TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing performance on an evaluated speaking task
T2 - The role of self-efficacy, anxiety, and cardiac autonomic reactivity
AU - Villada, Carolina
AU - Hidalgo, Vanesa
AU - Almela, Mercedes
AU - Salvador, Alicia
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Spanish Education and Science Ministry (PSI2010-21343, PSI2013-46889-P, and Grants Nos. FPI/BES-2008-004224, FPU-AP2009-4713) and by the Generalitat Valenciana (ACOMP2015/ 227 and PROMETEOII/2015-020).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Hogrefe Publishing.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Coping with social stress involves cognitive perceptions and the activation of several physiological mechanisms. Our main purpose was to examine how psychological factors such as cognitive appraisal, and particularly self-efficacy, may affect psychophysiological reactivity to social stress and young people's performance on an evaluated speaking task. Thirty-five university students (18 men and 17 women) were exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and a control condition in a counterbalanced order. Self-efficacy, several dimensions of trait anxiety related to social evaluation, and changes in state anxiety were assessed. Additionally, heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) were analyzed by means of R-R and r-MSSD parameters, respectively. The results indicate that a positive self-assessment of their own ability to overcome a social threat was related to the predominance of vagal tone and better performance. However, cardiac reactivity was not related to the quality of the performance displayed. In addition, some dimensions of trait anxiety, such as cognitive anxiety and test evaluation anxiety, were negatively associated with self-efficacy and performance. These findings emphasize the relevance of self-efficacy, a key component of cognitive appraisal, in explaining psychophysiological reactivity to social stress. Furthermore, they highlight the importance of some personality characteristics, such as social evaluation anxiety, in explaining performance in specifically related stressful situations, regardless of autonomic activation.
AB - Coping with social stress involves cognitive perceptions and the activation of several physiological mechanisms. Our main purpose was to examine how psychological factors such as cognitive appraisal, and particularly self-efficacy, may affect psychophysiological reactivity to social stress and young people's performance on an evaluated speaking task. Thirty-five university students (18 men and 17 women) were exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and a control condition in a counterbalanced order. Self-efficacy, several dimensions of trait anxiety related to social evaluation, and changes in state anxiety were assessed. Additionally, heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) were analyzed by means of R-R and r-MSSD parameters, respectively. The results indicate that a positive self-assessment of their own ability to overcome a social threat was related to the predominance of vagal tone and better performance. However, cardiac reactivity was not related to the quality of the performance displayed. In addition, some dimensions of trait anxiety, such as cognitive anxiety and test evaluation anxiety, were negatively associated with self-efficacy and performance. These findings emphasize the relevance of self-efficacy, a key component of cognitive appraisal, in explaining psychophysiological reactivity to social stress. Furthermore, they highlight the importance of some personality characteristics, such as social evaluation anxiety, in explaining performance in specifically related stressful situations, regardless of autonomic activation.
KW - anxiety
KW - heart rate variability
KW - performance
KW - psychosocial stress
KW - self-efficacy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85048200261&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1027/0269-8803/a000185
DO - 10.1027/0269-8803/a000185
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85048200261
SN - 0269-8803
VL - 32
SP - 64
EP - 74
JO - Journal of Psychophysiology
JF - Journal of Psychophysiology
IS - 2
ER -