The relationships between expressed emotion, cortisol, and EEG alpha asymmetry
Journal article
Wang, G.Y., Crook-Rumsey, M., Sumich, A., Dulson, D., Gao,T. T. and Premkumar, P. (2023). The relationships between expressed emotion, cortisol, and EEG alpha asymmetry. Physiology and Behavior. 269 (114276). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114276
Authors | Wang, G.Y., Crook-Rumsey, M., Sumich, A., Dulson, D., Gao,T. T. and Premkumar, P. |
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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. |
Keywords | Expressed emotion; psychological stressor; cortisol; frontal alpha asymmetry |
Year | 2023 |
Journal | Physiology and Behavior |
Journal citation | 269 (114276) |
Publisher | Elsevier |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2023.114276 |
Web address (URL) | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938423002019?via%3Dihub |
Publication dates | |
24 Jun 2023 | |
Publication process dates | |
Accepted | 20 Jun 2023 |
Deposited | 30 Jun 2023 |
Publisher's version | License File Access Level Open |
https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/item/94545
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Publisher's version
Wang2023 The relationships between expressed emotion, cortisol, and EEG.pdf | ||
License: CC BY 4.0 | ||
File access level: Open |
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