Exploring Effects of Hydrocortisone on Implicit Motivation and Activity Inhibition: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Study

This study explored effects of experimental cortisol manipulation on changes in implicit motives. Thirty-six participants were randomly allocated to a hydrocortisone or a placebo condition, provided saliva samples that were assayed for cortisol, and wrote picture stories both before and after treatment. Stories were coded for motivational imagery related to power, achievement, and affiliation as well as for activity inhibition, a marker of functional brain lateralization during stress. Salivary cortisol was monitored before and after treatment. Hydrocortisone-treated participants, relative to controls, had lower post-treatment affiliation scores, but did not significantly differ from them on achievement, power, activity inhibition scores or number of words written. In the overall sample, increases in cortisol were associated with increases in achievement scores and decreases in activity inhibition. In the hydrocortisone condition, an increase in cortisol was associated with a decrease in power scores.