Discussion
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The overall purpose of the current study was to examine psychobiological responses to
(i.e., state body shame and salivary cortisol), and recovery from, a
social-evaluative body image threat in young men and whether those responses
differed by athlete status. It was first hypothesized there would be significant
increases in salivary cortisol (pre- to intermediate-timepoint) and state body shame
(pre- to post-threat) in the high-threat condition only, with a subsequent return to
baseline values 50-min post-stressor onset, with increases greater in the
non-athletes compared with the athletes in the high SET condition. Finally, it was
hypothesized that there would be no significant changes in non-athletes’ and
athletes’ psychobiological responses in the low SET condition. These hypotheses were
partially supported; participants in the high-threat condition exhibited significant
increases in state body shame and salivary cortisol immediately following the
threat, with a subsequent return to baseline values for state body shame; however,
contrary to the hypotheses, there were no significant differences between the
non-athletes’ and athletes’ responses.