2.2. Maastricht Acute Stress Test

The MAST is an established procedure to induce stress in a laboratory context and was conducted according to a previously published protocol (see [37]). According to Smeets et al. the procedure started with a preparation phase in which the experimenter explained the task (about 5 min). In the following acute stress phase, the participants had to put their right hand into cold ice-water (2 °C) in 5 trials (each lasting from 60 to 90 s). In between the hand immersion trials participants were engaged with mental arithmetic calculations. They were asked to count backwards starting at 2032 in steps of 17. Whenever the participants made a mistake or counted too slow, they received negative feedback and had to start again at 2043. This acute stress task lasted for 10 min. In order to further increase social-evaluative pressure, participants are told that they will be video-taped. For further details see Smeets et al. [37].