The effects of attentional training on physiological stress recovery after induced social threat

Abstract

Social stress has been related to both physiological and psychological responses. The recovery of stress is influenced by the way environmental information is processed, i.e., what information is attended to and how it is interpreted. The present study investigated the effect of attention modification training on physiological stress recovery following induced stress. A group of applicants preparing for a job interview were randomly allocated to an attention training condition versus a control condition. Afterwards, they were asked to give an artificial job interview to a real life jury while being videotaped. Participants in both conditions showed decreased heart rate variability during the job interview, which indicates an overall physiological stress response. However, during a 30-minute follow-up period after the training, indices of heart rate variability showed improved stress recovery only in the attention training condition. Attentional training is proposed as a promising strategy to prevent enduring stress reactions.

Keywords:

• attentional bias
• modification
• training
• heart rate variability
• Trier social stress test
• dot probe task

Acknowledgements

Saskia Baert holds a research Ph.D. fellowship of the Research Foundation-Flanders (FWO), Belgium. Preparation of this paper was supported by Grant BOF10/GOA/014 for a Concerted Research Action of Ghent University (awarded to Rudi De Raedt). The authors would like to express their gratitude to colleagues from the department for their membership of the jury during the artificial job interview. We would also like to thank Ernst Koster for his help and useful suggestions throughout the project.