Papers by Angela Bowles Edwards
Acute psychological stress affects each of us in our daily
lives and is increasingly a topic of d... more Acute psychological stress affects each of us in our daily
lives and is increasingly a topic of discussion for its role in
mental illness, aging, cognition, and overall health. A better
understanding of how such stress affects the body and
mind could contribute to the development of more effective
clinical interventions and prevention practices. Over
the past 3 decades, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) has
been widely used to induce acute stress in a laboratory
setting based on the principles of social evaluative threat,
namely, a judged speech-making task. A comparable alternative
task may expand options for examining acute stress
in a controlled laboratory setting. This study uses a withinsubjects
design to examine healthy adult participants’
(n 5 20 men, n 5 20 women) subjective stress and salivary
cortisol responses to the standard TSST (involving public
speaking and math) and the newly created Iowa Singing
Social Stress Test (I-SSST). The I-SSST is similar to the
TSST but with a new twist: public singing. Results indicated
that men and women reported similarly high levels of
subjective stress in response to both tasks. However, men
and women demonstrated different cortisol responses;
men showed a robust response to both tasks, and women
displayed a lesser response. These findings are in line with
previous literature and further underscore the importance
of examining possible sex differences throughout various
phases of research, including design, analysis, and interpretation
of results. Furthermore, this nascent examination
of the I-SSST suggests a possible alternative for inducing
stress in the laboratory
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Papers by Angela Bowles Edwards
lives and is increasingly a topic of discussion for its role in
mental illness, aging, cognition, and overall health. A better
understanding of how such stress affects the body and
mind could contribute to the development of more effective
clinical interventions and prevention practices. Over
the past 3 decades, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) has
been widely used to induce acute stress in a laboratory
setting based on the principles of social evaluative threat,
namely, a judged speech-making task. A comparable alternative
task may expand options for examining acute stress
in a controlled laboratory setting. This study uses a withinsubjects
design to examine healthy adult participants’
(n 5 20 men, n 5 20 women) subjective stress and salivary
cortisol responses to the standard TSST (involving public
speaking and math) and the newly created Iowa Singing
Social Stress Test (I-SSST). The I-SSST is similar to the
TSST but with a new twist: public singing. Results indicated
that men and women reported similarly high levels of
subjective stress in response to both tasks. However, men
and women demonstrated different cortisol responses;
men showed a robust response to both tasks, and women
displayed a lesser response. These findings are in line with
previous literature and further underscore the importance
of examining possible sex differences throughout various
phases of research, including design, analysis, and interpretation
of results. Furthermore, this nascent examination
of the I-SSST suggests a possible alternative for inducing
stress in the laboratory
lives and is increasingly a topic of discussion for its role in
mental illness, aging, cognition, and overall health. A better
understanding of how such stress affects the body and
mind could contribute to the development of more effective
clinical interventions and prevention practices. Over
the past 3 decades, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) has
been widely used to induce acute stress in a laboratory
setting based on the principles of social evaluative threat,
namely, a judged speech-making task. A comparable alternative
task may expand options for examining acute stress
in a controlled laboratory setting. This study uses a withinsubjects
design to examine healthy adult participants’
(n 5 20 men, n 5 20 women) subjective stress and salivary
cortisol responses to the standard TSST (involving public
speaking and math) and the newly created Iowa Singing
Social Stress Test (I-SSST). The I-SSST is similar to the
TSST but with a new twist: public singing. Results indicated
that men and women reported similarly high levels of
subjective stress in response to both tasks. However, men
and women demonstrated different cortisol responses;
men showed a robust response to both tasks, and women
displayed a lesser response. These findings are in line with
previous literature and further underscore the importance
of examining possible sex differences throughout various
phases of research, including design, analysis, and interpretation
of results. Furthermore, this nascent examination
of the I-SSST suggests a possible alternative for inducing
stress in the laboratory