Azulay Hagar, Guy Nitzan, Shalev Idan, Pertzov Yoni, Israel Salomon
Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Truman Research Institute, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Compr Psychoneuroendocrinol. 2021 Oct 14;8:100093. doi: 10.1016/j.cpnec.2021.100093. eCollection 2021 Nov.
Acute stress has been found to elicit pro-social, anti-social or null responses in humans. The causes for these contradicting findings are currently poorly understood, and may rise from subjects' characteristics, such as sex or hormonal status, as well as stimuli-based traits, such as group membership. In the current study, 120 subjects performed either the Trier Social Stress Test or a control (non-stress inducing) condition, followed by ranking displayed faces according to several attributes (e.g., trustworthiness, attractiveness, dominance). Participants' eye gaze was also tracked while viewing facial stimuli. We examined how acute stress interacts with participants' sex, female participants' hormonal status (hormonal contraceptives, early-follicular phase and mid-luteal phase), and the observed faces' social group (ethnicity-based in-group or out-groups). In general, frequentist and Bayesian analyses showed that acute stress exposure did not affect social attributions or gaze behavior, nor did it interact with subjects' sex or the group membership of the observed faces. Interestingly, sub-group analyses showed that in females, acute stress interacted with hormonal status to yield heterogenous anti-social effects, such as post-stress reductions in perceived trustworthiness in the early-follicular phase, and lower perceived attractiveness in the mid-luteal phase. Given the small sample sizes for the sub-groups, these results should be viewed as preliminary until further replicated. Our results highlight the necessity for large-scale studies, particularly in females, to further refine existing theories regarding the nature and contexts by which acute stress elicits changes in social cognition and behavior.
研究发现，急性应激会在人类身上引发亲社会、反社会或无反应的情况。目前，对于这些相互矛盾的研究结果的原因了解甚少，可能源于受试者的特征，如性别或激素状态，以及基于刺激的特征，如群体成员身份。在本研究中，120名受试者进行了特里尔社会应激测试或对照（非应激诱导）条件，随后根据几个属性（如可信度、吸引力、支配力）对面部展示进行排序。在观看面部刺激时，还对参与者的目光注视进行了跟踪。我们研究了急性应激如何与参与者的性别、女性参与者的激素状态（激素避孕药、卵泡早期和黄体中期）以及观察到的面部的社会群体（基于种族的内群体或外群体）相互作用。总体而言，频率学派和贝叶斯分析表明，急性应激暴露不会影响社会归因或注视行为，也不会与受试者的性别或观察到的面部的群体成员身份相互作用。有趣的是，亚组分析表明，在女性中，急性应激与激素状态相互作用，产生异质性的反社会效应，如卵泡早期应激后感知可信度降低，以及黄体中期感知吸引力降低。鉴于亚组的样本量较小，在进一步重复验证之前，这些结果应被视为初步结果。我们的研究结果凸显了大规模研究的必要性，尤其是针对女性的研究，以进一步完善关于急性应激引发社会认知和行为变化的性质和背景的现有理论。
