Our goal is to investigate if same-sex friends help each other to cope more effectively with a stressful event and, if so, how they cope. A major advantage of the study is that it is an experimental and not a correlational design. Subjects will be placed in a stressful situation, randomly paired with either a same-sex friend or stranger. Thus, the effects of friendship on coping behavior and emotional responses will not be confounded with the relative psychological health of the subjects, enabling us to test the prediction that being in a stressful situation with a friend as compared to a stranger will reduce stressful feelings. A goal is to develop a taxonomy of the verbal and nonverbal behaviors exchanged by friends (or strangers) as they interact together before facing the stressful event. By identifying the behaviors that are correlated to stress reduction, future experimental research can be designed to assess the magnitude of their effects on stress reduction. The present research is a springboard to accomplishing longer-term objectives, including establishing the generalizability and limitations of friends' roles in helping one another to cope with various stressful events. We also plan to develop a workshop-intervention program at a university counseling center to improve individuals' interpersonal skills in assisting friends and significant others to cope with various problems and hence reduce vulnerability (physically and psychologically) to stress.
