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
