Social support

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Social support is a resource with which central psychosocial needs such as affection , recognition , identity , belonging and security , as well as instrumental needs such as information needs, practical and material help needs are satisfied through the relationship with other people .

Types of social support

It is common to distinguish between social integration as the quantitative-structural aspect (e.g. size, density, contact frequency of social networks ) and social support as the qualitative-functional aspect (e.g. concrete assistance or consolation).

Within the qualitative-functional aspect of social support, a distinction is also made between perceived (or expected) support (perceived available social support) and received support (actually received social support). Perceived support describes the assessment of being able to be socially supported by a person if there is a need. The perceived support is therefore a prospective expectation of possible support (in the future). The construct of received support, on the other hand, describes a person's assessment of past support services received. Support received is therefore the retrospective assessment of the support that has already taken place for a recipient. Scales for subjective evaluation are used to measure both constructs, since the focus is not on the objective conditions, but on the interpretations from the point of view of the person who expected or received the support.

Further differentiations relate to the type of helpful interaction, whereby both constructs can be divided again into emotional, instrumental and informational support. In emotional support, for example, sympathy, comfort or warmth are communicated. A statement from the Berlin Social Support Scales (BSSS) on emotional support reads, for example: “When I'm sad, there are people who cheer me up”. Instrumental support includes help with work to be done, with the procurement of goods or the provision of financial resources (example: “There are people who offer me their help when I need it”; BSSS). Informational support includes good advice or, more generally, the transfer of information (example: "I was suggested an activity that should distract me a little").

Mechanisms of action of social support

People who experience and receive a lot of social support report greater wellbeing and better physical and mental health than people with less support. Representatives of the main effect hypothesis attribute the effects of social support on health and well-being to the fact that more socially supported people generally experience more well-being and are thus above the level of less socially supported people even under stress. On the other hand, proponents of the buffer hypothesis see the reason for the higher level of wellbeing in the fact that it decreases less in people with increased social support under stressful circumstances than in people with less social support. According to the buffering theory, social support only has an effect on well-being if the recipient is in a stressful situation, while the main effect hypothesis assumes that social support is independent of a person's stress level. Effects of social support on health can be explained in three possible ways: Support can 1) reduce biological stress reactions, 2) have an effect on mental health, e.g. B. by increasing self-esteem and preventing depressive symptoms and 3) improving health-related behavior, e.g. B. quitting smoking or eating healthy.

Social support in grief

Social support from family and friends

Partnerships are seen as a major source of social support. Family and friends as sources of support each offer different forms of support in the early stages of widowhood (up to 6 months). The effect of social support in recently widowed people is influenced by the voluntariness of the support, the compatibility of the support (shared views, values ​​and similar activities, interests, experiences), as well as the lower burden of given roles, expectations and prescribed limits. Geographic proximity and greater availability can also play a role.

Post-traumatic growth after a bereavement

Losing a partner as a traumatic experience can in some cases lead to post-traumatic growth . In such cases, affected people not only successfully cope with their grief, but also report different forms of growth after the loss. This includes enhanced relationships, a new view of the self and a changed philosophy of life. According to the Shattered Assumptions Theory , trauma - like the loss of a loved one - shakes a person's implicit assumptions about the world and those around them. The world is then no longer a benevolent place in which experiences correspond to a person's behavior. To overcome a trauma, the existing models must be adapted to the new information ( accommodation ). This assumes that the social environment is able to promote these positive accommodation processes. So social support is a significant predictor of post-traumatic growth in widows.

Social support on the internet

The Internet offers the opportunity to exchange individual circumstances with others and to receive informative and emotional support. Several studies have shown that social support can be provided over the Internet. In this way, mourners also have the opportunity to be accompanied virtually by others in their mourning process. Mourning on the internet can be understood as a new mourning ritual that accompanies those affected in their emotional processing and tries to bring the preoccupation with death back into society.

Social networks like Facebook offer different ways of dealing with grief. For example, the profile of a deceased person can be transformed into a so-called “memorial page”, which should make it possible to exchange memories of the deceased and thus preserve the memory of them. Facebook users use their profile wall to write about their grief. While a “memorial page” tends to focus on the deceased, the message on the pin board enables the mourner to receive support in the form of condolences, etc. Another possibility of mourning is to set up Facebook groups. These groups are brought into being especially after accidents and catastrophes with many victims and enable those affected and relatives as well as bystanders to exchange information about the event and to jointly find acceptance for what happened. A study that examined the reactions of Virginia Tech students to the 2007 rampage found that many of the students contacted Facebook in the first hour after the crime and that numerous Facebook groups had formed on the first day. A large part of the students joined a Facebook group and left a message about the rampage.

So far, it has not been established whether using social networks is a good source of social support that is consistently associated with less depression and hopelessness.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Knoll, N., & Schwarzer, R. (2005). Social support. In R. Schwarzer (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology: Health Psychology (pp. 333-349). Göttingen: Hogrefe, ISBN 3-8017-1500-0 .
  2. ↑ a b c Cohen, S. & Wills, TA (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98 (2), 310-357, doi : 10.1037 / 0033-2909.98.2.310 .
  3. ^ Schwarzer, R. & Schulz, U. (2003). Social support in coping with illness: The Berlin Social Support Scales (BSSS). Diagnostica, 49 (2), 73-82, doi : 10.1026 // 0012-1924.49.2.73 .
  4. ↑ Uchino, BN (2009). Understanding the links between social support and physical health: a life-span perspective with emphasis on the separability of perceived and received support. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4 (3), 236-255, doi : 10.1111 / j.1745-6924.2009.01122.x .
  5. ↑ de Vries, B., Utz, R., Caserta, M. & Lund, D. (2014). Friend and family contact and support in early widowhood. The Journals Of Gerontology: Series B: Psychological Sciences And Social Sciences, 69B (1), 75-84, doi : 10.1093 / geronb / gbt078 .
  6. ↑ Adams, RG & Blieszner, R. (1994). An integrative conceptual framework for friendship research. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships , 11, 163-184, doi : 10.1177 / 0265407594112001 .
  7. ↑ Adams, RG, Blieszner, R. & de Vries, B. (2000). Definitions of friendship in the third age: Age, gender, and study location effects. Journal of Aging Studies , 14, 117-133, doi : 10.1016 / S0890-4065 (00) 80019-5 .
  8. ↑ Barker, JC (2002). Neighbors, friends, and other nonkin caregivers of community-living dependent elders. The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 57 (3), 158-167, doi : 10.1093 / geronb / 57.3.S158 .
  9. ↑ de Vries, B. & Johnson, CL (2002). The death of a friend in later life. In: Richard A. Settersten Jr. & Timothy J Owens (Eds.). Advances in Life Course Research: New Frontiers in Socialization, 7 , Amsterdam [u. a.]: Elsevier, 299-324, doi : 10.1016 / S1040-2608 (02) 80038-7 .
  10. ↑ a b Michael, C. & Cooper, M. (2013). Post-traumatic growth following bereavement: A systematic review of the literature. Counseling Psychology Review, 28 (4), 18-33.
  11. ↑ Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions. Towards a new psychology of trauma. New York, NY: Free Press, ISBN 0-7432-3625-4 .
  12. ^ Ainsworth, M. E-Therapy: History and Survey. Accessed April 15, 2008, from http://www.metanoia.org/imhs/history.htm .
  13. ↑ a b c Hawdon, J. & Ryan, J. (2012). Well-being after the Virginia Tech mass murder: The relative effectiveness of face-to-face and virtual interactions in providing support to survivors. Traumatology, 18 (4), 3-12, doi : 10.1177 / 1534765612441096 .
  14. ↑ a b Frost, M. (2014). The Grief Grapevine: Facebook Memorial Pages and Adolescent Bereavement. Australian Journal of Guidance and Counseling, 24 (2), 256–265, doi : 10.1017 / jgc.2013.30 .