that in future studies, the cortisol level should be assessed just before and 10 to 20 minutes after the speech in order to obtain the most valid results.…”

“…Most previous studies have shown that the peak of salivary cortisol emerged after the speech (Bassett et al, 1987;Bosch et al, 2009;Childs et al, 2006;Gruenewald et al, 2004;Het et al, 2009;Kirschbaum et al, 1993;Rohleder et al, 2006). Thus, it is highly possible that cortisol levels before the speech were similar to or lower than after the speech.…”

“…Additionally, Bosch et al (2009) compared three conditions of a speech task: performing the task with no audience, with one evaluating audience member, or with four evaluating audience members. They reported that there were significantly larger cortisol changes in the 4-audience condition compared with the alone condition and the 1-audience condition, whereas the 1-audience and alone conditions were not significantly different.…”