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

Abstract

It has been previously shown that the implicit affiliation motive — the need toestablish and maintain friendly relationships with others — leads to chronic health benefits.The underlying assumption for the present research was that the implicit affiliation motivealso moderates the salivary cortisol response to acute psychological stress when some aspectsof social evaluation and uncontrollability are involved. By contrast we did not expect simi-lar effects in response to exercise as a physical stressor. Fifty-nine high school students agedM = 14.8 years were randomly assigned to a psychosocial stress (publishing the results of anintelligence test performed), a physical stress (exercise intensity of 65—75% of HRmax), and acontrol condition (normal school lesson) each lasting 15 min. Participants’ affiliation motiveswere assessed using the Operant Motive Test and salivary cortisol samples were taken pre andpost stressor. We found that the strength of the affiliation motive negatively predicted cortisolreactions 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 stresson the HPA axis.