Social Support as a Stress Buffer or Stress Amplifier: The Moderating Role of Social Motives

Trials guidance: The Abstract should not exceed 350 words. Please minimize the use of abbreviations and do not cite references in the abstract. The abstract must include the following separate sections:• Background: the context and purpose of the study• Methods: how the study will be performed• Discussion: a brief summary and potential implicationsBackground. Social Support research shows that providing social support in socio-evaluative stress situations reduces participants´ stress responses. This stress-buffer effect of social support, however, does not hold for everybody and some studies even found a stress-amplifying effect of social support. Motive disposition research suggests that social motives (affiliation and power) lead to differential and sometimes even opposing affective, and physiological responses to interpersonal interaction processes. We here integrate both lines of research and hypothesize that participants with strong affiliation motives benefit whereas participants with strong power motives do not benefit from social support in terms of psychobiological responses to a given stressor. Further, participants with strong affiliation and power motives are expected to respond to social support with an arousal of motive-specific affects and reproductive hormone responses (affiliation: progesterone, power: estradiol, testosterone). In addition, we test whether women and men differ in the response to social support and in strengths of social motives. Methods. We aim to collect data of 308 participants (equal number of men and women) recruited at the local university of the authors. Participants´ social motives are assessed using a standardized measure in motive research (Picture Story Exercise) administered via a web-survey. In a following laboratory session, the Trier Social Stress designed for groups is used to experimentally induce psychosocial stress. One group of participants receives social support from a confederate of the experimenter whereas the control group does not. Stress responses will be assessed by a modified version of the state anxiety scale of the State – Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1970) and by physiological indicators of stress (cortisol, alpha-amylase gained from saliva samples) at seven points of measurement. Reproductive hormones will be analyzed from four out of these seven saliva samples. Heart rate and heart rate variability will be assessed continuously. We additionally measure participants´ performance in the interview (part of TSST) using a self-developed categorization system.Discussion. Our theory-driven integration of social motives in social support research, and the precise analysis of sex differences might disentangle inconsistent findings in TSST- research. The more faceted view on individual differences has direct implications for applied contexts as it provides a framework for tailored conceptualizations of social support programs.Trial registration: OSF- Preregistration: Registration DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/984RWCitation: Schüler, J., Ditzen, B. , & Haufler, A. (2021, July 5). Social support as a stress buffer or stress amplifier: The moderating role of social motives. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/984RW