A Video-based Trier Social Stress Test for Youths: Potential Applications for Online Administration

• In Event: Successes and Challenges Adapting the Trier Social Stress Test for Remote, Diverse, and fMRI Populations

Abstract

The onset of the global pandemic associated with COVID-19 has brought to the forefront a need for novel tools aimed at conducting research online (Lourenco & Tasimi, 2020; Townsend et al, 2020). One area of discussion has been how to transfer tasks that classically require in person interaction with confederates or experimenters to an online format. One such task is the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST), an effective and reliable stress induction task typically administered in lab using a panel of adult judges (Kirschbaum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993; Gunnar, Talge, & Herrera, 2009). Here, we present a novel TSST developed for use with children and young adolescents utilizing a pre-recorded video panel of child judges. The video-based TSST for children procedure is comparable to the traditional TSST for children (TSST-C; Buske-Kirschbaum et al, 1997) consisting of a 10 minute speech to a panel of judges followed by a five-minute math challenge. However, judges are presented via video rather than being an in person panel. Through staged interactions, participants are led to believe they are giving a speech to four other children watching in different rooms via laptops who will be judging their performance (Figure 1). We validated this task in laboratory with a sample of 89 youths (42 female) ages 11 – 15 years old. To assess whether the task elicited psychological and physiological changes comparable to the traditional TSST-C, we collected measures of heart rate, salivary cortisol, and mood at -15, 0, +15, +30, and +60 minutes during the study session (with 0 being the beginning of the speech). The modified social stressor induced increases in cortisol and heart rate, indicative of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and autonomic nervous system reactivity, as well as increases in negative mood. All measures returned to baseline within one hour of the stressor (Figure 2). These changes did not differ based on child reports of believability of the manipulation. These results provide validation for the use of a video-based social stressor including pre-recording peer-aged judges for use with children and adolescents. This video-based method confers several advantages. It reduces personnel costs and time associated with the paradigm by eliminating the need for a panel of trained in-person judges. The video-taped interactions also reduce effects of variability between and within judges in their facial and body movements, and feedback, during the participants’ speeches. Additionally, this task represents a paradigm in which child participants are judged by their peers rather than adults, increasing its comparability to standard paradigms utilized with adults. Last, it is a paradigm well suited for use in online studies, eliminating COVID-19 associated concerns with in-person data collection and potentially allowing for the collection of larger and more diverse samples in studies assessing responses to acute social stress

Authors

• Karen E Smith, Rutgers University - Newark
  Presenting Author

• Brian Leitzke, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Non-Presenting Author

• Seth David Pollak, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Non-Presenting Author