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The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
The influence of social support and problematic support on optimism and depression in chronic illness: a prospective
Petra Symister1, Ronald Friend
1Department of Psychology,State University of New York at Stony Brook, 11794-2500, USA. pls@berkeleycollege.edu
Abstract:
The present study focused on the mechanism through which social and problematic support affects psychological adjustment in chronic illness. The authors hypothesized that self-esteem would mediate the relations between social and problematic support and adjustment. Eighty-six end-stage renal disease patients were assessed twice for social support problematic support, and self-esteem. Adjustment was assessed twice by depression and optimism. Mediational analyses indicated that social support operated through self-esteem to influence optimism cross-sectionally and prospectively and depression cross-sectionally. Social support was associated with high self-esteem, which in turn increased optimism and was related to decreased depression. Problematic support was unrelated to self-esteem obviating mediational analysis. Disaggregating social support into subscales showed that belonging support predicted decreases in depression, and both tangible and belonging support predicted increases in optimism.
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