Finger temperature recovery from stress

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine whether finger temperature is a useful and reliable measure of physiological recovery from stress. The design was an ABA format in which days one and three involved a stressor, while day two simply entailed sitting quietly. The three sessions were one week apart. Gender differences in finger temperature recovery were found, with the finger temperature of females failing to return to baseline levels ten minutes following the stressor. However, this gender difference was also apparent on the control day, and thus it appears to reflect gender differences in baseline drift. The implications of this gender difference in finger temperature drift are discussed.