Social support and the reactivity hypothesis: Conceptual issues in examining the efficacy of received support during acute psychological stress☆
Section snippets
Social support and the reactivity hypothesis: conceptual issues in examining the efficacy of received support during acute psychological stress
Social support has been reliably related to lower rates of morbidity and mortality, especially from cardiovascular disease (Berkman et al., 2000, Cohen, 1988, Uchino, 2004). A critical question in this area relates to the underlying biological mechanisms that may be responsible for such links (Uchino, 2004). One prominent perspective is the stress-buffering model of support which suggests that social support may reduce mortality by decreasing harmful cardiovascular reactions during stress (
Conclusions
The plausibility of links between social support and reactivity in the laboratory are based on several assumptions. One important assumption is that the operationalization of support in the laboratory, matches that of epidemiological studies that have found support to predict reduced cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. As argued in this review, most laboratory reactivity studies are operationalized based on the receipt of support. However, the prior epidemiological literature has shown a
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Support for this paper was generously provided by grant numbers R01 HL085106 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and R21 AG029239 from the National Institute on Aging.