Human affection exchange: XIII. Affectionate communication accelerates neuroendocrine stress recovery

Evidence of the Associations between Individual and Partner Autonomy Support and Physiological Stress in the Context of Conversations about Weight among Couples Who are Overweight or Obese during a 6-Month Intervention

The aim of the study was to examine the impact of supportive communication on acute physiological stress responses during weight-related conversations taking place throughout a couples' weight loss program. Participants were 47 married or cohabitating couples where each partner had a BMI of 25-40 kg/m². Couples were randomized as a dyad into a traditional weight loss program or a program that also included training in providing support to one's partner throughout the weight loss process. Structured conversations between partners about weight management were videotaped at baseline and 6 months. Participants provided saliva samples before and after the conversations, which were assayed for cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) to determine physiological stress and anxiety responses to conversations about weight. The results indicated that receiving support from one's partner when discussing weight-related issues was associated with greater physiological stress, as indicated by higher cortisol and sAA levels, whereas providing support to one's partner was associated with lower cortisol levels and higher sAA levels. The findings suggest that receiving support is not a universally positive experience, especially for populations facing health issues. The mixed findings for support provision align with previous studies identifying a negative association between affectionate communication and cortisol levels, as well as a positive association between sAA and anxiety and emotional arousal. The findings and their implications for understanding the physiological correlates of couples' conversations about weight are discussed.

Lipidemic Effects of Kissing are Mediated by Stress: Results from a National Probability Sample

Previous studies have identified associations between affectionate communication and blood lipid levels but been limited by small, homogenous samples and failed replication attempts. Moreover, no study has tested the prediction derived from affection exchange theory that stress mediates the association between affectionate behavior and health. Using secondary analyses of data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Refresher study Biomarker Project, this paper remedies these limitations by testing the prediction that stress mediates the association between kissing and serum levels of triglycerides, high-density lipoproteins, and low-density lipoproteins using a large probability sample of U.S. American adults (N = 863). Results indicate significant indirect effects of kissing frequency on triglycerides and high-density lipoproteins for participants who reported kissing seven or more times in the previous month.

Duanzi as Networked Practice: How Online Satire Shapes Psychological Well-Being, Social Support, and Issue Knowledge for Chinese with Different Social Capital during COVID-19 Outbreaks

Practices oriented to digital technologies are being invented to change how people cope with crises. This study examines how Chinese netizens' networked practices (e.g., liking, sharing, or commenting) with COVID-19 related duanzi (short online satires) influenced their psychological well-being, external social support, and issue knowledge during the pandemic. The role of social capital in moderating these relations is explored. Findings from the survey demonstrate that the act of "liking" a COVID-19 duanzi on WeChat has become a routine practice for Chinese netizens to kill time during the quarantine. However, the more bonding social capital one already had, the less they depended on duanzi "liking" to kill their boredom. Those less supported outside the family household, or less knowledgeable about the virus were also more likely to share a COVID-19 duanzi. Bonding social capital promotes one's well-being, therefore, the positive psychological effect of duanzi sharing or commenting grows more pronounced for netizens with more bonding social capital. Bridging social capital brought external social support. Netizens with more bridging social capital obtained more external support and more COVID-19 knowledge from duanzi sharing. The theoretical and practical implications are elaborated in the conclusions.

The Effect of Multimodal Emotional Expression on Responses to a Digital Human during a Self-Disclosure Conversation: a Computational Analysis of User Language

Digital humans show promise for use in healthcare as virtual therapists to deliver psychotherapy or companions for social support. For digital humans to be effective and engaging in these roles, it is important they can build close relationships with people. Emotional expressiveness can improve social closeness in human relationships, especially for females. However, it is unknown whether multimodal emotional expression improves relationships with digital humans. Participants were 185 adults aged 18 years or older with English fluency. Participants were block-randomized by gender to complete the Relationship Closeness Induction Task with one of six versions of a digital human. The digital humans varied in modality richness (face, no face) and emotional expression (emotional voice, neutral voice; emotional face, neutral face). Participants' language was analysed for emotional content using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software. A series of three-way ANOVA and ANCOVA were conducted to evaluate the effect of digital human face type, voice type, and participant gender on emotional content in participant language. A digital human with no face was associated with more first-person singular pronoun use than a neutral face and an emotional face digital human. A digital human with no face and a neutral voice received more general negative emotion language than a digital human with no face and an emotional voice. Findings suggest the presence of a face and emotion in the voice may improve emotional responses to digital humans. Results provide evidence for aspects of the theoretical framework of embodied agent-patient communication.

How Do Stress and Social Closeness Impact Prosocial Behavior?

Abstract. Factors such as time pressure and psychosocial stress may increase or decrease prosocial behavior depending on a number of factors. One factor that consistently positively impacts prosocial behavior is relationship status: Prosocial behavior is more likely toward kin than toward strangers. The interactions among stress, kin relationships, and prosocial behavior were examined in two separate experiments. In Study 1, 79 university students were asked to decide how much money to donate to family members, friends, or strangers, either under time pressure or with no time constraints. Participants donated more to close kin and friends than to strangers, but time pressure did not increase prosocial behavior. In Study 2, 94 university students completed the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups (TSST-G) or a control task, followed by a similar donation task as used in Study 1. Participants donated more to close kin and friends than to strangers, but stress did not influence donation amounts. These results do not support the hypothesis that stress due to time pressure or psychosocial factors increases prosocial behavior.

Laughter, Humor, and Cancer: Delicate Moments and Poignant Interactional Circumstances

Conversation analysis is employed to examine transcribed excerpts drawn from a subsample of 75 naturally occurring and video recorded interviews between cancer patients and 30 doctors. Close examination is provided of how cancer patients initiate, and doctors respond, to laughter and humor during oncology interviews. Interactions demonstrate that communication about the disease "cancer" shares qualities similar to other medical areas (e.g., primary care): the tendency for patients to initiate laughter or humor to address troubling and challenging circumstances; and that during moments when patients address personal matters, doctors are not invited and do not reciprocate with shared laughter and humor. Prominent in talk about cancer are various precarious circumstances, awkward and delicate moments mirroring the lived experiences of cancer patients (e.g., when patients attempt to minimize fears, justify that they are well when threatened with sickness, claim normality in the midst of chronic conditions, and take stances that weight loss and gain are not problematic). These examples provide a compelling case that routine cancer care involves many poignant situations managed through laughter and humor. Implications are raised for how quality care might be improved through grounded understandings of laughter, humor, and cancer.

Cortisol modulates men's affiliative responses to acute social stress

The dominant characterization of the physiological and behavioral human stress reaction is the fight-or-flight response. On the other hand, it has been suggested that social affiliation during stressful times ("tend-and-befriend") also represents a common adaptive response to stress, particularly for women. In the current study, we investigate the extent to which men may also show affiliative responses following acute stress. In addition, we examine a potential neuroendocrine modulator of the hypothesized affiliative response. Eighty male students (forty dyads) were recruited to undergo either the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups (TSST-G) or a non-stressful control situation. Subsequently, participants completed a dyadic interaction task and were then asked to report their feelings of psychological closeness to their interaction partner. Although participants assigned to the stress condition did not differ overall on psychological closeness from participants assigned to the control condition, participants with high cortisol responses to the stressor showed significantly higher ratings of psychological closeness to their interaction partner than participants with low cortisol responses. Our findings suggest that men may form closer temporary bonds following stressful situations that are accompanied by a significant cortisol response. We suggest that the traditional characterization of the male stress response in terms of "fight-or-flight" may be incomplete, and that social affiliation may in fact represent a common, adaptive response to stress in men.

Prosocial Behavior Mitigates the Negative Effects of Stress in Everyday Life

Recent theories of stress reactivity posit that, when stressed, individuals tend to seek out opportunities to affiliate with and nurture others in order to prevent or mitigate the negative effects of stress. However, few studies have tested empirically the role of prosocial behavior in reducing negative emotional responses to stress. The current analyses used daily diary data to investigate whether engaging in prosocial behavior buffered the negative effects of naturally-occurring stressors on emotional well-being. Results showed that on a given day, prosocial behavior moderated the effects of stress on positive affect, negative affect, and overall mental health. Findings suggest that affiliative behavior may be an important component of coping with stress, and indicate that engaging in prosocial behavior might be an effective strategy for reducing the impact of stress on emotional functioning.

The stress-buffering effects of a brief dyadic interaction before an acute stressor

Although previous studies have confirmed that affectionate interaction can reduce the effects of stress, whether or not this effect is due more to habituation or the accumulation of affection remains an area of debate. The goal of the present study was to determine how specific acts of affection mitigate the effects of stress. Sixty mixed-sex dyads (half platonic friends and half dating partners) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, affectionate interaction, quiet rest with the friend/romantic partner present, or separation from the friend/romantic partner, before one of the partners experienced a series of stressful activities. Results revealed that participants in the affection condition experienced the smallest increase in cardiovascular arousal regardless of relationship status. Participants' endocrine responses were more nuanced and depended on both their biological sex and the nature of the relationship with the companion. Given that these systems did not act in concert with one another, results provide mixed evidence for both an accumulation and habituation effect.

Helping hands, healthy body? Oxytocin receptor gene and prosocial behavior interact to buffer the association between stress and physical health

Providing help or support to others buffers the associations between stress and physical health. We examined the function of the neurohormone oxytocin as a biological mechanism for this stress-buffering phenomenon. Participants in a longitudinal study completed a measure of charitable behavior, and over the next two years provided assessments of stressful life events and physician-diagnosed physical ailments. Results indicated that charitable behavior buffered the associations between stressful events and new-onset ailments among individuals with the AA/AG genotypes of oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) variant rs53576, but not among those with the GG genotype. These results suggest that oxytocin function may significantly affect health and may help explain the associations between prosocial behavior and health. More broadly, these findings are consistent with a role for the caregiving behavioral system in health and well-being.

Giving to others and the association between stress and mortality

OBJECTIVES

We sought to test the hypothesis that providing help to others predicts a reduced association between stress and mortality.

METHODS

We examined data from participants (n = 846) in a study in the Detroit, Michigan, area. Participants completed baseline interviews that assessed past-year stressful events and whether the participant had provided tangible assistance to friends or family members. Participant mortality and time to death was monitored for 5 years by way of newspaper obituaries and monthly state death-record tapes.

RESULTS

When we adjusted for age, baseline health and functioning, and key psychosocial variables, Cox proportional hazard models for mortality revealed a significant interaction between helping behavior and stressful events (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.58; P < .05; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.35, 0.98). Specifically, stress did not predict mortality risk among individuals who provided help to others in the past year (HR = 0.96; 95% CI = 0.79, 1.18), but stress did predict mortality among those who did not provide help to others (HR = 1.30; P < .05; 95% CI = 1.05, 1.62).

CONCLUSIONS

Helping others predicted reduced mortality specifically by buffering the association between stress and mortality.

Social strain and cortisol regulation in midlife in the US

Chronic stress has been implicated in a variety of adverse health outcomes, from compromised immunity to cardiovascular disease to cognitive decline. The hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis has been postulated to play the primary biological role in translating chronic stress into ill health. Stressful stimuli activate the HPA-axis and cause an increase in circulating levels of cortisol. Frequent and long-lasting activation of the HPA-axis, as occurs in recurrently stressful environments, can in the long run compromise HPA-axis functioning and ultimately affect health. Negative social interactions with family and friends may be a significant source of stress in daily life, constituting the type of recurrently stressful environment that could lead to compromised HPA functioning and altered diurnal cortisol rhythms. We use data from two waves (1995 and 2004-2005) of the Midlife in the U.S. (MIDUS) study and from the National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE) and piecewise growth curve models to investigate relationships between histories of social strain and patterns of diurnal cortisol rhythms. We find that reported levels of social strain were significantly associated with their diurnal cortisol rhythm. These effects were more pronounced for individuals with a history of greater reported strain across a ten-year period.