Performance during presentations: A question of challenge and threat responses?

The current study investigated how changes in psychological (cognitions and emotions) and physiological (cortisol concentrations) threat/challenge responses develop over the course of a presentation and whether initial intensity levels and their changes are related to self-efficacy and presentation performance. Based on the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), 123 students held video-recorded presentations about their dream job, which were evaluated by three raters. Selfefficacy was measured before the TSST, saliva cortisol concentrations and psychological threat and challenge responses three times during the TSST. Data were analyzed with latent growth modeling. Threat and cortisol increased during the presentation, while challenge decreased. The growth curve coefficients of challenge correlated negatively with the respective coefficients of threat. Also, initial intensity of challenge responses correlated positively with corresponding cortisol concentrations. Higher self-efficacy was associated with higher initial intensity of challenge responses, lower corresponding concentrations of cortisol, and a smaller cortisol increase, but neither with the growth curve coefficients of threat responses nor with presentation performance. Better performance was associated with lower initial intensity of threat and a smaller increase in cortisol. Threat responses and increasing cortisol concentration appear to inhibit presentation performance, while self-efficacy may strengthen challenge responses and reduce corresponding levels of cortisol concentration as well as its increase.