Self-reported stress evaluation and physiological response

We all experience emotions such as anger and stress on a regular basis. The various responses to such emotions are commonly thought to be coherent, meaning that they can be seen as one coordinated response system. However, due to inconsistency in empirical data Evers et al (2014) proposes a dual-process model of emotions. He distinguishes between an automatic and a reflective response system. This research examines the coherence between self-reported and physiological responses as a reaction to a social, environmental and cognitive stressor. Stress results were obtained by inducing social (Sing a Song Stress Test), environmental (Loud Noise) and cognitive (Stroop Task) stress in undergraduate students. Physiological responses were compared to self-reported stress for each task. The environmental stressor and the cognitive stressor failed to induce stress in students. The results for the social stressor indicate no coherence between physiological and self-reported data and therefore support the idea of a dual-process model.