The Effects Of Emotional Support And Informational Support On Social Pain

Social pain is an emotional pain experience that people experience when their social relationships are destroyed or lost.Excessive social pain experience can seriously damage people’s physical and mental health,and it is of great significance to carry out further research on alleviating social pain.Social support is widespread in humans’daily lives.It can help individuals to relieve stress and it becomes an important resource for individuals to cope with social pain.Among them,emotional support and informational support are two commonly used social support methods.In previous studies,emotional support used touch channels,while the way of informational support was visual channels.These two modes of operation confuse the influence of perception channels and social support types on social pain.Experiment1 will explore the impact of emotional support and informational support on social pain on the basis of unifying sensory channels.Most previous studies used subjective reports to measure social pain,and it was difficult to reflect the entire dynamic process of social pain relief.The second study will add a physiological multi-conductor instrument to measure the dynamic changes of social pain.In addition,according to the need-threat sequence model,individuals produce social pain because social exclusion threatens basic needs,and further satisfying these basic needs can alleviate social pain.Study 2 will also explore whether basic needs play a mediating role in emotional support and informational support in relieving social pain.In Study 1,192(96 pairs of female friends)female college students were recruited as subjects.The subjects were randomly divided into three groups(emotional support vs.informational support vs.no support)using a single-factor inter-subject experimental design.Social pain is induced by the game of throwing small balls online,and social pain(including positive and negative emotions)is measured by subjective reporting.The results found that the main effect between the groups was significant F(2,87)=20.01,p<0.001,η_p~2=0.31;post-hoc comparison found that compared with the no support group,the emotional support group had lower negative emotions after support.Positive emotions were higher,p<0.001;there was no significant difference in all indicators between the informational support and the unsupported group,p>0.05;the emotional support group and the unsupported group had no significant difference,p>0.05.The results indicate that emotional support can significantly relieve social pain,while informational support does not relieve social pain.Study 1 recruited 192(96 pairs)participants,and adopted a mixed experimental design of 3(emotional support vs.informational support vs.no support)×2(rejected vs.accepted).Social support is an inter-subject variable,and acceptance and rejection are intra-subject variables.It was found that,compared with the non-support group,emotional support relieved social pain,while informational support did not relieve social pain.Study 2 Recruited 186 female college students(93 pairs of female friends)as subjects,and induced social pain through an online ball game.A single-factor inter-subject experimental design was used to randomly divide the subjects into three groups(emotional support vs..Informational support vs.no support),measuring basic needs(sense of belonging,sense of self-esteem,sense of control,and presence),subjects subjectively reporting social pain(positive and negative emotions)and objective social pain(skin electrical changes)rate).The results showed that the main effect between the groups was significant,F(2,87)=18.08,p<0.001,η_p~2=0.29;compared with the no support group,the emotional support group had lower negative emotions after support,and more positive emotions.High,the skin electric change rate is lower,p<0.001;there is no significant difference in all indicators between the informational support and the non-support group,p>0.05.The mediating effect analysis found that the overall indicators of basic needs play a part of the mediating role in emotional support and alleviation of social pain.For each need to be further analyzed,only the sense of self-esteem and the sense of presence play a part of the mediating role in emotional support and alleviation of social pain.In summary,this study mainly draws the following conclusions:affective support can relieve social pain,and informational support does not relieve social pain;emotional support can relieve social pain by satisfying basic needs.