Lecture 11: Social Support & Integration

Question 1

why does social support matter?

Answer 1

• Human relationships are important
• Biological need for human connection
• Social bonds & interactions are critical for maintaining good mental health

Question 1

The Problem with the Solution Podcast

Answer 1

• In the Western world, people with severe mental illness face stigma & severe social judgment
• We don’t tend to integrate people with severe mental illness into society
• We institutionalize when we can
• We support people with mental illness using a medical approach
• In Belgium, they employ greater social support, regardless of mental health status

Question 2

primary group theory

Answer 2

• our morale/well-being is sustained by our membership within primary groups
• it can damage your cognitive and emotional health, increasing your risk for despair

Question 3

Durkheim: suicide

Answer 3

• Found that Catholics had better mental health than Protestants
• This was because they weren’t as well-integrated into society and had lower levels of social support

Question 4

emotional support

Answer 4

Information that tells us we are:
- Cared for and loved
- Esteemed and valid
- Can count on others if we need help

• It is perceived

Question 5

instrumental or informational support

Answer 5

• Counselling
• Assistance
• Facts
• Advice or feedback
• Received/objective support

Question 6

material/tangible support

Answer 6

• Provision of goods or services
• Received/objective support

Question 7

structural support

Answer 7

• Size
• Characteristics
• Density
• Homogeneity
• Transitivity
• Implications for social isolation

Question 8

strength of weak ties

Answer 8

• People are more likely to more likely to gain beneficial opportunities and material support from people they tangentially know
• Rationale: if people in your inner circle could’ve helped you, they would’ve done so already

Question 9

perceived vs. received support

Answer 9

• Perceived support is more important than received support because someone has to to understand the support to benefit from it
• Social support is only likely to be effective to the extent that it is perceived

Question 10

causal directions for social support -> mental health

Answer 10

• Direct associations between social support and mental health
• Low support -> more psychological distress
• Particularly strong associations with depression
• Social support as a buffer between stressors and mental health

Question 11

what do most social support studies examine?

Answer 11

symptom-related outcomes

Question 12

social support matters:

Answer 12

• For psychological well-being generally, and for depression in particular, regardless of the level of stressor exposure
• More when stressor exposure is high

Question 13

social selection perspective

Answer 13

People with psychiatric disabilities have smaller, less dense social networks

Question 14

4 explanations for social selection

Answer 14

• psychiatric perspective
• social stigma
• caretaker obligations
• artifact of personal inadequacies

Question 15

psychiatric perspectives

Answer 15

mental illness can make it difficult to participate in social activities

Question 16

social stigma

Answer 16

mental illness can lead to social rejection, and people may cope with diagnosis through secrecy, isolation, and withdrawal

Question 17

caretaker obligations

Answer 17

argues that social and economic challenges of caring may have negative implications for the caretaker’s social network

Question 18

artifact of personal inadequacies

Answer 18

when people are stressed or distressed, they have more difficulties forming or maintaining social relationships

Question 19

social causation vs. social selection of social support

Answer 19

Most research supports the social causation hypothesis

Question 20

social influence effect

Answer 20

• Members of the same social network might adopt the attitudes/behaviours of others in their network
• Transfer of emotional states
• Positive or negative mental health effects
• Ex. suicide contagion

Question 21

Developmental model

Answer 21

• Suggests that our ability to recognize emotional support is part of healthy personal and social development
• As a result, our perceptions of social support are influenced by our current social circumstances and our circumstances earlier in the life course, as well as by our individual personality characteristics
• People who perceive high levels of social support might be better at forging social relationships. They tend to interpret ambiguous comments positively

Question 22

situation-specific model

Answer 22

• Argues that perceived support is a coping resource that buffers the relationship between social support and health
• Basically the stress process model

Question 23

social distribution of social support

Answer 23

• Social statuses at higher risk of psychological distress & depression: Low SES, Unmarried, Women
• Hypothesis: these social statuses experience lower levels of social support
• Status differences represent different exposure to structural barriers and opportunities in society