Social Support Discussion Question: Who are your sources of social support? Take-Away Points • Vocab: social support, person-centered messages, cognitive complexity • What impact does social support have on stress and mental and physical health outcomes? • What are the five types of social support? Know the definitions of each and be able to identify an example. • What is a person-centered message? To what type of social support does it apply? • Be able identify when a message is low, moderate, and high in person-centeredness • How does cognitive complexity relate to person-centered messages? Social Support, defined • By Mattson & Hall: • “transactional communicative process, including verbal and/or nonverbal communication, that aims improve an individual’s feelings of coping, competence, belonging, and/or esteem” Segrin (2006) says that family interactions influence mental health and vice versa. Communication also impacts physiological responses in positive or negative ways. Stress hormones, heart rate, blood pressure, immune functioning Mortality The stress-buffering hypothesis says social support can shield the negative effects of stress. Low Social Support Event Higher Stress Level The stress-buffering hypothesis says social support can shield the negative effects of stress. High Social Support Event Lower Stress Level Health Benefits of Social Support • Psychological adjustment • Improved efficacy • Better coping with upsetting events • Resistance to disease • Recovery from disease • Reduced mortality Take-Away Points • Vocab: social support, person-centered messages, cognitive complexity • What impact does social support have on stress and mental and physical health outcomes? • What are the five types of social support? Know the definitions of each and be able to identify an example. • What is a person-centered message? To what type of social support does it apply? • Be able identify when a message is low, moderate, and high in person-centeredness • How does cognitive complexity relate to person-centered messages? Types of Social Support • Emotional • Esteem • Network • Information • Tangible Types of Social Support • Emotional social support: communication that meets an individual’s emotional or affective needs • Ex. Barrera et al. (2004) found that siblings of children with cancer who reported more emotional social support reported less anxiety and fewer behavioral problems. • Ex. Crnie et al (1983) found that perceived emotional support moderated effects of stress on mothers with premature babies Types of Social Support • Esteem support: communication that bolsters an individuals’ self-esteem or beliefs in their ability to handle a problem or perform a needed task (“you can do it!”) • Ex. Coulson et al. (2007) examined online social support within a Huntington’s disease online support group and found that 21.7% was esteem support Types of Social support • Network support: communication that affirms individuals’ belonging to a network • Ex. Koopman et al. (1998) found that larger networks were associated with less mood issues, particularly among those patients with higher stress • Ex. Durkheim (1951), those with few social ties are more likely to commit suicide Types of Social support • Informational support: communication that provides useful or needed info • Ex. Heh et al (2003) found that Taiwanese women who received informational support about postnatal depression six weeks after birth had lower depression Types of Social support • Tangible support: any physical assistance provided by others • Ex. making a meal, cooking without salt, not drinking, driving someone to the doctor • Ex. Dr. Hall’s experience with triplets; people came to hold babies, change diapers, bring diapers Imagine the following scenario: You have a good friend, Beth. Beth is paying her own way through college by working as a waitress. However, Beth just broke her leg while skiing. Now she is really worried about the medical expenses and the fact that she cannot waitress with a broken leg. As her good friend, come up with examples of how you could enact each type of social support: • • • • • Emotional Esteem Network Information Tangible Take-Away Points • Vocab: social support, person-centered messages, cognitive complexity • What impact does social support have on stress and mental and physical health outcomes? • What are the five types of social support? Know the definitions of each and be able to identify an example. • What is a person-centered message? To what type of social support does it apply? • Be able identify when a message is low, moderate, and high in person-centeredness • How does cognitive complexity relate to person-centered messages? Oh no! • Your good friend, Jill, has just gotten in a huge fight with her boyfriend. Jill wants Jack to meet her parents, but Jack doesn’t want to because they haven’t been dating very long. Jill calls you crying. • Write a sentence or two about what you would say to Jill to give her emotional social support How do we give good emotional support? • Use person-centered messages • Acknowledge other person’s feelings • Legitimize feelings • Situate feelings within broader context • Don’t • Bring it back to yourself • Tell them what they should be feeling • Discount/ignore their feelings Evaluate the following breast cancer support group message for person-centeredness… • “There are many of us here who would have jumped for joy to have only one positive node. I am not minimizing your concern, but your condition could be worse. Even with my 4 positive nodes I have never felt my diagnosis was really, really bad. ” Evaluate this message for person-centeredness… • Gee, man, that really sticks. Tell you what... My friend is having a party tomorrow night. How about we go and it can take your mind off things? Evaluate the following message for personcenteredness… • I understand how frustrating it is to study for a test and then do pretty bad on it. It makes you angry and hurt and takes away a lot of self confidence. Sometimes you wonder if it’s even worth trying. But it doesn’t mean you’re dumb or anything like that. And maybe you’ve earned what kind of questions the teacher wants you to think about the material. So, although it’s probably hard to look at it this way, maybe you’ve learned something really important that can help you in the future.” What’s wrong with this message? • Jack doesn’t want to go with you? He’s an idiot! But, this isn’t the end of the world, you know. I mean, it’s not the worst thing that could happen to you, and to be honest, your parents may not even like Jack. Go back to what you wrote you would say to Jill… • Would you revise your statement according to what we talked about? Think of a person your own age that you like. Describe this person’s habits and mannerisms, -focusing on the personal characteristics rather than physical traits- which characterize a number of different people. Scoring Cognitive Complexity • FYI – this test is called the Role Category Questionnaire • Typically, you would do this for both a liked and disliked other. Because of that, we are going to multiple your score by 2. • Scoring • Cross off: any physical descriptions (e.g., short, pretty, ripped) or repeated adjectives (e.g., funny, humorous) • Count: the remaining adjectives • 25 or higher is considered “high” cognitive complexity Cognitive complexity refers to the number of personal constructs we use to classify others. Higher Cognitive Complexity Better Social Perception Skills More PersonCentered Messages Take-Away Points • Vocab: social support, stress-buffering hypothesis, personcentered messages, cognitive complexity • What impact does social support have on stress and mental and physical health outcomes? • What are the five types of social support? Know the definitions of each and be able to identify an example. • What is a person-centered message? To what type of social support does it apply? • Be able identify when a message is low, moderate, and high in person-centeredness • How does cognitive complexity relate to person-centered messages?
