The Impact of an Enacted Social Support Training Intervention on Worklife Interaction and Stress in a Sample of Working Adults

The present investigation explores utilizes an enacted social support intervention among a group of working adults. Reductions in psychological and physiological stress were hypothesized to occur following the experimental intervention. Participants (N = 46) were all full time staff members at a large university and were randomly assigned to treatment or wait-list control groups. Treatment group members attended two 90 minute enacted social support meetings over the course of four weeks. Psychological (perceived stress and worklife conflict) and physiological (salivary cortisol) data were collected at both pretest and posttest periods. Results did not support the research hypotheses; however, a research question exploring the buffering effect of enacted support was answered in the affirmative. Enacted social support moderated the relationship between psychological and physiological stress at the pretest. The discussion presents a detailed assessment of theoretical and practical applications as well as suggestions for utilizing field social support interventions