Social Support
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NATALIE COLABIANCHI
Social Support Social support is the help and assistance or exchange of resources that is given by others within a person’s social network (i.e., a person’s web of social relationships) with the intent to enhance the recipient’s well-being. Social support was first identified as a protective factor against deleterious effects of stress on health by Cassel in 1976. He suggested furthermore that social support was important in the etiology of many diseases. Since this time, many studies have confirmed the association between the lack of social ties or social networks and mortality for almost every cause of death. It is thought that social support provides a basic human need, namely, the need for companionship, intimacy, and reassurance of self-worth. Furthermore, social support is thought to increase one’s sense of personal control by providing information, new contacts, and new ways to solve problems. While many types of social support have been identified, social support is generally divided into four categories: instrumental support, emotional support, informational support, and appraisal support. Instrumental support includes tangible actions that directly aid the person in need, such as getting groceries, helping someone to an appointment, cooking, cleaning, etc. Emotional support is often the support given by an intimate partner or confidant, although it can be given by others. It includes support that provides love, understanding, trust, sympathy, and/or caring. Informational support is the provision of advice or aid that a person can use to address their problem(s). One segment of this support has been to referred to as “weak ties,” which have shown to be quite powerful for activities such as finding a job or health care provider. Finally, appraisal support is communications related to the provision of advice or dialogue useful for self-evalua
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