| Description |
Social support has important and reliable links to physical health. The association of perceived social support with health is particularly well understood, and is consistently found in the reasech literature. Received social support, however, is less reliably linked to health outcomes, and laboratory studies manipulating received support often find it results in heightened physiological reactivity and distress. One factor thought to influence the effectiveness of received social support is anxiety on the part of the social support provider. The present study examined the main and interaction effects of social support provider anxiety and support role within participant dyads (provider, receiver) on reactivity to a assigned to a support role within a dyad, and each dyad was randomized to either a low provider anxiety condition, or to a condition in which heightened provider anxiety was induced with a social evaluation manipulation. Participants completed measures of self-esteem, state and trait anxiety, perceived threat and coping ability, as well as measures of dominance, valence, arousal. Cardiovascular reactivity was assessed via blood pressure and impedance cardiography. Results supported the hypothesis that social support provider anxiety resulted in less effective social support, and also indicated health costs of providing support under nonoptimal conditions. |
