The comparison between active and passive types of social support: the emotional responses

Abstract

Social support was manipulated in previous experimental studies in different ways, including active support and passive support. The present study compared the effects among active support, passive support, and alone conditions on emotional changes by randomly assigning 61 participants to either one of the support conditions. Consistent with the hypothesized, passive support produced lower level of positive affect and attentive than active support and alone, reduced level of active than alone, as well as decrease in determined than active support condition after a stressful task. The passively supported appraised the task to be less pleasant than did the actively supported. Implication of the findings was discussed in terms of the definition of social support and the manipulation of social support in laboratory settings.