Although stressors are common in group life, people cope better when group authorities treat them with care/concern. However, it remains unclear whether such treatment affects individuals’ physiological stress. In this experiment, individuals engaged in an interview known to increase cortisol (stress biomarker). Surrounding the interview, an ingroup supervisor treated them with standard professionalism (politeness [control]), explicit care/concern (high-quality treatment), or disregard (poor-quality treatment). While those in the control condition experienced a spike in cortisol, individuals in the high-quality treatment condition did not experience this physiological stress (cortisol). Those given poor-quality treatment also did not exhibit stress, suggesting the explicit disregard for them may have undermined the interview’s legitimacy, thereby removing social evaluative threat. Paralleling past research, self-reported stress did not reflect individuals’ physiological stress (cortisol). Overall, results suggest that to alleviate group members’ physiological stress, supervisors need to be more than polite and professional–also demonstrating care/concern for them as individuals.

尽管压力源在团体生活中很常见，但当团体当局关心/关心他们时，人们会更好地应对。然而，尚不清楚这种治疗是否会影响个体的生理压力。在这个实验中，参与已知会增加皮质醇（压力生物标志物）的采访的个体。在面试的过程中，一位内组主管以标准的专业精神（礼貌 [控制]）、明确的关心/关心（高质量的治疗）或无视（低质量的治疗）对待他们。虽然处于控制状态的人的皮质醇含量会激增，但处于高质量治疗条件下的人并没有经历这种生理压力（皮质醇）。那些接受低质量待遇的人也没有表现出压力，这表明对他们的明确无视可能破坏了采访的合法性，从而消除社会评价威胁。与过去的研究平行，自我报告的压力并未反映个人的生理压力（皮质醇）。总体而言，结果表明，为了减轻团队成员的生理压力，主管不仅需要礼貌和专业，还要表现出对他们个人的关心/关心。