Circumnavigating the cost of support: Variations in cortisol as a function of self-efficacy and support visibility

Circumnavigating the cost of support Variations in cortisol as a function of self-efficacy and support visibility

Although social support is typically associated with a number of health benefits, for some individuals support worsens outcomes, likely because receiving support can undermine feelings of competence. Some have argued that invisible support (i.e., support that recipients do not recognize as help) can...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of social and personal relationships Vol. 34; no. 4; pp. 578 - 593
Main Authors: Crockett, Erin E., Morrow, Quinlyn J., Muyshondt, Ana C.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-06-2017
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:
Between-subjects design
Cortisol
Health problems
Hormones
Reactivity
Research design
Scholarships & fellowships
Self-efficacy
Social stress
Social support
Speech
Stress
Undergraduate students
Visibility
invisible support
stress
visible support
Cortisol
self-efficacy
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Summary:Although social support is typically associated with a number of health benefits, for some individuals support worsens outcomes, likely because receiving support can undermine feelings of competence. Some have argued that invisible support (i.e., support that recipients do not recognize as help) can reduce negative support-related health consequences (Bolger, Zuckerman, & Kessler, 2000); still, the physiological benefits of invisible support have yet to be established and likely differ as a function of self-efficacy. The purpose of this study was to investigate how visibility of support and self-efficacy interact to affect the cortisol reactivity of a support recipient. In a 2 (self-efficacy: high vs. low) × 2 (support visibility: visible vs. invisible) between-subjects, experimental design, 74 undergraduate students were primed for either high or low self-efficacy using false feedback. Participants then received either visible or invisible support from a confederate while preparing a speech as part of the Trier Social Stress Task (Kirschbaum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993). A series of repeated measures analyses of variance revealed that individuals primed to have high self-efficacy experienced cortisol increases in response to the speech task when they received visible support but not invisible support. By contrast, individuals primed to have low self-efficacy experienced increased cortisol when they received invisible support but not visible support. This research suggests that although invisible support can effectively buffer stress, it is not always the best support strategy.
ISSN:0265-4075
1460-3608
DOI:10.1177/0265407516649264