Social Support

• Forms of social support (Schaefer 1981) Instrumental, emotional, and esteem
• Instrumental Support (Schaefer 1981) practical support offering help or solutions for the stressful situation
• Emotional support (Schaefer 1981) providing warmth, comfort, and empathy to make the individual experiencing stress feel better
• Esteem support (Schaefer 1981) is reinforcing someones belief in their ability to handle a stressful situation
• There is crossover between all types of social support (Schaefer 1981) EG being a shoulder to cry on can involve providing advice (Instrumental) Comfort (emotional) and encouragement (esteem)
• Social support does not have to be physical EG it can be provided via online communication
• Cohen (2015) phoned 404 adult participants every evening for 14 days to see how many hugs (emotional support) they had received through the day
• Cohen (2015) had participants complete a questionnaire about how they perceived social support
• Cohen (2015) measured participant stress based on daily conflicts
• Cohen (2015) placed participants into quarantine and exposed them to the common cold under the assumption participants under more stress would get more ill
• Cohen (2015) found that perceived social support as well as emotional support received through hugs significantly reduced illness symptoms
• Cohen (2015) weakness; unethical as exposing participants to illness is exposing them to harm
• Social support strength; Research support from Fawzy (1993) who allocated participants with melanoma to groups to receive instrumental support via advice and emotional support via expressing feelings and found they were more likely to be cancer free 6 years later than a control group HOWEVER 10 years later the difference between these two groups had reduced
• Social support weakness; beta bias as research shows that there are significant differences to how men and women use social support as men are more likely to use instrumental support while women use emotional support
• Social support weakness; Emotional and Esteem support may be the same thing aiding esteem could just be emotional encouragement from others
• Social support weakness; instrumental support can occasionally have a negative effect as bad advice or misinformation could end up in dealing with the stressor improperly