Coping With Stress- Social Support

Question 1

What does social support mean

Answer 1

Refers to help given by friends and family to help people cope in stressful situations

Question 2

What are the three types of social support and who suggests them

Answer 2

Schaefer
1- Instrumental support
2- emotional support
3- esteem support

Question 3

What is instrumental support

Answer 3

Practical support eg lift to the hospital, lending some money, giving information to the person about an illness etc.
Tangible help

Question 4

What is emotional support

Answer 4

Providing comfort eg I’m here for you.
expressing empathy for the person in order to make them feel better.
And gives advice and guidance.

Question 5

What is esteem support

Answer 5

Trying to raise the person’s self-confidence, so that they believe they can cope with the demands of the stressor. Eg ‘I know you can get through this.’

Question 6

Emotional support study

Answer 6

Fawzy -
cancer patients in a support group for six weeks that provided emotional support, were more likely to have better NK cell functioning, and more likely to be free of cancer six years later, than a control group.

This supports that social support helps to reduce the effects of stress and illness.

Question 7

Research support of social support

Answer 7

COHEN - aim - t see if physical contact (hugs) protects us against stres-related illness.
-404 healthy pp- measure the amount of hugs they received each day.
-They also completed a questionnaire to assess perceived social support and stress was measured by assessing the daily personal conflict.
-Participants were exposed to the common cold virus

Findings-
-Participants who experienced more interpersonal conflict were more likely to get ill, however, those who reported more social support had a reduced risk of illness.
-Participants who got more hugs were less likely to get ill, and if they did get ill they had less severe symptoms.

This suggests that social support does act as a protector against the effects of stress.

Question 8

Evaluation

Answer 8

❌ Ethnocentric - Taylor found Asians were less likely to seek social support when stressed. Shows social support isn’t the same in every culture.

❌ Gender differences- males use instrumental support more than emotional and females are more likely to use emotional support, people use social support in different ways.

✅ helpful to know how social support can improve stress as people may go into support groups or understand the importance of having people around you to confide in.