| Abstract: |
Subjective social status (SSS) measures where a person places them self in a social hierarchy and has emerged as a predictor of health outcomes beyond traditional socioeconomic status (SES) indicators. Interestingly, SES indicators such as income have been identified as the strongest predictors of SSS. The current study aimed at examining how SSS is associated with stress-related measures in a situation where SES indicators change rapidly and furthermore, whether social support may be an alternative determinant of SSS.
To answer these questions, we assessed SSS, perceived social support, and perceived stress in 18 unemployed German citizens as well as in 18 employed controls. Saliva samples were collected on two consecutive days to assess cortisol awakening responses (recovery: +60 minus +30min).
We found that unemployed individuals reported significantly lower SSS among their neighborhood, less social support (overall and social integration), higher perceived stress, and showed a lack of CAR recovery (all p > .045). Interestingly, unemployed individuals did not report lower SSS among friends (t(34)=-1.26, p=.22). While for both groups, low instrumental support was related to higher perceived stress (ß=-.29, p=.057), the negative relationship between emotional support and perceived stress was specific to unemployed individuals (ß=-0.375, p=.06). With regard to SSS, we found that independent of employment status, lower SSS was related to higher perceived stress (friends: ß=-0.33, p=.03; neighborhood: ß=-0.35, p=.02) and low SSS among friends predicted a lack of CAR recovery (ß=-.30, p=.08). Finally, social support predicted SSS in specific ways: instrumental support predicted SSS among neighborhood for both groups (ß=.345, p=.04) and overall social support and social integration predicted SSS among friends for employed individuals only (ß=0.40, p=.088; ß=0.47, p=.086, respectively). Subjective social status did not mediate the relationship between social support and stress-related measures (c=-1.59, p=.11).
We concluded that for unemployed individuals, the ability to decouple low social support from their assessment of status among friends was a healthy mechanism whereas the use of instrumental support for determining status among neighbors could be associated with increased perceived stress providing a basis for development of health-improving interventions for unemployment. |
