The relationships between expressed emotion, cortisol, and EEG alpha asymmetry

Wang, G.Y., Crook-Rumsey, M., Sumich, A. ORCID: 0000-0003-4333-8442, Dulson, D., Gao, T.T. and Premkumar, P., 2023. The relationships between expressed emotion, cortisol, and EEG alpha asymmetry. Physiology and Behavior. ISSN 0031-9384

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Abstract

Families can express high criticism, hostility and emotional over-involvement towards a person with or at risk of mental health problems. Perceiving such high expressed emotion (EE) can be a major psychological stressor for individuals, especially those at risk of mental health problems. To reveal the biological mechanisms underlying the effect of EE on health, this study investigated physiological response (salivary cortisol, frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA)) to verbal criticism and their relationship to anxiety and perceived EE. Using a repeated-measures design , healthy participants attended three testing sessions on non-consecutive days. On each day, participants listened to one of three types of auditory stimuli, namely criticism, neutral or praise, and Electroencephalography (EEG) and salivary cortisol were measured. Results showed a reduction in cortisol following criticism but there was no significant change in FAA. Post-criticism cortisol concentration negatively correlated with perceived EE after controlling for baseline mood. Our findings suggest that salivary cortisol change responds to criticism in non-clinical populations might be largely driven by individual differences in the perception of criticism (e.g., arousal and relevance). Criticisms expressed by audio comments may not be explicitly perceived as an acute emotional stressor, and thus, physiological change responds to criticisms could be minimum.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Physiology and Behavior
Creators:	Wang, G.Y., Crook-Rumsey, M., Sumich, A., Dulson, D., Gao, T.T. and Premkumar, P.
Publisher:	Elsevier
Date:	24 June 2023
ISSN:	0031-9384
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114276 DOI 1774832 Other
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	26 Jun 2023 09:11
Last Modified:	26 Jun 2023 09:11
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/49267

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