The implicit affiliation motive moderates cortisol responses to acute psychosocial stress in high school students

Wegner, Mirko; Schüler, Julia; Budde, Henning (2014). The implicit affiliation motive moderates cortisol responses to acute psychosocial stress in high school students. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 48(48), pp. 162-168. Elsevier 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2014.06.013

[img] Text
1-s2.0-S0306453014002200-main.pdf - Published Version
Restricted to registered users only
Available under License Publisher holds Copyright.

Download (612kB) | Request a copy

It has been previously shown that the implicit affiliation motive – the need to establish and maintain friendly relationships with others – leads to chronic health benefits. The underlying assumption for the present research was that the implicit affiliation motive also moderates the salivary cortisol response to acute psychological stress when some aspects of social evaluation and uncontrollability are involved. By contrast we did not expect similar effects in response to exercise as a physical stressor. Fifty-nine high school students aged M = 14.8 years were randomly assigned to a psychosocial stress (publishing the results of an intelligence test performed), a physical stress (exercise intensity of 65–75% of HRmax), and a control condition (normal school lesson) each lasting 15 min. Participants’ affiliation motives were assessed using the Operant Motive Test and salivary cortisol samples were taken pre and post stressor. We found that the strength of the affiliation motive negatively predicted cortisol reactions to acute psychosocial but not to physical stress when compared to a control group. The results suggest that the affiliation motive buffers the effect of acute psychosocial stress on the HPA axis.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Sport Science (ISPW)
07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Sport Science (ISPW) > Sport Psychology and Research Methods

UniBE Contributor:

Wegner, Mirko, Schüler, Julia

Subjects:

100 Philosophy > 150 Psychology
700 Arts > 790 Sports, games & entertainment

ISSN:

0306-4530

Publisher:

Elsevier

Language:

English

Submitter:

Corinne Ammann

Date Deposited:

06 Mar 2015 14:13

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:42

Publisher DOI:

10.1016/j.psyneuen.2014.06.013

Related URLs:

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Cortisol, Affiliation motive, Psychosocial stress, Physical stress, Adolescents, School

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.64121

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/64121

Actions (login required)

Edit item Edit item
Provide Feedback