Role of social support

• Social support

  -refers to the assistance we receive from other people to help us cope with stress.

  -enhances resilience to stress and stress induced immunosupression and ill health.
• Instrumental social support

  -provides physical, practical or tangible support and resources to another to help them cope with stress. Can involve the providing of advice, guidance or information.

  -e.g. giving a stressed student a revision timetable or give them advice on how to revise.
• Emotional social support

  -being listened to and receiving empathy and understanding and concerns from others during a stressful situation.

  -No practical help is given but it validates the feelings of the person and lifts their mood, offers emotional release.

  -e.g. validating and listening to their emotions.
• Esteem social support

  -Restoring someone's faith in themselves and their own ability to cope with stress. Making them feel like they have the skills, abilities to keep going which increases their self esteem, confidence and self-efficacy.

  -e.g. 'you've got this' or you've done this before'. Making comments to help restore confidence so they can cope with the stress.
• Research by Cohen et al

  -Aim: to investigate if social support in the form of hugs offers protection from stress related illness.

  -Procedure: 404 healthy individuals reported the number of hugs they received that day for 2 weeks. Completed a questionnaire to assess perceived social support and experience of daily stressors. They were then placed in quarantine and exposed to a cold virus and signs of illness were monitored.

  -Results: these who experienced conflict experienced greater illness. However, those who reported greater social support (received more social support) had reduced risk of illness.

  -Conclusion: social support in the form of hugs offers protection against stress and illness.
• Discussion for research into social support

  -Ethical issues as PP were quarantine and exposed to a cold virus.

  -Individual differences: some may have a better immune system to someone else PP in the study.

  -Self-report: how many hugs and how much social support they receive and could be lying.

  -Large sample size: can generalise to others.
• Berk and Syne

  -Studied 6928 adults (large sample size). A baseline questionnaire was taken to asses health and social support and reassessed after 9 years.

  -Findings: negative correlation between level of support and death rates, especially in the elderly.

  -Support that social support acts as a buffer against stress related illness and mortality.

  -However, not correlation not causation.
• Gender differences

  -Research revealed that there are gender differences in the use of social support as a way of coping with stress.

  -Lucklow: women actively seek out and benefit more from emotional social support and men often use and find instrumental support more beneficial.

  -Therefore, the type of social support sought and its efficacy in helping an individual to cope with stress is moderated by gender.
• Social support not always helping in coping with stress. 


  -Depends upon the source and resources the person gives you.

  -Emotional support is often welcomed from friends and family.

  -But instrumental support from close friends and family may be less helpful and could make us feel more stressed.

  -Therefore, the impact of social support in coping with stress is influenced by many other factors.