The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test

The role of social support and social identification on challenge and threat cognitive appraisals, perceived stress, and life satisfaction in workplace employees

There is an emergent literature highlighting the positive role of social support and social identification in buffering against the deleterious effects of psychological stressors. Yet, we have limited understanding of how exactly these social factors fit within contemporary stress and coping theory. To advance and gain a greater understanding of these social factors, we explore the associations of social support and social identification on individuals' challenge and threat cognitive appraisals and how this then relates to perceived stress, life satisfaction, turnover intentions, and job performance. A total of 412 workplace employees from private and public sector occupations completed state measures around a recent most stressful experience at work. Results revealed atemporal associations between cognitive resource appraisals with both social support and social identification. Specifically, greater identification with colleagues and lower threat were related to less perceived stress, while having greater social identification (with colleagues and organisation), social support, and lower threat, were related to greater life satisfaction. Greater perceived stress, and lower social identification and life satisfaction, were also related to greater turnover intentions. While greater identification with the organisation and life satisfaction, along with lower perceived stress were related to greater job performance. Taken together, this research provides evidence that social support and social identification play a positive role when trying to promote more adaptive responses to stressful situations.

International students' collective resilience in crisis: Sense of community reduced anxiety via social contact and social support during lockdown

Objectives

The role of community in individuals' well-being has been extensively examined in the Western context. However, little is known about how the host community is related to sojourners' well-being in a crisis in an Asian context. The current study aims at exploring international students' sense of community in the Chinese context under the direct threat of a global health crisis.

Methods

Using a cross-sectional sample of 102 international students staying in Wuhan during the 76-day lockdown at the earliest stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the current study explored the relationship between international students' sense of community and anxiety, and the mediating role of social contact, social support from three key sources in the host community (host university, international students, and Chinese friends).

Results

Results showed that participants' stronger sense of community indirectly reduced anxiety via the role of sources of contact and support from the host community.

Conclusions

This study provided further evidence to support the nurturance of the sense of community in community resilience and provided implications on how the host community can help to enhance sojourners' psychological well-being in a global crisis.

The relation between social identity and test anxiety in university students

Social identification has been shown to be a protective resource for mental health. In this study, the relationships between social identification and emotional, as well as cognitive symptoms of test anxiety are investigated. Participants were university students diagnosed with test anxiety (N = 108). They completed questionnaires regarding a range of psychopathologic stress symptoms, and their social identification with fellow students and with their study program. Results reveal negative relations between social identification and almost all investigated emotional and cognitive symptoms of test anxiety. Based on this study, interventions could be developed that strengthen the social identity of university students.