Differential Effects of Body Posture on Biological and Psychological Responses in the Trier Social Stress Test

Kurz M, Abel L, Burkhardt F, Richer R, Ringgold V, Schindler-Gmelch L, Eskofier B, Rohleder N (2025)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2025

Journal

Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine, Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine

Abstract

Objective:

Acute stress protocols are important tools for laboratory research on acute stress mechanisms. Several reasons necessitate varying body posture. However, the effect of such variations has not been systematically studied. We therefore examined the impact of body posture (sitting vs. standing) on biological and psychological stress responses induced by the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and its control condition (friendly TSST; f-TSST).

Methods:

One hundred and four participants (57.69% female, mean age 22.28, SD = 3.44) were randomly assigned to the sitting vs. standing group and underwent the TSST and f-TSST on two separate days in randomized order. Stress responses were measured through salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase, HR, HRV, and self-reports.

Results:

Biological stress responses were higher in the TSST condition and the standing group (e.g. maximum cortisol increase: P = 0.004). Psychological stress response was higher in the stress condition (e.g. Negative Affect: P < 0.001), but was not different between posture groups (e.g. Negative Affect: P = 0.819). No differences were observed in any markers after adjusting the stress-response measures for the non-stress condition (smallest P = 0.173).

Conclusion:

While biological, but not psychological stress responses were affected by body posture overall, these effects did not persist when responses in the stress condition were adjusted by subtracting the non-stress values from the f-TSST. This implies that the effect of body posture can be neglected in studies with a non-stress control condition, but that its effects should be taken into account in studies with only the stress protocol.

Authors with CRIS profile

Miriam Kurz Lehrstuhl für Gesundheitspsychologie Luca Abel Machine Learning and Data Analytics Lab Felicitas Burkhardt Lehrstuhl für Gesundheitspsychologie Robert Richer Machine Learning and Data Analytics Lab Veronika Ringgold Lehrstuhl für Gesundheitspsychologie Lena Marie Gmelch Lehrstuhl für Klinische Psychologie und Psychotherapie (KliPs) Björn Eskofier Department Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Engineering (AIBE) Nicolas Rohleder Lehrstuhl für Gesundheitspsychologie

Additional Organisation(s)

Sonderforschungsbereich 1483/1 - Empathokinästhetische Sensorik - Sensortechniken und Datenanalyseverfahren zur empathokinästhetischen Modellbildung und Zustandsbestimmung (SFB EmpkinS)

How to cite

APA:

Kurz, M., Abel, L., Burkhardt, F., Richer, R., Ringgold, V., Schindler-Gmelch, L.,... Rohleder, N. (2025). Differential Effects of Body Posture on Biological and Psychological Responses in the Trier Social Stress Test. Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine,. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000001450

MLA:

Kurz, Miriam, et al. "Differential Effects of Body Posture on Biological and Psychological Responses in the Trier Social Stress Test." Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine, (2025).

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