UC Davis

Social support, via investment in relationships of importance with others, is often emphasized as a pathway towards mediating stress. The effectiveness of social support, however, can be altered by personality differences, but the physiological consequences of such covariation are still poorly explored. How do individual differences in the functioning of the stress response system mediate access to, and use of, social support? To examine this dynamic, we investigated glucocorticoids as a biomarker of energetic activation that may also be activated by chronic psychosocial stress. For this purpose, we studied a wild anthropoid primate, i.e. the olive baboon (Papio anubis), for 17 months, in Laikipia District, Kenya. We measured biomarkers of energetic activation, i.e., fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (fGCms), to address whether individual differences in stress coping and social support were associated with variation in hormone levels across a period from 2018 to 2019. We found evidence for an association between social support and fGCm concentrations. This association had a discernable interaction between sex and social support: we found a negative association in male baboons, relative to females-who did not have a pronounced effect. Our findings emphasize the importance of social support in male baboons. The cost of not having diverse bonds, has been downplayed in male baboons.