Does Social Rank Buffer the Negative Effects of Anxiety on Sleep Quality?

It is a well-known fact that anxiety is associated with poor sleep quality (SQ; Jansson-Fröjmark, & Lindblom, 2008). However, prior research has shown that psychosocial factors may influence this relationship (e.g., social support; Baglioni, Spiegelhalder, Lombardo & Riemann, 2010). One psychosocial variable that has not been investigated in this regard is social rank. Social rank has been linked with a variety of health outcomes (e.g., hypertension; Rivers & Joseph, 2010), and thus could also have an important association with SQ. Specifically, few if any studies have investigated whether social rank could moderate the effect of anxiety on sleep. As such, we examined dominance and prestige (two components of social rank; Cheng, Tracy, Foulsham, Kingstone, & Henrich, 2013) as potential moderators for the relationship between traitlevel anxiety and poor SQ.