Stress is an element in our daily lives that influences how we interact with others. In recent years, its association with prosocial behaviour has been researched. The literature, however, presents...Show moreStress is an element in our daily lives that influences how we interact with others. In recent years, its association with prosocial behaviour has been researched. The literature, however, presents inconsistent findings. Given this inconsistency, we aim to test whether acute stress is positively correlated with prosocial behaviour. Additionally, we aim to test whether low and high-perceived stress correlate with prosocial behaviour, to then test if the two groups differed on prosocial behaviour during exams. Therefore, we recruited 510 students from universities in the UK on Prolific. This research was part of a larger study, which involved repeated measurements. Stress was induced in a naturalistic manner: at T1, students had exams so they were expected to be more stressed than at T2, when they did not. Given our interest in the relationship between acute stress and prosocial behaviour, we focused on T1 (N = 236). The Perceived Stress Scale-10 was used to measure acute stress, while the Prosocial Effort Task was used to measure prosocial behaviour. The research questions were investigated using Spearman’s correlations and a Mann-Whitney U-test. The three correlation analyses revealed a non-significant correlation between prosocial behaviour and acute stress, regadless of how stress was categorised. Additionally, the comparison analysis revealed no group difference. Ultimately, these results show how complex the relationship between acute stress and prosocial behaviour is. Prior to this paper, few studies explored the low and high categorisation of acute stress on prosocial behaviour, making it necessary for future research to expand furtherShow less
Throughout our lives, we go through stressful situations on a daily basis. It effects multiple facets of our lives, including social interaction and empathy. This study explores the impact of acute...Show moreThroughout our lives, we go through stressful situations on a daily basis. It effects multiple facets of our lives, including social interaction and empathy. This study explores the impact of acute stress on affective empathy in female students (N = 115, M = 21.23 years, SD = 1.64 years). After being exposed to the (placebo) Trier Social Stress Test, participants completed an affective empathy task. They assigned compassion and positive affect scores to negative, neutral and positive pictures. Smiling and frowning responses were measured simultaneously. Surprisingly, no significant differences were revealed between the stress and control group for compassion and positive affect. However, results indicated more relaxation in smiling muscles and more tension in frowning muscles in response to positive stimuli in the stress condition. The results challenge the tend-and-befriend framework.Show less
