Comforting Apprehensive Communicators: The Effects of Reappraisal and Distraction on Cortisol Levels Among Students in a Public Speaking Class

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of interpersonal communication as a source of comforting on the physiological stress associated with giving an in-class speech. Cortisol was used as an objective measure of stress reactivity, and the effects of distracting or reappraisal messages were examined. Salivary cortisol was collected from 42 students enrolled in an introductory public speaking course, in five intervals. The final collection showed that participants in the distraction condition experienced significantly less stress than participants in the control condition. The discussion highlights the importance of understanding the trajectory of decay to detect the stress-reducing benefits of comforting communication.

Keywords:

• Comforting
• Communication Apprehension
• Cortisol
• Public Speaking
• Stress
• Stress Reduction

The services provided by the General Clinical Research Center of The Pennsylvania State University are appreciated. The study was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant No. M01 RR 10732 awarded to Jennifer S. Priem. We are also grateful to Rick Ball, who provided training on enzyme-linked immunoabsorbant assay analysis; to Jesse Stone and Kurt Braddock, who coded the interaction tapes; and to Amanda Goodwin, Andrew High, Rachel McLaren, Keli Steuber, and Kirsten Weber, who provided feedback on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

Note. CA = communication apprehension; C1 is the baseline cortisol sample taken 2 days before the experimental session; C2 is the first experimental cortisol collection; C3 is the cortisol collected immediately following the intervention; C4 was collected 10 min after the intervention; C5 was collected 20 min after the intervention; C6 is the final cortisol sample collected after the in-class speech.

Note. Cell entries for descriptive statistics are means, and parenthetical values are standard deviations. Degrees of freedom for the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) are 6, 34, except for C3, where df = 6, 33. Adjusted cell means with different subscripts are significantly different at p < .10.

∗p < .05. ∗∗p < .01. ∗∗∗p < .001. †p < .10.

Although the salivary cortisol collection times were not ideal, samples needed to be collected before the predetermined class time. Thus, samples could not all be collected at the same time of day and were collected between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Cortisol is a direct and objective measure of communication apprehension in public speaking courses because the brain releases it when students anticipate public speaking (Roberts, Sawyer, & Behnke, 2004). Cortisol can be measured in blood, urine, or saliva with consistency between the different measurement types (Kirschbaum & Hellhammer, 1989). The use of salivary cortisol to measure stress eliminates invasive procedures, such as venipuncture, thus reducing reactivity due to collection method. Further, salivary cortisol provides “a more acute and time-defined assessment than does collection of urine” (Baum & Grunberg, 1995, p. 183).

Although saliva is not considered biohazardous material, universal precautions were employed during sample collection and analysis, including the use of latex gloves while handling the saliva samples and disposal of gloves and used salivette materials in biohazard receptacles. Jennifer S. Priem also completed university-sponsored bloodborne pathogen training before analyzing the samples.

The final salivary cortisol sample was collected approximately 5 min after the in-class speech. The collection was not subject to the same 10 min interval as the other samples because each student's speech was a different amount of time. The sample was collected immediately after the speech to minimize class disruption while providing an additional sample to test the trajectory of stress reduction.

One post-intervention (C3) sample provided by 1 participant was misplaced and, therefore, could not be included in subsequent analyses.

Although the focus of the article is on state communication apprehension (CA), the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension–24 was used because it has demonstrated reliability and validity, it is the most widely used measure of CA, and it has shown to also predict state anxiety (see Beatty & Friedland, 1990).

It is reasonable to expect relatively large effect sizes for multiple reasons. First, cortisol is a reliable measure of stress (Kirschbaum & Hellhammer, 1989). Second, we can expect that public speaking will initiate substantial stress responses because public speaking is the number-one fear of the majority of people. Finally, research on visualization has shown that such techniques greatly reduce the amount of stress felt by public speakers (Ayres & Hopf, 1990, 1992).

To compare this individual's cortisol measures to the rest of the sample, we computed a variable for everyone in the sample that was set equal to the participant's cortisol at each measurement interval. We then conducted a paired-sample t test comparing the new variable to the sample means. Results showed that the participant had significantly elevated cortisol levels at all but the final collection period: C2 =t(40) = 5.63, p < .01; C3 =t(39) = 6.74, p < .01; C4 =t(40) = 5.04, p < .01; C5 =t(40) = 4.77, p < .01; and C6 =t(40) = 1.70, p = .10.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer S. Priem

Jennifer S. Priem (PhD, The Pennsylvania State University, 2009) is a post-doctoral fellow in the School of Human Ecology at The University of Texas at Austin.

Denise Haunani Solomon

Denise Haunani Solomon (PhD, Northwestern University, 1992) is a professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at The Pennsylvania State University.