Social support is the perception and actuality that one is cared for, has assistance available from other people, and most popularly, that one is part of a supportive social network.
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Social support is the perception and actuality that one is cared for, has assistance available from other people, and most popularly, that one is part of a supportive social network.
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Social support can be measured as the perception that one has assistance available, the actual received assistance, or the degree to which a person is integrated in a social network.
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Social support is studied across a wide range of disciplines including psychology, communications, medicine, sociology, nursing, public health, education, rehabilitation, and social work.
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Social support can be categorized and measured in several different ways.
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Furthermore, social support can be measured in terms of structural support or functional support.
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Structural support refers to the extent to which a recipient is connected within a social network, like the number of social ties or how integrated a person is within his or her social network.
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Functional support looks at the specific functions that members in this social network can provide, such as the emotional, instrumental, informational, and companionship support listed above.
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For example, perceived support is consistently linked to better mental health whereas received support and social integration are not.
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Social support can come from a variety of sources, including : family, friends, romantic partners, pets, community ties, and coworkers.
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The source of the social support is an important determinant of its effectiveness as a coping strategy.
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However, work-family specific Social support worked more to alleviate work-family stress that feeds into marital and parental stress.
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Early familial social support has been shown to be important in children's abilities to develop social competencies, and supportive parental relationships have had benefits for college-aged students.
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Teacher and school personnel Social support have been shown to be stronger than other relationships of Social support.
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Social support can be offered through social media websites such as blogs, Facebook groups, health forums, and online support groups.
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Coulson claims online Social support groups provide a unique opportunity for health professionals to learn about the experiences and views of individuals.
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Until the late 2010s, research examining online social support tended to use ad hoc instruments or measures that were adapted from offline research, resulting in the possibility that measures were not well-suited for measuring online support, or had weak or unknown psychometric properties.
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Social support profile is associated with increased psychological well-being in the workplace and in response to important life events.
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Whereas a lack of social support has been associated with a risk for an individuals mental health.
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Additionally, social support has been associated with various acute and chronic pain variables .
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The number of perceived barriers towards seeking social support often prevents people with eating disorders from getting the support they need to better cope with their illness.
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Interest in the implications of social support were triggered by a series of articles published in the mid-1970s, each reviewing literature examining the association between psychiatric disorders and factors such as change in marital status, geographic mobility, and social disintegration.
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One study by D'Ercole demonstrated that the effects of social support vary in both form and function and will have drastically different effects depending upon the individual.
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Studies have shown that college students' perceptions of social support have shifted from viewing support as stable to viewing them as variable and fluctuating.
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Students who reported social support were found more likely to engage in less healthy activities, including sedentary behavior, drug and alcohol use, and too much or too little sleep.
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Social support has a clearly demonstrated link to physical health outcomes in individuals, with numerous ties to physical health including mortality.
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Individuals with lower levels of social support have: more cardiovascular disease, more inflammation and less effective immune system functioning, more complications during pregnancy, and more functional disability and pain associated with rheumatoid arthritis, among many other findings.
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Conversely, higher rates of social support have been associated with numerous positive outcomes, including faster recovery from coronary artery surgery, less susceptibility to herpes attacks, a lowered likelihood to show age-related cognitive decline, and better diabetes control.
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People with higher social support are less likely to develop colds and are able to recover faster if they are ill from a cold.
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Social support predicts less atherosclerosis and can slow the progression of an already diagnosed cardiovascular disease.
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Social support is hypothesized to be beneficial in the recovery from less severe cancers.
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Social support theories are often found in "real life" in cultural, music and arts communities, and as might be expected within religious communities.
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For example, received Social support has not been linked consistently to either physical or mental health; perhaps surprisingly, received Social support has sometimes been linked to worse mental health.
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The main difference between these two hypotheses is that the direct effects hypothesis predicts that social support is beneficial all the time, while the buffering hypothesis predicts that social support is mostly beneficial during stressful times.
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The weak correlation between stress and health for people with high social support is often interpreted to mean that social support has protected people from stress.
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Evidence for stress and coping social support theory is found in studies that observe stress buffering effects for perceived social support.
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Social support develops along with adaptive personality traits such as low hostility, low neuroticism, high optimism, as well as social and coping skills.
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Evidence for life-span theory includes that a portion of perceived Social support is trait-like, and that perceived Social support is linked to adaptive personality characteristics and attachment experiences.
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Big Five Personality Traits, agreeableness is associated with people receiving the most social support and having the least-strained relationships at work and home.
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Social support has been found to positively impact the immune, neuroendocrine, and cardiovascular systems.
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