Relationships

The Need to Belong

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The motivation to belong (to form and maintain positive social connnections) with others
is
o universal
o not derivative
o early emerging and sustained throughout the lifespan
o associated with specialized cognitive, emotional, and motivational mechanisms
o predictive of mental and physical health outcomes

Health Consequences of Social Integration

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objective measures of social integration (ex. Size of social networks) and subjective
measures (ex. Self-reported loneliness) predict important health outcomes including
o lower resting blood pressure
o higher likelihood of contracting cold when experimentally exposed to virus
o lower basal stress hormone levels
o better immune system functioning (i.e., natural killer cells)
o lower breast cancer diagnosis
o higher survivorship up to 5 years after coronary bypass surgery

Why does social integration affect health outcomes?

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There are several explanations as to why social integration has the impact that it has on
our health. The lightening the load hypothesis, states that people with greater social
resources perceive a more benign, less threatening world
Greater social resources = psychologically perceiving situations & events as less
threatening
o Highly lonely people perceive everyday stressors to be more demandnign and
believe they have less capacity to meet those demands than less lonely people

Experimental study to support idea of social support, measuring cardiovascular responses

to challenges

Experimental Studies of Social Support and Threat Perceptions

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Particpants walk past a hill with a 25 degree angle on university campus

Experimenters recorded whether the participant was either alone (low support condition)
or with a friend (high support condition)
Participants were asked to put on a weighted backpack and look at the hill and attempt to
estimate the slope of the hill
o Explicit measure: Participants wrote down their estimate of the slant of the hill in
gemoetric degrees
o Haptic measure: Participants adjusted their palm on a palmboard until they
thought the slope of the plamboard matched the slope of the hill (without looking
down at their hand)

Imagery Task
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Participants randomly assigned to form an image of either a...

o negative contact (former friend who betrayed or disappointed them in time of
need)
o neutral contact (someone they saw frequently but did not personally know)
o positive contact (important person in their life who could provide help in a
difficult situation)
People in the positive contact condition (imagery task) estimated more accurately the
degree of the slope of the hill when compared to those in the negative contact condition

Social Factors that Differentiated People who Died from Matched Controls

Living alone (46% of deceased vs. 33% controls)

Having friends in Chicago (90% of deceased vs. 97% controls)
Participation in group activities (46% of deceased vs. 55% controls)
Owning a pet (24% of deceased vs. 30% controls)