Abstract
This experiment tested the hypothesis that self-focused attention might increase cortisol release. Social self-preservation theory suggests that social evaluation and associated feelings of shame are associated with cortisol reactivity, whereas one implication of objective self-awareness theory is that self-critical awareness and associated feelings of anxiety might be associated with increases in cortisol. 120 participants completed a public speech task either in front of an evaluative panel (social threat), in a non-evaluative setting while watching themselves in real-time on a television (self-focus), or in the mere presence of a non-evaluative person (control). Cortisol increased comparably among men in the social threat and self-focus conditions, but not among men in the control condition. There were no effects for women. Shame was correlated with increased cortisol in the social threat condition, whereas anxiety was correlated with increased cortisol in the self-focus condition. One broad implication of this work is that negative evaluation may increase cortisol regardless of whether this source comes from oneself or others.
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Notes
Because we did not have baseline measures of shame and anxiety, we felt it most appropriate to analyze the data uncorrected for baseline. Moreover, the significant correlations between shame/anxiety and cortisol at each Times 2 and 3, but not baseline or at any time point in the control condition, suggests that the relationship between self-reported emotions and cortisol concentrations is specific to the period of stress responding in the two active experimental conditions. Nonetheless, we conducted an area under the curve analysis with respect to zero as a sensitivity test (Pruessner et al., 2003). The emotion × condition interaction remained significant, β = 0.63, t(45) = 2.72, p = 0.009, \( R_{\rm adjusted}^{2} \) = 0.20. The pattern of simple slopes was nearly identical. The only difference was that the correlation between the area under the curve and anxiety was slightly reduced in the self-focus condition, r(18) = 0.39, p = 0.11.
On an exploratory basis, we also examined the extent to which the manipulation checks (i.e., the extent to which participants endorsed focusing on themselves and others’ opinions) interacted with the experimental conditions to predict cortisol and mean arterial pressure responses. These analyses revealed just one significant manipulation check × condition interaction on post-speech mean arterial pressure, b = −0.37, t(109) = 2.76, p = 0.01. Follow up tests revealed that self-reported increased focus on others’ opinions was inversely related to mean arterial pressure in the social threat condition, r(39) = −0.52, but not in the other conditions.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a grant to the first author from the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme. We thank Mandi Jacobson and Shirley Zhang for help with data collection.
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Denson, T.F., Creswell, J.D. & Granville-Smith, I. Self-focus and social evaluative threat increase salivary cortisol responses to acute stress in men. J Behav Med 35, 624–633 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-011-9393-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-011-9393-x