in confidence are more likely to engage in social undermining behavior to make themselves look better when it comes to the bottom line of success. Individual differences Research suggests that whether or not someone engages in social support or social undermining depends upon their own goals. Those with compassionate goals are more likely to be supportive of others, while those who have more selfish motives believe that people should take care of themselves. When people have goals to preserve their own self-image this can undermine their compassionate goals and make them less supportive. Health Research has shown that social undermining can have an effect on a person's health. It has been shown that social undermining can cause depressive symptoms. Depending on the relationship between a patient and their loved one, the loved one can support or undermine the patient and can even do both within the same interaction, which can increase the depressive symptoms. Creating more social support can improve treatment outcomes of a patient depending on the type of stress level the person is enduring. Research by Joseph et al. found that when participants are exposed to high levels of social undermining and even high levels of social support it can improve the participants course of antidepressive treatment. High levels of social support and social undermining could reduce and also cause remission of the participant's depressive symptoms. The study found that African American participants who had low levels of social undermining were able to fare better than the Caucasians participants in reducing their symptoms. When both groups of participants were given high levels of social undermining the African American participants had fewer achievements in symptom reduction, while the Caucasians participants had the reverse effect of symptom reduction. Research conducted by Horwitz et al. (1998) found that spouse undermining was almost twice as large as the effect for support. For example, a spouse that shows behaviors of withdrawal, avoidance and being overly critical can cause psychological distress in a relationship. This in turn causes stress that increases the depressive symptoms on individuals that have endure high levels of social undermining. This can happen, because the support that a person can get from their spouse compared to a close friend is more exclusive and generally involves more frequent and emotionally intense interactions (Cutrone 1996; Vinokur & Vinokur & Vinokur- Kaplan, 1990) and depending on their relationship that can influence the social