Social Support Flashcards
How does social support help people cope with stress?
The more social support individuals get, the better able they are to cope with stressful situations, with the social support acting as a buffer against the stressors
Who identified at least three distinct forms of social support?
Schaefer et al
What are the three distinct forms of social support?
Instrumental support, emotional support and esteem support
What is instrumental support?
When others provide practical assistance, either indirectly like helping out so that the individual has more time and energy or directly by helping to deal with the stressful situation e.g. Loaning money
What is emotional support?
When an individual perceives that others care for them by sympathising, understanding and providing comfort. It isn’t intended to offer any kind of practical help but rather to make the stressed person feel better and to lift their mood
What is esteem support?
When we try to reinforce someone’s faith in themselves, their belief in their ability to tackle stressful situations. We might express our confidence in them by telling them they can cope
What is a strength of social support in coping with stress?
Fawzy et al randomly allocated patients with malignant melanoma to a support group for 6 weeks. The support group patients had better NK cell functioning and were more likely to be alive and free of cancer than patients in the control group. This shows that the beneficial effects of social support can be substantial and long lasting
What are four limitations of social support in coping with stress?
- if different types of social support are offered it can create confusion and overwhelm a person which will not help them
- it is difficult to isolate and test separate types and difficult to assess which are more influential
- it’s not fully understood how social support combats stress it may just be the increase in self esteem
- different types of social support may be ,ore helpful in different situations
