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Updated: Jun 29, 2025

The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
Social support predicted subsequent subjective well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: a prospective study
Yanhui Mao1,2, Junpeng Chen3, Xinqi Liu1
1Institute of Applied Psychology, Psychological Research and Counseling Center, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China.
Background:
Subjective well-being (SWB) is associated with social support in cross-sectional studies. However, it remains unclear whether and how social support predicts SWB longitudinally, especially during the COVID-19 contingency.
Methods:
By adopting a prospective design, the current work addressed this research question in a sample of 594 participants from the U.K. The data were collected via the online platform, Prolific, at two time points (June, 2020 and August, 2021) with a 14-month interval. Descriptive analysis and a moderated mediation model were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.
Results:
Baseline social support was a significant predictor of subjective well-being (SWB) 14 months later, even after controlling for baseline SWB and other covariates such as personality traits. Additionally, affect balance (i.e., the affective component of SWB) fully mediated the link between baseline social support and subsequent life satisfaction (i.e., the cognitive component of SWB). Moreover, household income moderated this relationship, indicating a stronger mediation for individuals with lower monthly household income.
Conclusion:
The present work sheds light on the underlying mechanism and boundary condition of the association between social support and different components of SWB during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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