Abstract :
Keywords Social networking; Ecological momentary assessment; Social comparison; Negative emotion; Cortisol Highlights * Naturalistic social comparisons are associated with lower cortisol in daily life. * Emotions during technology-mediated interactions associate with higher cortisol. * More time spent in technology-mediated interactions associate with higher cortisol. Abstract The emotional and social evaluative aspects of social interactions influence cortisol. The interactions that mothers have on social networking sites and via other technology involve heightened social comparison and emotion. We examined the associations between technology-mediated social engagement, social comparisons and emotion during technology-mediated social exposures (TMSEs), and cortisol during daily life. Forty-seven mothers (mean age = 34.38) completed a 4-day monitoring period involving four saliva collections and questionnaires daily at awakening, 4 h post-awakening, 9 h post-awakening, and bedtime. Higher social comparison during TMSE was associated with lower momentary cortisol, whereas higher negative emotions during TMSE and more time spent in TMSE were associated with higher momentary cortisol. Higher average social comparison during TMSE was associated with lower average daily cortisol output (area under the curve with respect to ground; AUCg), and more time spent on TMSE was associated with higher average AUCg. This study presents the first evidence that naturalistic social-cognitive and emotional reactions to TMSE are associated with cortisol in daily life. Abbreviation EMA, ecological momentary assessment; HPA, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal; TMSE, technology-mediated social exposure Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Psychology, Pepperdine University, United States (b) Department of Communication, Pepperdine University, United States * Correspondence to: Department of Psychology, 24255 Pacific Coast Avenue, Malibu, CA 90263, United States. Article History: Received 4 August 2021; Revised 20 July 2022; Accepted 22 July 2022 (footnote)1 ORCID: 0000-0001-8412-5828. Byline: Nataria T. Joseph [nataria.joseph@pepperdine.edu] (a,*,1), Theresa de los Santos (b), Lauren Amaro (b)