Social comparison and affiliation under threat: Effects on recovery from major surgery.

Abstract

This study extends stress and affiliation research by examining the effects of preoperative roommate assignments on the affiliation patterns, preoperative anxiety, and postoperative recovery of 84 male coronary-bypass patients. Patients were assigned preoperatively to a room alone or to a semiprivate room with a roommate who was either cardiac or noncardiac and either preoperative or postoperative. Patients assigned to a roommate who was postoperative rather than preoperative were less anxious, were more ambulatory postoperatively, and had shorter postoperative stays. Independently, patients were more ambulatory postoperatively and were discharged sooner if assigned to a roommate who was cardiac rather than noncardiac. No-roommate patients generally had the slowest recoveries. Affiliations reflecting cognitive clarity concerns, emotional comparison, and emotional support were examined. Theoretical implications for research involving social comparison and affiliation under threat are considered.

Effects of Exercise Training and Social Environment on Stress Resilience in Male and Female Long-Evans Rats

“…Social housing will attenuate stress' effects on biological and psychological measures. This hypothesis is based on research demonstrating that social housing decreases the stress response in rodents (Brown & Grunberg, 1995;Detillion et al, 2004;DeVries et al, 2003DeVries et al, , 2007Ditzen et al, 2007;Glasper & DeVries, 2005;Heinrichs et al, 2003;Hennessy et al, 2009;Plante et al, 2007;Thorsteinsson & James, 1999) and in humans (Kulik, Mahler, & Moore, 1996;Lepore, 1992).…”

Are You Feeling What I’m Feeling? Emotional Similarity Buffers Stress

“…For example, some findings demonstrate that people in anxiety-provoking situations report reduced anxiety when they are in the presence of others who are in the same situation; however, only participants who were firstborn children showed such reduced anxiety (Wrightsman, 1960; also see Epley, 1974). In addition, studies examining stress-related benefits have often equated situational similarity with emotional similarity by operationalizing emotional similarity as two people being in the same situation (e.g., both anticipating a scary event) and dissimilarity as two people being in different situations (e.g., one anticipating a scary event and the other anticipating an innocuous event; e.g., Gump & Kulik, 1997;Kulik, Mahler, & Moore, 1996;Schachter, 1959). However, individuals do not always have the same emotional responses, even given identical situations.…”

Psychological preparation for patients undergoing day surgery

“…Finally, in a study Kulik et al (1996) of 84 males and their roommates following coronary artery by-pass surgery, support from other patients was viewed as very positive. Patients who were placed in the same room as other males who had undergone the same operation, and were recovering well, had a better recovery.…”