A study published in the journal Biological Psychology suggests that exposure to social media content about motherhood can trigger a sense of threat among mothers, activating the body’s stress response. The study found that more time spent on social networking sites devoted to motherhood was associated with increased cortisol output among mothers.
During social interactions, people frequently fall victim to social comparison — they begin comparing themselves to the people around them and making self-judgments. These self-evaluations can lead to negative feelings, particularly when they stem from upward social comparisons — comparisons to people who seem better off than oneself.
Social self-preservation theory says that when a social situation threatens a person’s self-concept, this activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and stimulates the release of cortisol. Accordingly, study author Nataria T. Joseph and her co-authors wanted to test whether engaging in social comparison has a measurable impact on a person’s cortisol levels.
“This project is the third of a series of projects that we executed together, with the aim of examining the complex nature of and multifactorial, biopsychosocial implications of social media use among first time mothers,” explained Joseph (@_NoCrystalStair), an associate professor at Pepperdine University who holds the Blanche E. Seaver Professor of Social Science professorship.
“My collaborator Dr. Lauren Amaro‘s initial interest in the online exchanges that occur between mothers regarding parenting sparked the overall series of studies,” Joseph continued. “This last study in the series was focused on the biological health implications of these exchanges and based in my previous work using ecological momentary assessment to study daily life moments and cortisol hormone levels.”
Joseph and her colleagues launched a study to explore how social comparisons occurring within the context of technology — such as social networking sites — might influence momentary cortisol levels. Since women are particularly affected by social comparison, and since social comparison and self-evaluation are common during motherhood, the researchers focused their study on mothers.
“Our prior research has shown that social networking sites for moms include a range of messages about motherhood, including both positive and negative emotion,” said co-author Theresa de los Santos. “Social networking sites also provide potential community for support in which a mother might feel belonging within particular groups.
“However, intensive mothering norms that influence social roles and identities can clash through social comparison practices to lower parenting satisfaction. This led us to investigate in our current study how comparisons and emotions that mothers experience on these sites and in other technology-based interactions influence a mother’s health through monitoring of the stress hormone, cortisol.”
The researchers used a technique called ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to capture naturalistic experiences in daily life. The study sample consisted of 47 mothers with an average age of 34 who reported being exposed to “online content about motherhood” for at least 6 days a week. Mothers were asked to indicate how many minutes a day they spent on social networking sites or online forums in the past week. They then participated in a 4-day study where they completed short surveys and provided saliva samples four times a day — upon awakening, 4 hours after awakening, 9 hours after awakening, and at bedtime.
At each survey, the participants indicated the time of their most recent technology-mediated social exposure (TMSE) about motherhood. They were asked to include “communication on social networking sites, online forums, email, texts, or any other technology and passive exposure to communications about motherhood or parenting.” The participants also responded to questions concerning the emotions they had experienced during the TMSE interaction, and any social comparisons they had made regarding motherhood.
“Participants were very active on social media, with 55.3% spending at least 2 hours daily on social networking sites for mothers and 46.8% using social networking sites for mothers at least 4 times a day,” said de los Santos. “This gave us a tremendous amount of data about their technology-driven, day-to-day interactions as well as their biological data at various points throughout the day.”
The researchers found that higher negative emotions during TMSE was associated with higher cortisol. Participants who self-reported more time spent on social networking sites or online forums in the past week also had higher momentary cortisol levels, as well as higher average daily cortisol output. The authors note that on these online sites, mothers often express negative emotions like anger and sadness. Exposure to these negative emotions might lead mothers to feel a heightened sense of threat, triggering self-preservation.
“Social comparison is very frequent in contemporary society, and inevitable as we interact with others,” Joseph explained. “They are especially salient when we face new roles in life, such as becoming a mother for the first time. So, we hope that putting a spotlight on social comparison will make individuals pause and reflect on their social comparison tendencies and find healthy ways of making comparisons so that individuals don’t have to experience negative emotions when comparing themselves to others.”
“We believe there are responsible ways of engaging with social exchanges on social media and other websites. First, being one’s authentic self on these platforms not only validates one’s self but also contributes to creating an online community in which individuals can see that others struggle and are flawed. Second, if an individual monitors his or her emotions as he or she interacts with these online platforms, that individual will be better able to recognize when his or her social comparisons are becoming unhealthy.”
The results also revealed that, at a momentary level, higher engagement in social comparison during TMSE was tied to lower cortisol.
Interestingly, these findings suggest that social comparison may not be detrimental on its own. While experiencing increased negative emotions during TMSE was associated with heightened cortisol levels, engaging in social comparison without increased negative feelings was not. Moreover, downward social comparisons — comparisons to mothers who are doing worse than themselves — appeared to alleviate the stress response. Mothers who reported engaging in more downward social comparisons than other participants had lower momentary cortisol levels.
“We were surprised that social comparisons were associated with lower cortisol (an important stress hormone with many implications) as we hypothesized that it would be associated with higher cortisol,” Joseph told PsyPost. “One must keep in mind though, that we controlled for negative emotions in our analyses. So, the results really show that social comparisons that are not accompanied by spikes in negative emotion are associated with lower cortisol. Thus, there are some healthy ways of engaging in social comparison that protect a person’s self schema and emotional wellbeing. These healthy ways of comparing are associated with lower cortisol.”
Joseph and her colleagues warn that their study results have worrying implications for mothers since heightened cortisol can damage a person’s health over time and even increase mortality risk. The results also have implications for young children, since mothers with high cortisol levels tend to have children with high cortisol levels as well.
“There are certainly benefits and drawbacks to TMSEs. Based on our H.O.M.E.S. (Health Outcomes for Mothers’ Exchanges on Social Media) program and other research in the area, my advice is for mothers to first decide if the online space is the best place to seek support, given their existing tendencies to compare and their existing interpersonal relationships,” Amaro told PsyPost.
“For instance, a person who is prone to upward comparison, or the practice of seeing others as ‘doing better’ while perhaps feeling inadequate in a particular role can find herself experiencing more negative emotion and less satisfaction in her parenting when engaging with these sites. She might be best suited to an in-person mom group or to relying on family members or neighbors when she needs support.”
“The second step in deciding whether to go online for support or not is to determine your intention or need,” Amaro continued. “If a mom needs practical information (hey Facebook group, which pediatricians do you recommend?), online mom groups can be a wealth of knowledge and advice, though discernment is necessary. If it’s friendship or reduced feelings of isolation, some online mom groups can also be wonderfully encouraging places to make “real-life” friends, but some are not. Moms should explore the culture of a group prior to engaging. It’s always worth questioning why and what you’re scrolling.”
Future studies will be needed to potentially replicate the results and expand on the current findings. The authors suggest that potential interventions for mothers might include, “educating mothers on limiting TMSE engagement, pursuing healthier self-evaluation that recognizes strengths and weaknesses in parenting thereby promoting healthier social comparison, and the management of negative emotion when engaging messages about motherhood.”
The study, “Naturalistic social cognitive and emotional reactions to technology-mediated social exposures and cortisol in daily life”, was authored by Nataria T. Joseph, Theresa de los Santos, and Lauren Amaro.
