Data from: Stress effects on mood, HPA axis, and autonomic response: comparison of three psychosocial stress paradigms

Extensive experimental psychology research has attempted to parse the
complex relationship between psychosocial stress, mood, cognitive
performance, and physiological changes. To do so, it is necessary to have
effective, validated methods to experimentally induce psychosocial stress.
The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) is the most commonly used method of
experimentally inducing psychosocial stress, but it is resource intensive.
Less resource intense psychosocial stress tasks include the Socially
Evaluative Cold Pressor Task (SECPT) and a computerized mental arithmetic
task (MAT). These tasks effectively produce a physiological and
psychological stress response and have the benefits of requiring fewer
experimenters and affording data collection from multiple participants
simultaneously. The objective of this study was to compare the magnitude
and duration of these three experimental psychosocial stress induction
paradigms. On each of four separate days, participants completed either a
control non-stressful task or one of the three experimental stressors: the
TSST, SECPT, or MAT. We measured mood, working memory performance,
salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase (AA), and heart rate. The TSST and
SECPT exerted the most robust effects on mood and physiological measures.
TSST effects were generally evident immediately post-stress as well as 10-
and 20-minutes after stress cessation, whereas SECPT effects were
generally limited to the duration of the stressor. The stress duration is
a key determinant when planning a study that utilizes an experimental
stressor, as researchers may be interested in collecting dependent
measures prior to stress cessation. In this way, the TSST would allow the
investigator a longer window to administer tasks of interest.