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Psychological responses to stress encompass the various cognitive and emotional reactions individuals experience when faced with challenging or threatening situations, such as a job loss. Prolonged exposure to stressors can disturb emotional balance, increasing negative emotions (e.g., anxiety and sadness) and diminishing positive emotions (e.g., joy and satisfaction). These persistent emotional shifts are associated with an increased risk of both physical illness and mental health issues, such...
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Related Experiment Video

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Experimental Methods to Study Human Postural Control
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Published on: September 11, 2019

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Cognitively and socially induced stress affects postural control.

Michail Doumas1, Kinga Morsanyi2, William R Young3

  • 1School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast, 18-30 Malone Road, Belfast, BT9 5BN, UK. m.doumas@qub.ac.uk.

Experimental Brain Research
|November 16, 2017
PubMed
Summary

Stress from social evaluative threat (SET) impacts postural control. This study found SET, combined with arithmetic tasks, reduced postural sway and increased reaction times, offering insights into cognition, stress, and balance.

Keywords:
ArithmeticMathematical AnxietyPostural controlProcessing Efficiency TheorySocial Evaluative ThreatStress

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Area of Science:

  • Human behavior
  • Neuroscience
  • Psychophysiology

Background:

  • Postural control is adaptable and influenced by emotional states.
  • Previous research links postural threat and aversive images to reduced postural sway.
  • The impact of social evaluative threat (SET) on postural control remains less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if stress induced by SET during cognitive tasks alters postural control.
  • To examine the effects of increasing task demand and social pressure on postural sway and reaction times.

Main Methods:

  • Twelve young adults completed arithmetic and postural control tasks under varying conditions: separate, concurrent, concurrent with time pressure, and concurrent with SET.
  • Social evaluative threat involved performing arithmetic tasks under observation with negative performance feedback.
  • Postural sway and reaction times were measured throughout the experiment.

Main Results:

  • Stress levels increased with task demand.
  • Time pressure accelerated reaction times and increased sway amplitude.
  • The introduction of SET significantly reduced postural sway and increased reaction times compared to the time pressure condition.

Conclusions:

  • Stress induced by combining arithmetic tasks with SET demonstrably alters postural control.
  • The developed paradigm effectively assesses the interplay between cognition, stress, and postural control.
  • Findings have implications for understanding postural instability and falls, particularly in older adults.