Social support is the perception and actuality that one is cared for, has assistance available from other people, and, most popularly, that one is part of a supportive social network. These supportive resources can be emotional (e.g., nurturance), informational (e.g., advice), or companionship (e.g., sense of belonging); tangible (e.g., financial assistance) or intangible (e.g., personal advice). Social support can be measured as the perception that one has assistance available, the actual received assistance, or the degree to which a person is integrated in a social network. Support can come from many sources, such as family, friends, pets, neighbors, coworkers, organizations, etc.
Social support is studied across a wide range of disciplines including psychology, communications, medicine, sociology, nursing, public health, education, rehabilitation, and social work. Social support has been linked to many benefits for both physical and mental health, but "social support" (e.g., gossiping about friends) is not always beneficial.
Social support theories and models were prevalent as intensive academic studies in the 1980s and 1990s,Vaux, A. (1988). Social Support: Theory, Research and Interventions. My, NY: Praeger.Drennon-Gala, D. (1987). The effect of social support that is perceived by children in early adolescence and its relationship with antisocial behavior. (Paper presented during a colloquy at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY).Drennon-Gala, D. (1994). The effects of social support and inner containment on the propensity toward delinquent behavior and disengagement in education (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. 942562.Drennon-Gala, D. (1995). Drennon-Gala, D. (1995). Delinquency and high school dropouts: reconsidering social correlates. Maryland: University Press of America; a member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.Racino, J. (2006). Social support. In: G. Albrecht, Encyclopedia on Disability, 1470-1471. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. and are linked to the development of caregiver and payment models, and community delivery systems in the US and around the world.O'Connor, S. (1995). More than they bargained for: The meaning of support to families. In: S. J. Taylor, R. Bogdan, & Lutfiyya, Z.M. The Variety of Community Experience (pp.193-210). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes. Two main models have been proposed to describe the link between social support and health: the buffering hypothesis and the direct effects hypothesis. Gender and cultural differences in social support have been foundHarry, B., Kaylanpur, M. and Day, M. (1999). Building Cultural Reciprocity with Families: Case Studies in Special Education. London, Toronto: Brookes. in fields such as education "which may not control for age, disability, income and social status, ethnic and racial, or other significant factors".
Categories and definitions
Distinctions in measurement Social support can be categorized and measured in several different ways.
There are four common functions of social support:
Emotional support is the offering of empathy, concern, affection, love, trust, acceptance, intimacy, encouragement, or caring. It is the warmth and nurturance provided by sources of social support. Providing emotional support can let the individual know that he or she is valued. Tangible support is the provision of financial assistance, material goods, or services. Also called instrumental support, this form of social support encompasses the concrete, direct ways people assist others. Informational support is the provision of advice, guidance, suggestions, or useful information to someone. This type of information has the potential to help others problem-solve. Companionship support is the type of support that gives someone a sense of social belonging (and is also called belonging). This can be seen as the presence of companions to engage in shared social activities. Formerly, it was also referred to as "esteem support" or "appraisal support", but these have since developed into alternative forms of support under the name "appraisal support" along with normative and instrumental support.
Researchers also commonly make a distinction between perceived and received support. Perceived support refers to a recipient's subjective judgment that providers will offer (or have offered) effective help during times of need. Received support (also called enacted support) refers to specific supportive actions (e.g., advice or reassurance) offered by providers during times of need.
One of the most widely used instruments for assessing perceived social support is the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), developed by Gregory Zimet, Nancy Dahlem and colleagues in 1988. The MSPSS is a 12-item self-report measure that evaluates perceived adequacy of support from three sources, family, friends, and a significant other, organizing support by its source rather than by function. The scale has demonstrated strong factorial validity and reliability across diverse populations, and research using the MSPSS has consistently linked higher perceived social support to lower levels of depression and anxiety.
Furthermore, social support can be measured in terms of structural support or functional support. Structural support (also called social integration) refers to the extent to which a recipient is connected within a social network, like the number of social ties or how integrated a person is within his or her social network. Family relationships, friends, and membership in clubs and organizations contribute to social integration. Functional support looks at the specific functions that members in this social network can provide, such as the emotional, instrumental, informational, and companionship support listed above. Data suggests that emotional support may play a more significant role in protecting individuals from the deleterious effects of stress than structural means of support, such as social involvement or activity.
These different types of social support have different patterns of correlations with health, personality, and personal relationships. For example, perceived support is consistently linked to better mental health whereas received support and social integration are not. In fact, research indicates that perceived social support that is untapped can be more effective and beneficial than utilized social support. Some have suggested that invisible support, a form of support where the person has support without his or her awareness, may be the most beneficial. This view has been complicated, however, by more recent research suggesting the effects of invisible social support – as with visible support – are moderated by provider, recipient, and contextual factors such as recipients' perceptions of providers' responsiveness to their needs, or the quality of the relationship between the support provider and recipient.
Sources
Social support can come from a variety of sources, including (but not limited to): family, friends, romantic partners, pets, community ties, and coworkers. Sources of support can be natural (e.g., family and friends) or more formal (e.g., mental health specialists or community organizations). The source of the social support is an important determinant of its effectiveness as a coping strategy. Support from a romantic partner is associated with health benefits, particularly for men. However, one study has found that although support from spouses buffered the negative effects of work stress, it did not buffer the relationship between marital and parental stresses, because the spouses were implicated in these situations. However, work-family specific support worked more to alleviate work-family stress that feeds into marital and parental stress. Employee humor is negatively associated with burnout, and positively with health and stress coping effectiveness. Additionally, social support from friends did provide a buffer in response to marital stress, because they were less implicated in the marital dynamic.
Early familial social support has been shown to be important in children's abilities to develop social competencies, and supportive parental relationships have also had benefits for college-aged students. Teacher and school personnel support have been shown to be stronger than other relationships of support. This is hypothesized to be a result of family and friend social relationships to be subject to conflicts whereas school relationships are more stable.
Online social support
Social support is also available among social media sites. As technology advances, the availability for online support increases. Social support can be offered through social media websites such as blogs, Facebook groups, health forums, and online support groups.
Early theories and research into Internet use tended to suggest negative implications for offline social networks (e.g., fears that Internet use would undermine desire for face-to-face interaction) and users' well-being. However, additional work showed null or even positive effects, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of online social processes. Emerging data increasingly suggest that, as with offline support, the effects of online social support are shaped by support provider, recipient, and contextual factors. For example, the interpersonal-connection-behaviors framework reconciles conflicts in the research literature by suggesting that social network site use is likely to contribute to well-being when users engage in ways that foster meaningful interpersonal connection. Conversely, use may harm well-being when users engage in passive consumption of social media.
Online support can be similar to face-to-face social support, but may also offer convenience, anonymity, and non-judgmental interactions. Online sources such as social media may be less redundant sources of social support for users with relatively little in-person support compared to persons with high in-person support. Online sources may be especially important as potential social support resources for individuals with limited offline support, and may be related to physical and psychological well-being. However, socially isolated individuals may also be more drawn to computer-mediated vs. in-person forms of interaction, which may contribute to bidirectional associations between online social activity and isolation or depression.
Support sought through social media can also provide users with emotional comfort that relates them to others while creating awareness about particular health issues. Research conducted by Winzelberg et al. evaluated an online support group for women with breast cancer finding participants were able to form fulfilling supportive relationships in an asynchronous format and this form of support proved to be effective in reducing participants' scores on depression, perceived stress, cancer-related trauma measures, and even IVF treatments.Miller, N., Pundak, C., Cohen, G. et al. Can Social Support on Facebook Influence Fertility Outcomes?. Reprod. Sci. 29, 212–219 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43032-021-00611-5 This type of online communication can increase the ability to cope with stress. Social support through social media is potentially available to anyone with Internet access and allows users to create relationships and receive encouragement for a variety of issues, including rare conditions or circumstances.