Social support as a stress buffer or stress amplifier: The moderating role of social motives (Preprint)
Authors: Schüler Julia , Haufler Alisa , Ditzen Beate 
Published: May 2022

BACKGROUND

Previous research shows that providing social support in socio-evaluative stress situations reduces participants´ stress responses. This stress-buffer effect, 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 sex differences in the response to social support and in strengths of social motives.

OBJECTIVE

The main objective of the present study is to test whether social motives and participants´ sex moderate the effects of social support in stressful situations.

METHODS

We aim to collect data of 308 participants recruited at the local university of the authors. Participants´ social motives are assessed using a standardized measure in motive research (Picture Story Exercise). Then, 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.

RESULTS

The ethics committee of the University of Constance approved the application to conduct the study on December 18, 2018. Furthermore, the study was retrospectively registered in the German Clinical Trials Registry (DKRS) on March 09, 2022, under the following number: DRKS00028503. The start of the experiment was planned for the beginning of 2019 but was postponed to spring and summer 2022 due to Covid-19. Publication of the first results is planned for spring 2023.

CONCLUSIONS

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.

CLINICALTRIAL

German Clinical Trials Registry (DKRS) on March 09, 2022, DRKS00028503. https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do;jsessionid=24B169C7FD816B830EB40A8F24B8B2FD?navigationId=resultsExt