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Social stress

About: Social stress is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3197 publications have been published within this topic receiving 179695 citations.


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Journal ArticleDOI
Sidney Cobb1
TL;DR: It appears that social support can protect people in crisis from a wide variety of pathological states: from low birth weight to death, from arthritis through tuberculosis to depression, alcoholism, and the social breakdown syndrome.
Abstract: Social support is defined as information leading the subject to believe that he is cared for and loved, esteemed, and a member of a network of mutual obligations. The evidence that supportive interactions among people are protective against the health consequences of life stress is reviewed. It appears that social support can protect people in crisis from a wide variety of pathological states: from low birth weight to death, from arthritis through tuberculosis to depression, alcoholism, and the social breakdown syndrome. Furthermore, social support may reduce the amount of medication required, accelerate recovery, and facilitate compliance with prescribed medical regimens.

6,113 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results suggest that gender, genetics and nicotine consumption can influence the individual's stress responsiveness to psychological stress while personality traits showed no correlation with cortisol responses to TSST stimulation.
Abstract: This paper describes a protocol for induction of moderate psychological stress in a laboratory setting and evaluates its effects on physiological responses. The ‘Trier Social Stress Test’ (TSST) mainl

5,207 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results supported minority stress hypotheses: each of the stressors had a significant independent association with a variety of mental health measures and odds ratios suggested that men who had high levels of minority stress were twice to three times as likely to suffer also from high level of distress.
Abstract: This study describes stress as derived from minority status and explores its effect on psychological distress in gay men. The concept of minority stress is based on the premise that gay people in a heterosexist society are subjected to chronic stress related to their stigmatization. Minority stressors were conceptualized as: internalized homophobia, which relates to gay men's direction of societal negative attitudes toward the self; stigma, which relates to expectations of rejection and discrimination; and actual experiences of discrimination and violence. The mental health effects of the three minority stressors were tested in a community sample of 741 New York City gay men. The results supported minority stress hypotheses: each of the stressors had a significant independent association with a variety of mental health measures. Odds ratios suggested that men who had high levels of minority stress were twice to three times as likely to suffer also from high levels of distress.

3,209 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a perceived availability of social support measure (the ISEL) was designed with independent subscales measuring four separate support functions, including self-esteem and appraisal support.
Abstract: A perceived availability of social support measure (the ISEL) was designed with independent subscales measuring four separate support functions. In a sample of college students, both perceived availability of social support and number of positive events moderated the relationship between negative life stress and depressive and physical symptomatology. In the case of depressive symptoms, the data fit a “buffering” hypothesis pattern, i.e., they suggest that both social support and positive events protect one from the pathogenic effects of high levels of life stress but are relatively unimportant for those with low levels of stress. In the case of physical symptoms, the data only partially support the buffering hypothesis. Particularly, the data suggest that both social support and positive events protect one from the pathogenic effects of high levels of stress but harm those (i.e., are associated with increased symptomatology) with low levels of stress. Further analyses suggest that self-esteem and appraisal support were primarily responsible for the reported interactions between negative life stress and social support. In contrast, frequency of past social support was not an effective life stress buffer in either the case of depressive or physical symptomatology. Moreover, past support frequency was positively related to physical symptoms and unrelated to depressive symptoms, while perceived availability of support was negatively related to depressive symptoms and unrelated to physical symptoms.

2,688 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Oxytocin seems to enhance the buffering effect of social support on stress responsiveness, concur with data from animal research suggesting an important role of oxytocin as an underlying biological mechanism for stress-protective effects of positive social interactions.

1,760 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202332
2022133
2021212
2020161
2019181
2018171