Social Support

Definition

In general, social support refers to the various ways in which individuals aid others. Social support has been documented as playing an important and positive role in the health and well-being of individuals. To receive support from another, one must participate in at least one important relationship. However, social support has often been summarized as a network of individuals on whom one can rely for psychological or material support to cope effectively with stress. Social support is theorized to be offered in the form of instrumental support (i.e., material aid), appraisal/informational support (i.e., advice, guidance, feedback), or emotional support (i.e., reassurance of worth, empathy, affection).

Perceived and Conditional Social Support

Perceived social support is support that an individual believes to be available, regardless of whether the support is actually available. Perception of support may be a function of the degree of intimacy and affection within one's relationships. Compared with actual support, perceived support may be just as important (and perhaps more so) in improved health and wellbeing. Actually, perceived support appears to correlate more closely with health status than does actual social support. Similar to actual support, perceived support [Page 921]may heighten the belief that one is able to cope with current situations, may decrease emotional and physiological responses to events, and may positively alter one's behavior.

Conditional support is defined as one's expectation of receiving support only after fulfilling certain expectations or requirements. Conditionality of support is correlated with actual support. For example, those who offer little support will only be supportive given the fulfillment of certain expectations.

Buffering and Direct Effects Hypotheses

Social support is theorized to affect health through one of two routes: (1) an indirect, buffering, or mediational route and (2) a direct, main-effects route. The stressbuffering hypothesis has been more frequently studied than the main-effects hypothesis. The stress-buffering hypothesis asserts that an individual's social network supplies the individual with the resources needed to cope with stressful events and situations. Accordingly, the beneficiary aspects of support are only seen during stressful periods. That is, the stress-buffering hypothesis posits that social support tends to attenuate (weaken) the relationships between stressful life events and negative physical or psychological difficulties, such as cardiovascular disorders and depression. In addition, proponents of the stress-buffering model believe that support will only be effective when there is good support-environment fit (i.e., type of support provided matches the situational demands). For example, having someone offer empathy and reassurance will be helpful when a person has lost a loved one, but receiving empathy may be useless when one is facing stresses associated with financial difficulties.

Conversely, the main-effects hypothesis postulates that social support is beneficial whether one is going through a stressful event or not. The maineffects hypothesis asserts that the extent of an individual's participation in the social network plays a vital role in the degree of social support benefits. In other words, there is a direct monotonic link between social support in one's social network and well-being (i.e., the more support, the greater one's well-being).

A related concept to social support is social integration. Social integration is defined as an individual's involvement in a wide variety of social relationships. Social integration can also refer to the quality of the social relationship. For example, negative social relationships could have negative effects on health, whereas positive social relationships and interactions usually have a beneficial effect on health and well-being. Previous research has demonstrated that social integration tends to be a main effect. That is, one's relationships with others may provide multiple avenues of information to influence health-related behaviors.

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