Psychological stress, appraisal, emotion and Cardiovascular response in a public speaking task

Abstract

Forty-three undergraduates (30 males, 13 females) prepared and performed a speech task (stressor) or a reading task (no-stressor control). Preparing to speak led to greater threat appraisal, negative emotion, and cardiovascular (CV) response than preparing to read aloud, particularly in speech anxious individuals. Delivering the speech, however, did not result in an increment in CV response over and above preparation. Although threat appraisals could not explain the effect of stress on CV response during task preparation, negative emotion accounted for over half of the effect. These data support the hypothesis that CV response in these studies is at least partially accounted for by psychological processes (stressor-specific anxiety and negative emotional response) and suggests that these processes may be best studied during a period of stressor anticipation.

Keywords:

• Appraisal
• Emotion
• Stress
• Personality
• Cardiovascular response

Acknowledgments

Sheldon Cohen's participation was supported by a Senior Scientist Award (K05 MH00721) and Pamela Feldman's by a training grant (T32 MH19953) from the National Institute of Mental Health. Stephen Lepore's participation was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (RO1 CA68354).

Notes

¹To examine the direction of this effect, a repeated-measures MANOVA was used to test the effect of condition on within-subjects increases in CV response from baseline to preparation. There was a main effect of time, F (1, 41) = 59.23, p < 0.01, and an interaction effect of condition by time, F (1, 41) = 14.5, p < 0.01. There were increases in CV response from baseline to preparation in both conditions. However, participants in the stressor condition exhibited greater increases in CV response than those in the no-stressor control condition.

²To examine the direction of this effect, a repeated-measures MANOVA was used a test the effect of condition on within-subjects increases in CV response from preparation to the task. There were main effects of condition, F (1, 41) = 6.02, p < 0.05, and time F (1, 41) = 108.2, p < 0.01. Participants in the stressor condition exhibited greater CV response than those in the no-stressor control condition. There were increases in CV response from preparation to the task in both conditions. However, participants in the stressor condition did not exhibit greater increases in CV response during the task than those in the no-stressor control condition.