Social buffering

In social psychology, social buffering is a phenomenon where social connections can alleviate negative consequences of stressful events.

Although there are other models and theories to describe how social support can help reduce individuals' stress responses, social buffering hypothesis is one of the dominant ones. According to this idea, social partners, who can be familiar others or conspecifics, act as buffers in the face of stressful events, specifically while the stress is happening. The model further describes that social support is especially beneficial when levels of stress are also high, but buffering effects are not as relevant when levels of stress are low.

Social buffering has been explored in humans and other social animals, and is important to questions about physical and mental health. Research has attempted to gain insight about the protective effects of social support in several domains, such as biological, developmental, neurological, and clinical settings. Social buffering is also relevant to other psychological processes, including fear, social bonding, and emotional reactivity.