Objective: Stress has a significant effect on both mental and physical health. Previous research on stress focuses on ways relationships can help people to recover from stressful experiences. However, this research is limited because it focuses primarily on romantic relationships and does not fully consider benefits of other relationships. Our study explores the role of sibling relationships to help people recover from the negative effects of stress. Specifically, we expose participants to a stressful task and then randomly assign them to one of three conditions: (1) to write a gratitude letter to their sibling, (2) to write a gratitude letter to a peer, or (3) to write what they did the last seven days.
Hypothesis: We hypothesize that writing a gratitude letter for a sibling will better aid in stress recovery compared to writing a gratitude letter for a peer or to a neutral task. More specifically, participants who write gratitude letters to their siblings will experience the greatest drop in both negative affect and physiological response (i.e. heart rate and blood pressure).
Methods: A sample of Sewanee students who have a least one sibling will be recruited to participate in the study. Participants will complete a stressful task and subsequently write a gratitude letter (for their sibling or a peer) or a control activity. Measures of emotions, physiology, and social connection will be completed before the stressful task, after the stressful task, and after the writing activity.
Conclusion: Studies show siblings play a central role in people’s lives (McHale, Updegraff & Whitman, 2012), and it is important to consider how those relationships are related to health. Through focusing on sibling relationships, the results of this study can be used to design interventions that incorporate siblings in efforts to reducing stress.
