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Updated: May 22, 2026

The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
Comparing social contact and group identification as predictors of mental health
Fabio Sani1, Marina Herrera, Juliet R H Wakefield
1School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK. f.sani@dundee.ac.uk
Abstract:
Current research on social integration and mental health operationalizes social integration as frequency of interactions and participation in social activities (i.e., social contact). This neglects the subjective dimension of social integration, namely group identification. We present two studies comparing the effect exerted by social contact and group identification on mental health (e.g., depression, stress) across two different groups (family; army unit), demonstrating that group identification predicts mental health better than social contact.
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