Social support has been repeatedly associated with mental and physical health outcomes, with hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis activity posited as a potential mechanism. The influence of social bonds appears particularly important in the face of stigma-related stress; however, there is a dearth of research examining social support and HPA axis response among members of a stigmati...

Post-learning stress has been reported to enhance memory consolidation in humans. This effect was observed in studies using physical stressors or an anticipatory speech task. In the present study 58 participants (28 females and 30 males) were exposed to a psychosocial stressor (Trier Social Stress Test) or a control condition following the presentation of neutral and emotionally arousing positi...

BACKGROUND Whilst acute stress paradigms in adults make use of adult panel members, similar paradigms modified for child participants have not manipulated the panel. Most work has utilised an audience of adult confederates, regardless of the age of the population being tested. The aim of this study was to trial a social stress test for children that provided a meaningful environment using age-m...

BACKGROUND Anxiety and psychological stress affect allergy-related immune function. How these relations influence the evaluations of patients with allergic rhinitis is unknown. OBJECTIVE To examine whether anxiety and stress exposure affect skin prick test (SPT) responses to common allergens for which patients with atopy showed no prior positive SPT response. METHODS Patients with allergic ...

OBJECTIVES Spatial learning is shown to be influenced by acute stress in both human and other animals. However, the intricacies of this relationship are unclear. Based on prior findings we hypothesized that compared to a control condition, a social stress condition would not affect spatial learning performance despite elevated biochemical markers of stress. METHODS The present study tested th...

The current study investigates the effect of a single episode of acute social stress on healthy children's processing of facial expressions of emotion. Healthy nine- and ten-year-old boys (N=39) underwent either a standardized psychosocial laboratory stressor (the Trier Social Stress Test for Children) or a control condition without exposure to socio-evaluative stress. Immediately thereafter, t...