Epidemiological studies have suggested that social support may offer a protective role for
cardiovascular health. More recently, researchers have begun to examine possible mechanisms
by which social support may reduce cardiovascular reactivity to stress. This study was
undertaken to determine if the implementation of support (presence or absence) needs to be
matched with a person's habitual level of support seeking (high or low) in order to obtain
physiological benefits during laboratory stressors. It was hypothesized that high support
seekers assigned to a support condition would show decreased reactivity relative to all other
matched or mismatched conditions.
Following the screening of480 students, 135 high and low support seeking men and
women were recruited for the laboratory phase. In this phase, participants performed a math
and a speech task, while alone or while receiving support. Participants were randomly
assigned to a condition that either matched (e.g., support provision for support seekers) or
mismatched their support seeking style. Heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and
diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were monitored continuously. Self-report measures evaluating
the participants' reactions to the task and to support were administered pre- and post-task.
Although the central (match) hypothesis of this study was not supported, several
interesting findings emerged: Low support seeking men exhibited larger SBP responses than
did high support seeking men during the tasks. Participants receiving support showed greater
SBP responses relative to participants who were alone during the tasks. Additionally,
supported men showed increased DBP reactivity relative to men who were assigned to an
alone condition. Interestingly, high support seeking men and women showed lower resting
blood pressures than did low support seeking participants. The findings from the self-report
measures did not help to clarify the cardiovascular findings. The findings suggest that future
research is needed to better understand how and when support is effective in reducing
cardiovascular reactivity to stress. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/10118 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Kors, Deborah Joy |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 6278572 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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