Effect Of Social Support Visibility On Situational Stress Of University Students

Although there is abundant evidence that perceived availability of support buffers the effects of stressors on mental health, the relatively meager research on support transactions has failed to show an association between actual receipt of support and adjustment to stressors. Previous fieldwork has suggested that visible social support can entail an emotional cost and that a supportive act is most effective when it is invisible. We examine weather visible support is more effective than invisible support when adjustment situational stress.Participants were recruited from the Sichuan normal university. Participants were led to a stressful lecture task and the research assistant provided support in such a way that is visible or invisible.62 Participants(35 female, 7male)were randomly assigned to the two conditions, which resulted in 32 being in the visible support condition and 30 in the invisible support condition. Distress was measured using the Brief Profile of Mood States.The result showed that there's no different between the visible support and the invisible support in effect on adjustment of situation stress.