Chronic demands and responsivity to challenge.

Certain kinds of arousal in response to challenge situations reflect conditioning that makes one adaptive to task demands. A growing literature implicates chronic stress as a factor degenerating this conditioning. This study investigated the relation between objective occupational demands to which workers were classified for at least 2 years and various indicators of adaptive responsivity to challenge situations. There were consistently significant and negative relations between the occupational exposures and cardiovascular and skin temperature responsivity to the acute challenges administered in the laboratory, the corresponding speed of recovery to baseline after removal of the challenge stimulus, and peripheral catecholamine changes during a work shift.