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A form of stress that occurs because of how events in one’s external or internal environment are perceived, resulting in the psychological experience of distress and anxiety (Lazarus and Folkman 1984). Mental stress is often accompanied by physiological responses (Cacioppo 1994). Mental stress is most often induced in the laboratory by demanding and/or noxious stimuli, involving motivation to meet a performance criterion (Blascovich et al. 2003) and/or social-evaluative threat (Dickerson and Kemeny 2004), or interpersonal interactions, particularly those involving conflict (Glass and Singer 1972). Common mental stress tasks include preparing and giving a speech, performing arithmetic, tracing around star with only a mirror image as a guide, performing a reaction time task (Steptoe and Vögele 1991), and discussing a disagreed upon topic with another person (Gottman and Levenson 1992).
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Blascovich, J., Mendes, W. B., Tomaka, J., Salomon, K., & Seery, M. (2003). The robust natures of the biopsychosocial model: A reply to Wright and Kirby. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7, 234–243.
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Dickerson, S. S., & Kemeny, M. E. (2004). Acute stressors and cortisol responses: A theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 355–391.
Glass, D. C., & Singer, J. E. (1972). Urban stress. Experiments on noise and social stressors. New York: Academic Press.
Gottman, J. M., & Levenson, R. W. (1992). Marital processes predictive of later dissolution: Behavior, physiology, and health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 221–233.
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Steptoe, A., & Vögele, C. (1991). Methodology of mental stress testing in cardiovascular research. Circulation, 83, II-14–II-24.
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Salomon, K. (2020). Mental Stress. In: Gellman, M.D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39903-0_261
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39903-0_261
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