Stress and Coping Perspective
The dominant theoretical perspective in social support research
draws from stress and coping theory (Lakey
& S. Cohen, 2000
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Lakey, B., & Cohen, S. (2000). Social support theory and selecting
measures of social support. In S. Cohen, L. U. Gordon & B.
H. Gottlieb (Eds.) Social support measurement and interventions:
A guide for health and social scientists. New York: Oxford.).
According to this theory (Lazarus
& Folkman, 1984
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Lazarus, R. S. & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal and
coping. New York: Springer.; Folkman
& Moskowitz, 2004
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Folkman, S. & Moskowitz, J. T. (2004). Coping: pitfalls and
promise. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 745-774.),
stress occurs when people interpret situations negatively
(i.e., negative appraisals) and stress leads to health problems,
in part, insofar as people do not employ adequate coping responses
(e.g., problem solving, emotion regulation). Social support
promotes health by protecting people from the adverse affects
of stress (i.e., stress buffering; Cohen
& Wills, 1985
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Cohen, S. & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social support, and
the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98,
310-357.). It does so by promoting more adaptive appraisals,
more effective coping or both. In theory, social support should
only enhance appraisals and coping to the extent that the
particular type of social support matches the demands of the
stressor (the optimal matching hypothesis; Cohen
& Hoberman, 1983
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Cohen, S., & Hoberman, H. M. (1983). Positive events and social
supports as buffers of life change stress. Journal of
Applied Social Psychology, 13, 99-125.; Cutrona
& Russell, 1990
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Cutrona, C. E., & Russell, D. W. (1990). Type of social support
and specific stress: Toward a theory of optimal matching.
In B. R. Sarason, I. G. Sarason, & G. R. Pierce (Eds). Social
support: An interactional view (pp. 319-366). New York:
Wiley.). Social integration, perceived support and
enacted support play somewhat different roles in the stress
and coping model of social support. Enacted social support
is hypothesized to influence appraisal and coping most directly.
Yet, the receipt of enacted support requires at least a minimum
of social integration (hermits will receive little enacted
support) and extensive social ties should provide many opportunities
for enacted support (Uchino,
2004
xClose
Uchino, B. N. (2004). Social support and physical health
outcomes: Understanding the health consequences of our relationships.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.). An individual's
perception of support should reflect her/his history of the
receipt of effective enacted support, and this perception
should directly reduce negative appraisals of stressors.
Social-Cognitive Perspective
An alternative to the stress and coping model is the social-cognitive
perspective, which draws from basic research in social
cognition and from cognitive models of psychopathology (Lakey
& Drew, 1997
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Lakey, B., & Drew, J. B. (1997). A social-cognitive perspective
on social support. In G. R. Pierce, B. Lakey, I. G. Sarason,
& B. R. Sarason, (Eds) Sourcebook of social support and
personality (pp. 107-140). New York: Plenum.).
This model is primarily geared toward explaining links between
perceived support and mental health, and may be relevant to
physical health, insofar as mental health is important for
physical health. According to this view, negative evaluations
of the self, important other people, and negative emotion
are linked together in cognitive networks, which influence
each other through spreading activation (Baldwin,
1992
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Baldwin, M. W. (1992). Relational schemas and the processing
of social information. Psychological Bulletin, 112,
461-484.). That is, negative emotion makes negative
evaluations of the self and others more accessible (i.e.,
they come to mind more easily), and such negative evaluations
make negative emotions more accessible (i.e., they are felt
more easily and intensely). This view does not rely upon stressful
life events or coping as central mechanisms, because negative
thinking alone is sufficient to activate negative emotion
and vice versa. Supportive social interaction makes negative
thoughts and negative emotion less accessible as well as making
positive thoughts and emotions more accessible. The model
deals with the weak links among perceived support, enacted
support and social integration by making reference to social-cognitive
research in person perception (Hastie
& Park, 1986
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Hastie, R., & Park, B. (1986). The relationship between memory
and judgment depends on whether the judgment task is memory-based
or on-line. Psychological Review, 93, 258-268.;
Klein,
Loftus, Trafton, & Fuhrman, 1992
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Klein, S. B., Loftus, J., Trafton, J. G., & Fuhrman, R. W.
(1992). Use of exemplars and abstractions in trait judgments:
A model of trait knowledge about the self and others. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 739-753.),
which suggests that when perceivers judge the characteristics
of others (e.g., they judge others' supportiveness), they
rarely retrieve from memory the specific past actions of the
support provider (e.g., enacted support). Instead, they retrieve
the most accessible global judgment from memory (Klein
et al., 1992
xClose
Klein, S. B., Loftus, J., Trafton, J. G., & Fuhrman, R. W.
(1992). Use of exemplars and abstractions in trait judgments:
A model of trait knowledge about the self and others. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 739-753.;
Lakey
& Drew, 1997
xClose
Lakey, B., & Drew, J. B. (1997). A social-cognitive perspective
on social support. In G. R. Pierce, B. Lakey, I. G. Sarason,
& B. R. Sarason, (Eds) Sourcebook of social support and
personality (pp. 107-140). New York: Plenum.).
Thus, perceptions of support and memory of recent support
receipt should not be closely linked.
Social Control Perspective
The social control perspective (Uchino,
2004
xClose
Uchino, B. N. (2004). Social support and physical health
outcomes: Understanding the health consequences of our relationships.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.; Umberson,
1987
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Umberson, D. (1987). Family status and health behaviors: social
control as a dimension of social integration. Journal
of Health and Social Behavior, 28, 306-319.) is
well suited to explaining how social integration may promote
better health. This model draws from symbolic interactionism
(Thoits,
1985
xClose
Thoits, P. A. (1985). Social support and psychological well-being:
Theoretical possibilities. In I. G. Sarason & B. R. Sarason
(Eds.), Social support: Theory, research and application.
(pp. 51-72). Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.) and emphasizes
how relationships can help regulate social behavior, including
health-related behavior. Social control may work indirectly,
such as when an individual regulates her/his own behavior
out of a sense of responsibility to others (e.g., children),
and directly, such as when "…an individual might remind
his or her spouse to avoid using salt because of its effect
on blood pressure…" or "…an individual might threaten
to leave a spouse because of excessive alcohol consumption"
(Umberson,
1987
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Umberson, D. (1987). Family status and health behaviors: social
control as a dimension of social integration. Journal
of Health and Social Behavior, 28, 306-319.; p.
310). However, at present, such mechanisms have not been documented
directly (Uchino,
2004
xClose
Uchino, B. N. (2004). Social support and physical health
outcomes: Understanding the health consequences of our relationships.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.).
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