Effects of acute social stress on emotion processing in children.
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, they classified pictures of faces displaying ambiguous facial expressions. Boys who had undergone the stress procedure were more likely to categorize ambiguously angry-fearful faces as fearful (and simultaneously less likely to categorize them as angry) relative to boys who had undergone the control condition. We suggest (i) that decreased sensitivity to anger cues following a stressful experience may represent an adaptive coping mechanism in healthy children, and/or (ii) that a heightened sensitivity to fearful cues may indicate the influence of children's own emotional states on their interpretations of others' emotional states.
Department of Psychology, Laboratory for Biological and Personality Psychology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Electronic address: frances.chen@psych.ubc.ca.
Frances S
FS
Chen
Department of Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Julian
J
Schmitz
Department of Psychology, Laboratory for Biological and Personality Psychology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; Freiburg Brain Imaging Center, University Medical Center, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Gregor
G
Domes
Department of Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Brunna
B
Tuschen-Caffier
Department of Psychology, Laboratory for Biological and Personality Psychology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; Freiburg Brain Imaging Center, University Medical Center, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
Markus
M
Heinrichs
D000208:Acute Disease; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D003463:Cues; D056348:Emotional Intelligence; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D012463:Saliva / Q000378:metabolism; D012938:Social Perception; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000378:metabolism / Q000523:psychology*
D006854:Hydrocortisone
Attention bias; Early experience; Emotional expressions; Face processing; Social stress