Responses to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) in single versus grouped participants

Abstract

Psychological stress plays an important role in psychopathologies. Laboratory methods have been designed to study stress responses in health and disease. The Trier Social Stress Test is a procedure designed to induce psychosocial stress, but the method is costly in terms of time and personnel requirements. We investigated whether conducting the task with multiple participants influenced cortisol, heart rate, and subjective responses and improved efficiency. Healthy male and female volunteers (N = 32) performed the task individually or in groups. Salivary cortisol, anxiety, and jitteriness increased and calmness decreased similarly in both conditions. Grouped participants exhibited greater peak increases in heart rate than those who performed individually. The findings suggest that the TSST may be conducted with multiple participants without significantly affecting subjective and cortisol responses to the task.

Mood and autonomic responses to repeated exposure to the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups (TSST-G)

“…In accordance with our results, others confirmed an increased sAA activity in response to the TSST in individual settings (Nater et al, 2006;Schoofs & Wolf, 2011). The present study replicates and extends results by two previous studies, which tested the TSST-G one time (Childs et al, 2006;von Dawans et al, 2011). In line with both previous studies, we found an increase in HR during the TSST-G.…”

“…This result replicates findings from two previous studies testing groups of two and three (Childs et al, 2006) or six participants (von Dawans et al, 2011). In addition, during the first examination, sAA activity was significantly increased in response to the TSST-G.…”

“…Therefore, more economic stress test procedures are desirable, especially when resources are scarce or subject samples are large. In 2006 M a n u s c r i p t Childs et al (2006). In fact, they found that the TSST-G induced significant increases in salivary cortisol and HR.…”

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

“…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.…”

“…al 'Absi et al (1997) compared a public speaking task with a mental arithmetic task and reported that public speaking produced greater changes in cortisol than mental arithmetic. Childs, Vicini, and De Wit (2006) compared the TSST performed individually with that performed in groups, and reported that whereas the cortisol response was similar in magnitude between the conditions, grouped participants exhibited higher levels of cortisol overall compared to individual participants. Dickerson and Kemeny (2004) performed a meta-analysis of 208 laboratory studies of acute psychological stressors and reported that tasks containing both uncontrollable and social-evaluative elements were associated with the largest cortisol increases.…”