Highlights
• In acute stress paradigms in adults most work has utilised an audience of adult confederates, regardless of the age of the population being tested.
• This study used a meaningful social stress test — the bath experimental stress test for children (BEST-C) — designed for children, manipulating the panel using age-matched child peers as panel actors, pre-recorded and presented as a live feed, and included an expanded manipulation check of subjective experience.
•.Using salivary cortisol to assess stress reactivity and adaptation post-test, responses mapped directly onto three distinct subjective response patterns in addition to age and gender effects.
• The BEST-C is the first child social stress test that manipulates panel characteristics by using child confederates and a pre-recorded sham panel.
Methods
Thirty-three participants (7–11 years) underwent the Bath Experimental Stress Test for Children (BEST-C). Based on the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), it comprises a shortened six-minute public speaking task and four-minute maths challenge. It differs from previous stress tests by using age-matched children on the panel, pre-recorded and presented as a live feed, and includes an expanded manipulation check of subjective experience. Salivary cortisol was assessed at four time points, pre–post stress testing; life events, daily hassles and coping strategies were measured through questionnaires. A simple numerical coding scheme was applied to post-test interview data.
Image: Dr Julie Turner Cobb
This study used the Salimetrics Salivary Cortisol Assay
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