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Negative emotions and acute physiological responses to stress
P J Feldman1, S Cohen, S J Lepore
1Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, USA.
Summary
Acute laboratory stressors increase cardiovascular response and negative emotion, but emotion
Area of Science:
- Psychophysiology
- Stress Research
- Cardiovascular Health
Background:
- Stressors are hypothesized to impact physiology via emotional pathways.
- Understanding the interplay between emotional and physiological responses to stress is crucial for health research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To meta-analytically examine the effects of acute laboratory stressors on emotional and cardiovascular responses.
- To assess the extent to which negative emotion mediates physiological reactions to acute stressors.
Main Methods:
- Meta-analysis of data from nine studies involving acute laboratory stressors.
- Stressors included speech tasks, star mirror-image tracing, and handgrip exercises.
- Emotional responses (negative emotion, anger, anxiety) and cardiovascular (CV) responses were measured.
Main Results:
- Participants exhibited increased CV response and negative emotion concurrently with stress exposure.
- A positive association was observed between negative emotion and CV response across tasks.
- This association was small, accounting for only 2%–12% of the variance.
Conclusions:
- The contribution of negative emotion to physiological responses in acute laboratory stress paradigms appears limited.
- The findings question the significant role of emotion in mediating stress-elicited physiological responses.
- The specific nature of acute laboratory stress paradigms might influence the observed association strength.