Cardiovascular Reactivity to a Naturally Occurring Stressor: Development and Psychometric Evaluation of a Psychophysiological Assessment Procedure

Three studies were conducted to examine the feasibility, reactive effects of assessment, stability, sampling parameters, and sensitivity of an assessment procedure designed to measure cardiovascular responses to a discrete, naturally occurring, and replicatable stressor—university course examinations. Undergraduate students monitored their blood pressure and heart rate several times during one or two classroom examinations and for several class sessions preceding each examination. Classroom examinations were generally associated with significant increases in subjective measures of distress and cardiovascular measures. Reactive effects of assessment and other sources of error were minimized and responses were reasonably stable over time. These results support the potential utility, validity, and cost-efficiency of this methodology for assessing cardiovascular reactivity to naturally occurring stressors.