Inverse relation between cortisol and anger and their relation to performance and explicit memory

Abstract

Cortisol has been found to increase in response to social evaluative threat. However, little is known about the cortisol response to induced anger. Thus, in the present study, we investigated the cortisol response to anger induction and its effects on performance and explicit memory. A variant of the Montreal Stress Imaging Task (MIST; Dedovic et al., 2005) was used to induce anger in 17 male and 17 female students. Consistent with previous observations, a significant decrease in cortisol was found from pre to post manipulation which was inversely related to increases in subjective anger. Moreover, whereas anger increase was related to impairments in performance, cortisol reduction was inversely related to cognitive performance and explicit memory (recall and recognition of persons' features in a social memory task). The adaptive value of an increase in cortisol in response to fear or uncontrollability and of a decrease in cortisol in response to anger will be discussed.