Loneliness, social support and cardiovascular reactivity to laboratory stress

Self-reported or explicit loneliness and social support have been inconsistently associated with cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to stress. The present study aimed to adapt an implicit measure of loneliness, and use it alongside the measures of explicit loneliness and social support, to investigate their correlations with CVR to laboratory stress. Twenty-five female volunteers aged between 18 and 39 years completed self-reported measures of loneliness and social support, and an Implicit Association Test (IAT) of loneliness. The systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) reactivity indices were measured in response to psychosocial stress induced in the laboratory. Functional support indices of social support were significantly correlated with CVR reactivity to stress. Interestingly, implicit, but not explicit, loneliness was significantly correlated with DBP reactivity after one of the stressors. No associations were found between structural support and CVR indices. Results are discussed in terms of validity of implicit versus explicit measures and possible factors that affect physiological outcomes.     

Stress in 1st-year women teachers: the context of social support and coping

The effects of adverse work environments were examined in the context of other risk/protective factors in this extension of a short-term longitudinal study involving 184 newly appointed women teachers. Regression analyses revealed that-adjusting for preemployment levels of the outcomes and negative affectivity-social support and adversity in the fall work environment were among the factors that affected spring depressive symptoms, self-esteem, job satisfaction, and motivation to teach. Support from nonwork sources was directly related to future improved symptom levels and self-esteem; supervisor and colleague support were directly related to future job satisfaction. Effects of occupational coping, professional efficacy, locus of control, and school factors (e.g., special vs. regular education) were largely nonsignificant. Structural equation analyses indicated that adverse working conditions began to seriously affect the women soon after they started teaching.     

Influence of social support on adaptation to surgery.

The authors investigated the influence of patients' social support on subjective and objective stress indicators before, during, and after surgery. The sample consisted of 42 male and 42 female patients. Social support as perceived by the patients was measured by a surgery-specific inventory with the Emotional Support and Informational Support subscales. Perioperative adaptation was assessed by self-reported anxiety, the amount of narcotics needed for anesthesia induction, and the length of the postoperative stay. Results demonstrated that patients who scored high on social support showed less anxiety, received lower doses of narcotics, and had a shorter hospital stay than did patients with low support. However, gender was a moderator of some of these associations. Compared with men, women exhibited more relationships that were in accordance with the hypotheses.     

Coping in context: the role of stress, social support, and personality in coping

Personality and social relationships play an important role in almost every aspect of stress and coping. Daily process methods are particularly useful in elucidating how these factors might influence both responses to and outcomes of stress. Our work has linked both dimensions of personality, particularly the Big Five, and aspects of social relationships, particularly social support, to the likelihood of engaging in certain coping strategies and the effectiveness or outcomes of these coping strategies. In addition, we have found the effect of personality on coping and stress outcomes to vary by the situational context in which stress occurs. We review findings from our recent daily process studies of stress, coping, and social support. Further, we discuss the costs and benefits of the daily process methodology for addressing these questions, highlighting the clinical utility of findings gleaned with the use of this approach. Finally, we discuss future directions and applications of daily process methods to the study of stress and coping.     

Effects of social support visibility on adjustment to stress: experimental evidence

Previous fieldwork has suggested that visible social support can entail an emotional cost and that a supportive act is most effective when it is accomplished either (a) outside of recipients' awareness or (b) within their awareness but with sufficient subtlety that they do not interpret it as support. To investigate the latter phenomenon, the authors conducted 3 experiments in which female participants were led to expect a stressful speech task and a confederate peer provided support in such a way that it was either visible or invisible (N=257). Invisible support (practical and emotional) reduced emotional reactivity relative to visible and no support. Visible support was either ineffective or it exacerbated reactivity. Explanatory analyses indicated that support was effective when it avoided communicating a sense of inefficacy to recipients.     

The perception of available social support is related to reduced cardiovascular reactivity in phase II cardiac rehabilitation patients

Objective  Numerous studies have observed a relationship between social support (SS) and post coronary event survival. Laboratory research suggests one mechanism regulating this relationship may be exaggerated cardiovascular reactivity (CVR). What has not been as well explored is (1) whether the SS-CVR relationship holds up for a heart diseased sample, and (2) whether this relationship is evidenced only in supportive environments or can be found as a function of generalized perception of being socially supported. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of perceived SS and a locally supportive presence to CVR to a speech-induced stressor in post coronary event patients. Method  Forty-one Phase II cardiac rehabilitation patients participated in a research protocol that consisted of BP and HR measurement during two identical affective stress interviews where local support was systematically varied by presence or absence of a friendly small pet dog. Perception of SS was assessed by completion of psychosocial questionnaire packet that included measures of SS, anger expression and pet attachment. Results  Repeated measures ANCOVAs revealed that patients who believed they had greater SS available to them during difficult times exhibited significantly less CVR for MAP (p<.007) and DBP (p<.024). No significant main effects for local support (pet presence) and no interactions between local and perceived support were found. Conclusions  These findings are of interest as they: (a) demonstrate an association between reduced CVR and higher (amounts of) SS in a clinical sample; (b) demonstrate this effect in a sample medicated to dampen CV levels and surges; (c) suggest that perceived amount of SS provides an ameliorative influence on CVR independent of situational support; (d) suggest that for certain conditions pet-models of support may be ineffective at establishing an local support presence.     

Age-related differences in cardiovascular reactions to mental stress tests in women

Tested 84 healthy, sedentary women in the laboratory during performance of difficult and easy problem-solving tasks. They were divided into three age groups: 19 to 32 years, 33 to 43 years, and 44 to 60 years (n = 28 women per group). Baseline systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure increased with age, whereas skin conductance level was lower in older women. In addition, initial SBP reactions to tasks were positively related to age, even after controlling for baseline blood pressure, aerobic fitness, and Framingham Type A Scale behavior scores. There were no differences in heart rate (HR) or "additional" HR reactions, so the anticipated decline in cardiac sympathetic response with age was not observed. The mechanisms underlying age-related reactions to mental stress are discussed.     

The perception of available social support is related to reduced cardiovascular reactivity in Phase II cardiac rehabilitation patients.

OBJECTIVE: Numerous studies have observed a relationship between social support (SS) and post coronary event survival. Laboratory research suggests one mechanism regulating this relationship may be exaggerated cardiovascular reactivity (CVR). What has not been as well explored is (1) whether the SS-CVR relationship holds up for a heart diseased sample, and (2) whether this relationship is evidenced only in supportive environments or can be found as a function of generalized perception of being socially supported. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of perceived SS and a locally supportive presence to CVR to a speech-induced stressor in post coronary event patients. METHOD: Forty-one Phase II cardiac rehabilitation patients participated in a research protocol that consisted of BP and HR measurement during two identical affective stress interviews where local support was systematically varied by presence or absence of a friendly small pet dog. Perception of SS was assessed by completion of psychosocial questionnaire packet that included measures of SS, anger expression and pet attachment. RESULTS: Repeated measures ANCOVAs revealed that patients who believed they had greater SS available to them during difficult times exhibited significantly less CVR for MAP (p<.007) and DBP (p<.024). No significant main effects for local support (pet presence) and no interactions between local and perceived support were found. CONCLUSIONS: These findings are of interest as they: (a) demonstrate an association between reduced CVR and higher (amounts of) SS in a clinical sample; (b) demonstrate this effect in a sample medicated to dampen CV levels and surges; (c) suggest that perceived amount of SS provides an ameliorative influence on CVR independent of situational support; (d) suggest that for certain conditions pet-models of support may be ineffective at establishing an local support presence.     

Extensions of the survival advantage in memory: examining the role of ancestral context and implied social isolation

Recent work (e.g., Nairne & Pandeirada, 2010) has shown that words are remembered better when they have been processed for their survival value in a grasslands context than when processed in other contexts. It has been suggested that this is because human memory systems were shaped by evolution specifically to help humans survive. Thus far, the survival processing advantage has mainly been shown with grasslands contexts, which are thought to be particularly relevant to human evolution. The present study demonstrated the survival processing advantage with other contexts (e.g., lost in a jungle), including with contexts that should not, in and of themselves, be relevant to human evolution (e.g., lost in outer space). We further examined whether implied social isolation plays a critical role in the survival advantage to memory by comparing scenarios in which the person is alone versus with other people present (e.g., lost at sea alone or with others), and whether the perceived source of danger is social isolation or other human attackers. A survival advantage was shown in both the isolation and the group settings, and whether the primary source of danger was isolation or other human attackers did not matter. These findings suggest that the survival advantage in memory is not dependent on evolutionarily relevant physical contexts (e.g., grasslands) or particular sources of perceived danger (social isolation vs. perceived attackers), showing the advantage to be robust and applicable to a variety of scenarios.     

Gender differences in preference to offer social support to assertive men and women

Although gender bias is clearly evident in the provision of institutional social support, it is unclear whether such bias exists on a more subtle and interpersonal level. When women act appropriately assertive at work, they may actually alienate support. This paper reports an experimental study that addressed this general issue of social support among employed men and women. A sample of 61 males and 55 females (predominantly white; N=116), employed by four northeast Ohio employers participated. The extent of preference to offer support to assertive males and females was explored. An unexpected double bias was found, with each sex preferring to offer support to their own sex.This project was funded by a grant received by the Applied Psychology Center of Kent State University, from the Ohio Department of Development through the Northeast Ohio Center for the Advancement of Labor Management Cooperation. We gratefully acknowledge this financial assistance.     

Habitual reappraisal in context: peer victimisation moderates its association with physiological reactivity to social stress

Although the emotion regulation strategy of reappraisal has been associated with adaptive outcomes, there is a growing evidence that it may not be adaptive in all contexts. In the present study, adolescents reported their use of habitual reappraisal and their experiences with peer victimisation, a chronic stressor that is associated with reduced well-being in this population. We examined how these variables predicted physiological reactivity (vagal withdrawal and changes in pre-ejection period) during a social stressor (i.e., Trier Social Stress Task). In line with previous research, at high levels of victimisation, habitual reappraisal predicted adaptive physiological reactivity (i.e., greater vagal withdrawal). Conversely, at low levels of victimisation, habitual reappraisal predicted maladaptive physiological reactivity (i.e., blunted vagal withdrawal). These findings were specific to parasympathetic reactivity. They suggest that habitual reappraisal may exert different effects on parasympathetic reactivity depending on the presence of stressors, and highlight the importance of examining the role of contextual factors in determining the adaptiveness of emotion regulation strategies.     

Facets of support related to well-being: quantitative social isolation and perceived family support in a sample of elderly women

The purpose of this study was to examine the independent and interactive relationships of measures of network embeddedness and perceived social support with mental and physical health measures from responses of a sample of 271 community-dwelling elderly women. Quantitative social isolation was measured as the co-occurrence of low network embeddedness with family and with friends. There was a threshold effect such that quantitatively isolated participants had poorer psychological well-being and functional health than did nonisolated participants. This effect was independent of perceived support levels. The pattern was different for perceived social support. Elderly women with low perceived family support had poorer psychological well-being regardless of perceived support from friends or network embeddedness. Implications are discussed for several unanswered questions in the social support literature, including possible interventions for the quantitatively isolated and for those with low levels of perceived support.     

The relational context of social support: Relationship satisfaction moderates the relations between enacted support and distress

In two studies of kidney transplant patients and their significant others, the authors examined whether the relations between enacted social support and patient distress were moderated by patients' satisfaction with their relationship with the support provider (i.e., their significant other). In Study 1 (n = 121 couples), unsupportive spousal behaviors were associated with more distress only among patients who were less satisfied with their marital relationship. In Study 2 (n = 112 couples), the relations between unsupportive behaviors and distress again varied as a function of the patient's relationship satisfaction, although the particular pattern of the interaction depended on the specific unsupportive behaviors offered to the patient. In both studies, relationship dissatisfaction was associated with higher levels of patient distress. Supportive behaviors were not related to distress and did not interact with relationship satisfaction. Implications for future research on social support in marriage are discussed.     

Familialism, social support, and stress: positive implications for pregnant Latinas

This study examined the association of familialism, a cultural value that emphasizes close family relationships, with social support, stress, pregnancy anxiety, and infant birth weight. Foreign-born Latina (n = 31), U.S.-born Latina (n = 68), and European American (n = 166) women living in the United States participated in a prospective study of pregnancy in which they completed measures of familialism, social support, stress, and pregnancy anxiety during their second trimester. As expected, Latinas scored higher on familialism than European Americans. Familialism was positively correlated with social support and negatively correlated with stress and pregnancy anxiety in the overall sample. As predicted, however, the associations of familialism with social support and stress were significantly stronger among Latinas than European Americans. Moreover, higher social support was associated with higher infant birth weight among foreign-born Latinas only. Implications of cultural values for relationships and health are discussed.     

Chronic parenting stress: moderating versus mediating effects of social support

The present study contrasted the widely cited "buffer" model of social support with an alternative mediator model. Distinctions were drawn between the functions of social support under chronic vs. acute stress conditions, and between situation-specific stressors and major life events. Ongoing parenting stress was assessed in 96 mothers of deaf children and 118 matched controls. Tests of the competing models showed no moderating effects for social support. However, path analyses suggested that social support mediated the relationship between stressors and outcomes. Chronic parenting stress was associated with lowered perceptions of emotional support, and greater symptoms of depression and anxiety. Furthermore, parenting stress accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance in psychological distress scores in contrast to life event stress, which was only weakly related to psychological outcomes. The implications of mediational models for understanding adaptation to chronic stress are discussed.     

Individual differences in the impact of attentional bias training on cardiovascular responses to stress in women

Experimental studies show that training people to attend to negative stimuli makes them more likely to respond with greater anxiety to stress. The present study investigated this effect in students using measures of cardiovascular responses to stress and examined whether individual differences influence the impact of attention training on stress responses. Using a standard dot probe task, 30 participants underwent negative attentional bias training and 34 participants underwent anti-negative training before completing a stressful speech task. Results indicated that, overall, participants exhibited acclimatization to the procedures (indicated by a dip in blood pressure post-training) and normal stress responding (indicated by elevated blood pressure in response to stress; p<.001). However, consideration of participants' scores for neuroticism/emotional-stability revealed important differences in how the intervention impacted on cardiovascular profiles (p=.008). For participants with high neuroticism scores, the negative attentional bias intervention elicited more exaggerated stress responding than the anti-negative intervention. For those with low neuroticism scores (i.e., emotionally stable participants), the anti-negative intervention was associated with elevated post-intervention blood pressure and higher blood pressure reactivity to stress. These findings provide evidence of the impact of attentional bias manipulation on physiological stress reactivity and suggest the effect is highly contingent on individual temperaments.     

The effects of post-encoding stress on recognition memory: examining the impact of skydiving in young men and women

Prior studies have indicated that post-encoding stress can protect memories from the effects of forgetting, and this has been taken as evidence that stress facilitates memory consolidation. However, it is not known whether stress acts by directly influencing the strength of the underlying memories or whether it influences the generation process that plays a critical role in tests such as free recall. To address this issue, we examined the effects of stress produced by skydiving on recognition memory for negative and neutral pictures. Relative to a non-stress control condition, post-encoding stress in males was found to increase recognition memory for neutral pictures. However, stress was not found to improve recognition for emotional pictures, nor was it found to influence recognition memory in female participants. Additional analysis of recognition performance suggested that stress increased familiarity-based recognition rather than recollection. This study indicates that stress can improve familiarity-based recognition, thus showing that stress directly increases the strength of the underlying memories.     

Simple and contingent adaptation effects for place of articulation in stop consonants

Experiments on selective adaptation have shown that the locus of the phonetic category boundary between two segments shifts after repetitive listening to an adapting stimulus. Theoretical interpretations of these results have proposed that adaptation occurs either entirely at an auditory level of processing or at both auditory and more abstract phonetic levels. The present experiment employed two alternating stimuli as adaptors in an attempt to distinguish between these two possible explanations. Two alternating stimuli were used as adaptors in order to test for the presence of contingent effects and to compare these results to simple adaptation using only a single adaptor. Two synthetic CV series with different vowels that varied the place of articulation of the consonant were employed. When two alternating adaptors were used, contingent adaptation effects were observed for the two stimulus series. The direction of the shifts in each series was governed by the vowel context of the adapting syllables. Using the single adaptor data, a comparison was made between the additive effects of the single adaptors and their combined effects when presented in alternating pairs. With voiced adaptors, only within-series adaptation effects were found, and these data were consistent with a on,level model of selective adaptation. However, for the voiceless adaptors, both within- and cross-series adaptation effects were found, suggesting the possible presence of two levels of adaptation to place of articulation. Further, the contingent adaptation effects with the voiceless adaptors seemed to be the result of the additive effects of the two alternating adaptors. This result indicates that previously reported contingent adaptation results may also reflect the net vowel specific adaptation effects after cancellation of other, nonvowel dependent effects and that caution is needed in interpreting such results.     

Aging and cardiovascular reactivity to stress: longitudinal evidence for changes in stress reactivity

Although age differences in cardiovascular function are well documented, little research has provided longitudinal evidence for age-related changes in cardiovascular reactivity to stress. In this study, the authors report such data from a follow-up of their prior work (B. N. Uchino, D. Uno, J. Holt-Lunstad, & J. B. Flinders, 1999) with participants between the ages of 30 to 70 (n=108, mean follow-up=10 months, range=7 to 16 months). Results revealed longitudinal evidence for an age-related increase in systolic blood-pressure reactivity and parasympathetic withdrawal to acute stress. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the increased cardiovascular disease risk with age, as well as the links between aging, emotions, and physiology.