Social Support

Workplace social support refers to the availability or actual receipt of assistance provided to an employee by one or more individuals. It is generally examined as a means of coping with occupational stress. An important distinction concerns the sources of social support. Support may be provided by individuals within the organization—for example, supervisors, subordinates, coworkers, or even customers—or by individuals outside the organization, such as family or friends. Research shows that social support provided by individuals within the organization, particularly support provided by supervisors, has the greatest implications for employee well-being.

Another important distinction delineates structural support and functional support. Structural support refers to the size of an individual's social network, whereas functional support refers to whether the individuals in a person's social network actually provide helpful behaviors. Empirical evidence suggests that structural support and functional support are relatively independent. Thus, having a large social network does not guarantee that one will actually receive support in times of trouble. Furthermore, individuals may receive adequate support even if they have relatively small social networks. This might happen, for example, when a person receives high levels of support from one or two individuals.

Functional support can be further divided into instrumental support (i.e., tangible support) and emotional support. Instrumental social support involves the receipt of concrete assistance from others. An office employee who helps an overworked coworker clean her office, for example, is providing instrumental social support. Emotional social support, on the other hand, involves showing sympathy and concern for others. Whereas instrumental support usually involves doing, emotional support often involves listening and talking. An employee who listens and gives encouragement to a coworker who is in danger of being fired, for example, is providing emotional social support.

Although instrumental and emotional social support are related to each other, empirical evidence supports the distinction between them. Furthermore, the two forms of support may have different effects. Some research suggests that emotional support is more strongly related to employee well-being than instrumental support.

Research further distinguishes between different forms of emotional social support. Terry A. Beehr and his colleagues, for example, identified three types of conversations that people might have at work, each representing a different form of emotional support:

• Conversations about positive aspects of the workplace (e.g., talking about how one's supervisor is a great leader)
• Conversations about negative aspects of the workplace (e.g., talking about how poorly one is paid)
• Conversations about non-work-related events and activities (e.g., talking about how one spent last weekend)

Of these three forms of emotional social support, conversations about the negative aspects of work are most unlike other kinds of support. Indeed, even though people commiserating with each other and agreeing that the situation is bad is a logical form of support, research suggests that this type of support does not have the favorable effects associated with other forms of support.