The Role of Social Support in Coping with Stress (AQA A Level Psychology): Revision Note

Instrumental, emotional & esteem support

• The more social support individuals receive, the better they can cope with stress, with the social support acting as a defence against the stressors

• A lack of social support can prevent individuals from dealing with stress and may lead to a sense of isolation and mental disorders such as depression

• Females generally have wider social support systems, and collectivist cultures often have extended family networks that can provide support, such as instrumental, esteem and emotional support as follows:

  • Instrumental support – Practical assistance and can be indirect (maybe providing childcare so a stressed parent can take some time to visit friends) or direct (lending money to remove financial stress)

  • Esteem support – This occurs when friends and family show that they have high esteem for the individual, which strengthens their feelings of self-worth and helps them feel able to cope with the stress

  • Emotional support – This is when the individual perceives that others love them or care for them and have empathy with their situation

• These three different types of social support overlap, depending on exactly what the supporter is doing to offer support (for instance, providing a ‘shoulder to cry on’)

• Social support does not always have to be in person, as it can also be provided  through social media networks and talking on the phone

Research which investigates the role of social support in coping with stress

• Orth-Gomer et al. (1993) found that in a sample of 700 middle-aged Swedish men, smoking and lack of social support were the two leading risk factors for coronary heart disease

• Strachour (1998) assessed the quantity and quality of social support and found that participants with greater quality of social support were healthier, but quantity of social support was not correlated with health gains

  • This suggests the quality of support is more important than the quantity.

• Cohen et al. (2015) used a telephone questionnaire to measure perceived social support, stress and number of hugs received daily and followed this by exposure to the common cold virus

  • It was found that finding that participants who received frequent hugs were less likely to get ill, and if they did, they had less severe symptoms

Evaluation of the role of social support in coping with stress

Strengths

• Social support can be flexible, with different types of social support being more helpful in different situations, such as emotional support being more helpful when an individual is faced with the stress caused by the breakdown of a relationship

• Research shows that social support generally helps individuals to deal with stress in a positive way

Limitations

• Social support will not help if it is perceived as interference or if the type of support makes the stressful situation worse, such as encouraging an individual to drink or smoke to lessen their stress levels

• It is difficult to isolate and test separate types of social support, making it difficult to assess which are most influential in helping individuals cope with stress

Issues & Debates

• Collectivist cultures (e.g., East Asian societies) often benefit more from social support due to strong extended family networks, whereas Western individualistic cultures may lack this, meaning findings may not generalise cross-culturally

  • This suggests social support may function differently depending on cultural norms around help-seeking and group interdependence

• Research typically uses large-scale, quantitative (nomothetic) methods to study social support

  • A fuller understanding of stress management could be achieved by combining this with idiographic approaches that explore individual differences in how support is experienced