The cardiovascular response to acute psychological stress is related to subjectively giving and receiving social support

Stephen Gallagher,Páraic S O’Súilleabháin,Michael A Smith

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2021.03.004

Stephen Gallagher, Páraic S O’Súilleabháin + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2021.03.004

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Abstract

The pathways linking giving and receiving emotional and instrumental social support, and cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) are not yet fully understood. Eight-two healthy young adults completed psychometric measures of giving and receiving emotional and instrumental social support and participated in a standardised laboratory stress task. Cardiovascular and hemodynamic parameters were monitored throughout. Both giving and receiving emotional support were positively associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), such that those reporting giving and receiving more emotional support had higher reactivity. Only receiving instrumental was associated with DBP, with those receiving more instrumental support having higher reactivity. Moreover, while the significant association between giving social support and CVR withstood adjustment for several confounding factors (e.g., BMI, sex) it was abolished when receiving support was controlled for. These findings are novel and extend the literature on social support and CVR. Taken together, these findings suggest that receipt of support, rather than giving, may be more influential in this context.

Highlights

The association between social support and cardiovascular mortality is well-established (Hemingway and Marmot, 1999; Kuper et al, 2002; Mookadam and Arthur, 2004)
Giving emotional support was positively associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) mean task values, i. e., those who reporting giving higher support had higher resting values, whereas giving instrumental support was positively associated with both baseline and task values for SBP and DBP
Receiving emotional support was positively correlated with mean task SBP and DBP and receiving instrumental support correlated with mean SBP to the task

Summary

Introduction

The association between social support and cardiovascular mortality is well-established (Hemingway and Marmot, 1999; Kuper et al, 2002; Mookadam and Arthur, 2004). One of the proposed pathways underlying this association is the stress buffering hypothesis (Cohen and Wills, 1985; Uchino et al, 2011) which suggests that social support reduces cardiovascular responses to stressful situations. In support of this sug gestion, a meta-analysis examining over 20 studies of social support on cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) to laboratory stress found that experi mental manipulation of social support (e.g., provision of active or pas sive support compared to no support) reduced hemodynamic reactivity (Thorsteinsson and James, 1999). Some have argued that these ma nipulations of enacted social support in the laboratory lack ecological validity, in that they tend not to reflect social support in real life (Uchino, 2006; Uchino et al, 2011)

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