Value affirmation or emotional support: The buffering effect of social rewards on psychological stress

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that social rewards can buffer the stress response. However, little is known about whether different types of social rewards differ in their buffering effects on different psychological stressors. Additionally, since psychological stress usually impairs people's cognitive performance, this study also examined whether social rewards could enhance cognitive abilities after stress. This study used the Trier Social Stress Test (Experiment 1) and Yale Interpersonal Stressor (Experiment 2) to induce performance and interpersonal stress, respectively. Two randomized controlled experiments with Chinese university students (N = 85 in Experiment 1, N = 78 in Experiment 2) compared the buffering effects of value affirmation and emotional support on stress. Furthermore, cognitive ability-enhancing effects were assessed through mental arithmetic performance (Experiment 1) and working memory capacity (Experiment 2). Results showed: 1) only value affirmation, but not emotional support, buffered the performance stress response (lower levels of cortisol, heart rate, and reports of subjective stress) compared to the control condition. 2) while both value affirmation and emotional support buffered interpersonal stress compared to the control condition, emotional support buffered better (lower cortisol and heart rate) than value affirmation. 3) Value affirmation enhanced mental arithmetic accuracy during performance stress and working memory capacity after interpersonal stress, whereas emotional support showed no cognitive benefits. These findings suggest that value affirmation is more effective at buffering performance stress, while emotional support is more effective at buffering interpersonal stress. However, only value affirmation enhances cognitive performance in both performance and interpersonal stress.