A meta-analytic review of aerobic fitness and reactivity to psychosocial stressors

Abstract

The effects of aerobic fitness on resistance to psychosocial stressors are reviewed. To unravel the inconsistent results in studies examining the relationship between aerobic fitness and psychosocial stress response, a meta-analysis was conducted. The results of 34 studies having 92 effect size estimates from 1,449 subjects were statistically combined to compare psychosocial stressor tasks and arousal measures. The average effect size estimate of 0.48 was significantly different from zero (P less than 0.01), indicating that aerobically fit subjects had a reduced psychosocial stress response compared to either control group or baseline values. The test for the homogeneity assumption showed that it could not be rejected, and thus none of the proposed moderating variables altered the aerobic fitness-psychosocial reactivity relationship. Various underlying mechanisms which may contribute to this response are discussed, and future research directions are presented.