Running head: Social support and stress: The influence of Teacher 1

Social Support and Stress: The Influence of Teachers

Asia Shorter
Spring 2015
HDFS 305
Purdue University

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Social Support: Teacher and Teens
Social support is an important part of maintaining ones self-esteem and health. Creating
bonds of communication, can help people cope with challenges and promote physical health,
psychological heath and overall welling. The National Cancer institute definition of social
support is a network of family, friends, neighbors, and community members that is available in
times of need to give psychological, physical, and financial help (2015). Teacher can provide
the social support that an adolescent need in order to handle internal and external stress. Support
can help calm the body and relieve some of the chronic stressors, fostering stability.
Social networks are a great way for teens to cope with changes and new situations. The
relationships between students and the teachers is one form of social support that adolescents
reserve. The support that teachers provided to their students can help foster academic
achievements and improve performance. During adolescence, students feel a lot of pressure from
different parts of their life and having avenues of social support to help foster stability.
Bronfenbrenners ecological theory emphases the importance of schools in the microsystem.
(Hombrados, 2012) This shows that school are equally as significant as family in terms of
environment of development. During adolescence, students spend a large amount of time at
school. During this time, relationships between students and teachers can be created.
The types of support that teachers demonstrate are informational, emotional, and
instrumental (Hombrados, 2012). Informational support is providing advice and guidance to
someone. Emotional support refers to offering empathy and concern, which is associated with
warmth. Instrumental support is a form of social support that is direct. It is finding ways people
assist others such as services, financial help, or material goods (Hombrados, 2012). In a
multitude of ways, teachers provided different types of social support for their students. These

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supports our great for the development of adolescents and helps them to cope with different
stressors and are life.
Stress
Stress is present throughout the daily lives of everyone. Stress is a necessary part of
living and surviving. People have different responses to various stressors. The body offers many
protections against stress. The body has developed a systematic mechanisms in order to deal with
stress and maintain stability. A stressor refers to anything that describes psychological balance in
and the stress response is how the body adapts and accommodates to reestablish balance
(Sapolsky, 2002).
When stressor is perceived, the brain and the immune system activate this stress
responses in order to regulate the body. The hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis (HPA) is the
bodys the way of maintains its functions in time of stress and determines how one response to a
stressor. The hypothalamus sends corticotrophin -releasing hormone (CRH) to the pituitary
gland, located below the hypothalamus (Sapolsky, 2002). The pituitary gland then sends
adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) to the adrenal gland, located on top of the kidneys
(Sapolsky, 2002). The adrenal glands than produces cortisol (Sapolsky, 2002). Cortisol effects
how one response to a stressor. Cortisol also activates so the bodys functions can return to
normal following a stressful event. The stress response effects the autonomic nervous system
which is divided into two main components. Those components are the sympathetic nervous
system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). Both systems help regulate how
the body handles a stressor. The SNS or fight or flight system prepares one to act when faced
with a stressor (Sapolsky, 2002). While The PNS calms the body down. It promotes growth and
digestion; it also slows down the heart rate and slows breathing (Sapolsky, 2002). The systems
are needed to help maintain homeostasis and stability. Unfortunately, in our current high-stress

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culture, the bodys stress response is activated so often that the body doesnt always have a
chance to return to normal, resulting in a state of chronic stress.

Social Support and Stress

With the current chronic stress involved in their daily lives, adolescence need social
support. In this time period, adolescents are changing both physically and mentally. With the
right support it can help ease some of the stressors. Adolescents are going through puberty and
their brains are still developing.
During this time the bodies of the adolescents are changing and developing. In puberty,
the hypothalamus is activated and releases hormones through the HPG axis. This axis is similar
to the HPG axis, but instead of sending the signals to the adrenal gland, the signals are sent to the
gonads (ovaries or testes) (Romeo, 2010). The HPG axis then beginning to
produce estradiol and testosterone. The release of these hormones cause many changes to the
body and the brain. The production of the hormones can shape the physiological development of
an adolescent.
These body changes coupled with different types of external stressors makes for an
unstable mix. With the internal stress of the body changes and the external stress from school
work, family life, and other social pressures, having social support from others can help relieve
some of the effects of the stressors. Being subjected to these stressor can cause negative
emotions. When a person is constantly stressed the stress response will continue to be activated.
The HPA axis will continue making more cortisol causing the heart rate to increase and slowing
down digestion (Sapolsky, 2002). Finding show that, social support led to a significantly lower
endocrine (cortisol) and psychological stress response (anxiety, restlessness) (Ditzena, 2014).
Having social support can help stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system making the person

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calm down and lower their heart rate. This will allow the individual to return to homeostasis.
When teachers provided informational, emotional, and instrumental support to their students, it
can relieve the anxiety from the external stressors. On a study done on small schools show that
the relationship between teachers and students. In this study teachers acted as counselors, social
workers, and psychologists to address the social and emotional needs of the students (Phillippo,
2010). The demand for social and emotional support and said schools was high and essential to
the student success (Phillippo, 2010). Teachers can act as a buffer for the magnitude of stressors
in the students lives.
By providing social support, teachers can help students cope with some of the issues.
Coping and emotional regulation are related to students academic performance and proceed
academic stress. One seminal review of stress during adolescence defined coping as conscious
volitional efforts to regulate emotion, cognition . . . and the environment in response to stressful
events or circumstances (Arsenio, 2014). Teacher-students relationships influences adolescents
academic trajectories (Arsenio, 2014). Coping can include trying to fix problems and emotional
regulation, but coping can include trying avoid and deny issues and the use of wishful thinking
(Arsenio, 2014). Depending only one type of coping style, students have a higher level of
engagement coping hey gradually lowered their internal and external disorders (Arsenio, 2014).
Having assistance from teachers can help lessen some of the stress. The focus on academic stress
is especially relevant for adolescents. Students who have higher levels of negative emotions and
moods also do worse academically.
In conclusion, teacher can provide the social support that an adolescent need in order to
handle internal and external stress. The human body maintains systems so that we can react and
calm down from a stressful event. But sometime, the body need help to calm down and relieve
some of the chronic stressors; social support can to foster stability.

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References
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