Perceptions of social support influence adaptive self-regulatory processes that maintain health, produce feelings, and motivate behavior. Although associations between sociality and health are increasingly well-understood, there is little systematic research into the effects of social support on fatigue, physical discomfort, exertion, and output regulation in physical activity. We conducted an experimental study to investigate the effect of social support on performance and perceived difficulty in a handgrip force task while controlling for audience and reputational factors. Effects were compared with those of another established psychogenic performance enhancer (a placebo ergogenic supplement). During handgrip trials over varying levels of objective difficulty, participants viewed photographs of a support figure or stranger while in a placebo or control condition. Results revealed a significant main effect of the social support cue on handgrip performance outputs, and a significant interaction with objective trial difficulty – relative to the stranger cue, the support-figure cue significantly increased handgrip performance outputs and the effect was larger in more objectively difficult trials. Moreover, despite producing greater handgrip outputs, participants perceived trials to be significantly less difficult in the social support condition. Though there was a non-significant main effect of placebo (vs. control) on performance outputs, participants perceived trials in the placebo condition to be significantly less difficult. The research contributes new evidence and theory on the role of perceived social support – an important (energetic) resource – in human performance and motivates further enquiry into how cues to support alter perceived effort and performance outputs in strenuous physical challenges.

对社会支持的看法会影响维持健康、产生情感和激励行为的适应性自我调节过程。尽管社会性与健康之间的关联越来越被理解，但很少有系统研究社会支持对身体活动中的疲劳、身体不适、劳累和输出调节的影响。我们进行了一项实验研究，以调查社会支持对握力任务中的表现和感知难度的影响，同时控制受众和声誉因素。效果与另一种已建立的心理表现增强剂（安慰剂增效补充剂）的效果进行了比较。在不同水平的客观难度的手柄试验中，参与者在安慰剂或对照条件下观看支持人物或陌生人的照片。结果表明，社会支持线索对握把表现输出有显着的主要影响，并且与客观试题难度有显着的相互作用——相对于陌生人线索，支持图线索显着增加了握把表现输出，并且在客观难度更大的情况下效果更大试验。此外，尽管产生了更大的手柄输出，但参与者认为在社会支持条件下的试验难度显着降低。尽管安慰剂（相对于对照）对绩效输出的主要影响不显着，但参与者认为安慰剂条件下的试验难度明显较低。