Social Support

Adolescence is a time of transitions; social, physical, cognitive, and emotional changes provide challenges for adolescent development as well as opportunities for growth. One factor frequently cited in coping with this transition is social support. Understanding the role of social support in the lives of adolescents facilitates making sense of adolescent behavior and development as well as sustaining adolescents’ growth.

Overview

Social support is aid and caring received from others. It can come from different sources and meet a variety of needs. Social support is a complex, multidimensional construct. Some research suggests social support promotes adolescent development and adjustment while other research suggests that it makes youth more vulnerable to behavioral problems. Knowledge of how social support can affect adolescent development can assist the development of programs for youth or provide suggestions for one-on-one interactions with adolescents.

There are differences by demographic variables in the effects of social support. Understanding the diversity of adolescents’ experiences with social support is important in that it increases the likelihood of sensitive interventions for youth and more precise research design. This also would allow adults to tailor their responses depending on the needs of specific adolescents and design research that is more refined. This essay examines some of these factors.

Definitions of Social Support

Social support includes the belief that others like, value, care for, and want to do things with one (Harter 1985). Another definition of social support is relationships, beliefs, and interactions that foster mastery of emotional distress, sharing of tasks, advice, skill development, and material assistance (Pierce et al. 1996). Both significant others and global networks have been differentiated in past research (Milardo 1992). Significant others are people with whom a child has an intimate relationship, frequently a family member or close friend. A global network, however, is comprised of all of the people a child knows. These sources provide different resources, and both are important (Milardo 1992).

According to Robert Weiss (1974), there are six dimensions of “relational provisions” that social support can provide: attachment, obtaining of guidance, opportunity for nurturance, reassurance of worth, a sense of reliable alliance, and social integration. Attachment is the aspect of social support that results in feelings of comfort, security, and belonging. Obtaining of guidance includes receiving support and information in regard to dilemmas. Opportunity for nurturance is the degree to which a relationship provides the person with occasions to care for others. Reassurance of worth provides the individual with feelings of self-confidence and being valued. Reliable alliance is the belief that support from a relationship will persist. Social integration includes relationships or networks where one can share interests, activities, ideas, and such.

Major Theorists and Researchers

Several researchers have examined the nature and significance of social support as it relates to adolescents. Duane Baumester, coauthor of the Network of Relationships Inventory (Furman and Buhrmester 1985), has published numerous articles and chapters on social support in children, adolescents, and young adults. His work has included research on youth’s perceptions of sibling and peer relationships, including the development of interpersonal competence and relationships of youth with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He also has studied gender and cultural differences in friendships. Michelle Kilpatrick Demaray, coauthor of the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (Malecki et al. 2000), has authored several articles and chapters on social support in youth. Her research includes gender and nationality differences, importance of supports, aggression and victimization, social support and adjustment, and experiences of social support by youth with ADHD. Wyndol Furman, coauthor of the Network of Relationships Inventory (Furman and Buhrmester 1985), has published many articles, chapters, and a book on social support. His research focus has included romantic relationships, friendships, sibling relationships, effects of parental attachment on subsequent relationships, peer interactions, and treatment of interpersonal difficulties in youth. Susan Harter, author of the Social Support Scale for Children (Harter 1985), is well known for her contribution to the assessment of social support in youth as well as youth self-perception. Her research includes articles and chapters on authenticity in adult couples, interactions between self and social support, impact of lack of support, emotion, and motivation. Christine Kerres Malecki, coauthor of the Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (Malecki et al. 2000), has published articles and chapters regarding gender and nationality differences in social support, importance of support, assessment of support, social support and aggression/victimization, social support and adjustment, and impact of social support on academic achievement. Lastly, Robert S. Weiss has published extensively, including the topics of grief and loss, attachment, marriage and divorce, work and retirement. His contribution to social-support research is the conceptualization of different social-support provisions that relationships can supply. As even a brief examination of their work reveals, this area of study is quite robust and growing in important directions.

Sources of Social Support

Adolescents frequently receive support from parents, non-parental adults, and peers. The effects of support from these different sources also interact with each other. Parental support is associated with adaptive outcomes. For example, among adolescents at risk for school failure, parent support predicted physical health, psychological well-being, and adjustment after controlling for demographic variables, including neighborhood danger (Bowen and Chapman 1996).

Social support also can come from adults outside of the home, including mental health professionals, teachers, and neighbors. The majority of adolescents receiving services from a psychotherapist or school counselor following parental separation indicated that these individuals were one of the most important source of support (Halpenny et al. 2008). Among adolescents at risk for school failure, teacher support predicted physical health and psychological well-being and neighborhood support predicted psychological well-being and adjustment after controlling for demographic variables, including neighborhood danger (Bowen and Chapman 1996).

Peers are a frequent and powerful source of support for adolescents. Peer support predicted psychological well-being in a group of middle-school students (Buchanan and Bowen 2008). Peer support can come from classmates or close friends, and the effects vary. Sometimes peer support can have a negative influence.

Support from different sources can interact in several ways. There are three major theories about how sources of social-support interact: continuity, compensatory, and alternation. The continuity theory of relationships states that peer relationships recapitulate relationships with adult and have an additive impact on well-being. A number of studies are consistent with this theory. Peer and adult support interacted such that adult support had a greater impact on well-being at higher levels of peer support than at lower (Buchanan and Bowen 2008). Hence, positive peer relations tend to add to the positive influence of positive parental relations. Adolescents who reported poor support from families upon starting college reported lower levels of support at the end of their first semester (Lakey and Dickinson 1994). Poor support from parents is repeated in peer relationships.

Another method of interaction is a compensatory model, whereby support from one source can alleviate the effects of an absence of support in other relationships. There is some support for this theory also. A study of Israeli adolescents found that social support from friends was influential only when support from mothers was absent, and that father support had little influence on self-esteem after controlling for support from mother and friends (Hoffman et al. 1988). In this case, the sources of support interact so that if one is deficient, the other sources become more influential.

An alternation model of interaction occurs when adolescents tend to turn to different sources for support. For example, parents are a common source of sense of reliable aid (belief that the person will consistently be there for you), affection, instrumental help (material assistance), and enhancement of worth, as well as being rated by young adolescents as the most important source of support. Relationships with mothers were characterized as high on intimacy the most satisfactory. Grandparents were a significant source of affection and enhancement of worth. Teachers provided instrumental support. Relations with friends were described by companionship, intimacy, and equal power. Siblings relationships were full of conflict (Furman and Buhrmester 1985). Each relationship provided unique supports, and youth turned to those people accordingly.

Social Support and Development

Social support is important to adolescent social and emotional development. Young adolescents without a close friend were less prosocial (e.g., helpful, polite), more emotionally distressed, and had lower grades. They continued to be more emotionally distressed 2 years later (Wentzel et al. 2004).

Social support has an impact on adolescent functioning, but adolescent functioning also can affect social support. Youth with behavior problems tend to experience negative relationship with others. For example, youth with ADHD frequently have disrupted peer, parent, and teacher relationships. This lack of support then can lead to depression, creating a cycle of poor relationships and emotional and behavioral problems (Sifers and Mallela 2009).

Past research generally supports the notion that significant other social support may serve as a protective factor by moderating the negative effects of stressful life events through provision of emotional support, information, or resources need to deal with stressors effectively (Garmezy 1985). Many studies are consistent with this; however, some research also has found circumstances in which social support is a vulnerability. A number of studies have indicated that high levels of peer support are associated with negative behaviors in adolescents. For example, when peer support increased and family stress was high, expectations for success were lower and sense of alienation was higher than for youth experiencing increased family stress but not an increase in peer support. Friend support was associated with higher levels of lying and disobedience. Furthermore, reciprocal conflict-ridden relationships were associated with higher levels of lying and disobedience than unilateral conflictual relationships or reciprocal, low-conflict friendships (Ciairano et al. 2007). Adolescent girls with high levels of overall social support were more vulnerable to the effects of life stress on academic performance (Weist et al. 1995).

Group Differences in Social Support

Research suggests differences in the effects of social support by group membership. Differences have been found by gender, ethnicity, nationality, age, socioeconomic status (SES), and disability status. Perhaps, the most frequently found group differences in social support occur by gender. Girls seem to be more likely to benefit from close-friend and parent support than boys, but also more likely to suffer from the effects of a lack of support. Specifically, social support moderated the impact of bullying on internalizing distress for both boys and girls, but the relationship was significant for only teacher, classmate, and school support for boys and parent support for girls. There was not an interaction between victimization and externalizing behavior for boys, but for girls the two variables interacted such that girls experiencing low levels of bullying and high levels of friend support had lower levels of externalizing behavior than those with limited friend support, and the opposite was true at high levels of bullying (Davids and Demaray 2007).

Young adolescent girls perceived higher rates of support from close friends and classmates than boys. Girls reported more support from close friends than other sources and boys reported less support from classmates than other sources. Furthermore, social support was not associated with externalizing, internalizing, or adaptive behavior for boys, but it was for girls. In particular, low levels of parent support were associated with higher levels of aggression and conduct problems. Low levels of classmate support were associated with high levels of hyperactivity and depression and low levels of leadership and social skills. Low levels of close-friend support were associated with low levels of conduct problems and social skills (Rueger et al. 2008).

There also are gender differences in developmental changes in social support. Sixth-grade girls reported higher levels of schoolmate and teacher support than boys, but experienced a steeper decline in classmate support as they became eighth graders (Way et al. 2007). This finding is particularly important in light of research suggesting that girls are particularly vulnerable to deficits in their social-support networks.

Group differences also exist by ethnicity. Social support at school was associated with early initiation of drinking for non-Latino Caucasian youth, but not Latino or African American youth (Bossarte and Swahn 2008). African American adolescents reported higher levels of support from family, but not friends or non-familial adults compared to non-Latino Caucasian adolescents (Barone et al. 1998).

Some research has identified differences in social support by nationality. Youth in the United States reported higher rates of support from parents, teachers, classmates, close friends, and school, as well as higher rates of emotional, information, appraisal, and instrumental support than youth in Finland (Davidson et al. 2008). Hence, there appear to be international differences in sources and types of support.

The experience of social support varies with development. In a study of youth who had undergone hematopoietic progenitor cell transplant, children reported higher social support from teachers than adolescents, whereas adolescents reported higher social support from peers than children (Barrera et al. 2007). Declines in perception of teacher and schoolmate support occurred over the middle-school years (Way et al. 2007). These findings are consistent with a tendency of adolescents to seek more support from peers than adults, and more from close friends than acquaintances.

Socioeconomic status also has been associated with differences in subjective social support. Lower SES sixth graders reported more teacher support and less schoolmate support than higher SES youth. There were no significant differences in close-friend or family support (Way et al. 2007).

Disability status can affect perceptions of social support. Adolescents receiving special education services reported more support from non-familial adults than youth not receiving such services, but there were no significant differences in reports of friend or family support (Barone et al. 1998). This could be because youth in special education have more regular and close contact with school staff.

While there is much research on social support, there still are some controversies. Some are long standing, such as whether actual or perceived social support is most important, and others are newer such as the impact of technology on social support. The question of whether perceived or received social support is pivotal in adolescent development has been debated. While some claim that it is important to study actual support received, much of the research has tended to focus on subjective reports of support (e.g., Barrera et al. 2007; Lakey and Dickinson 1994; Rueger et al. 2008). This research suggests that perceived support has a significant impact on adolescent functioning, regardless of objective measures. However, others claim that the actual support received is what is crucial to positive outcomes.

There is a controversy about the impact of social networking sites and other forms of electronic communication on adolescents’ social support. In a survey of adolescents and adults, using the internet to communicate with close friends and family was associated with lower depression scores 6 months subsequent to the report of Internet use. Using the Internet to meet people was not associated with a change in depression scores over 6 months for people who initially reported low levels of social support; however, it was associated with an increase in depression scores for those who initially reported moderate or high levels of social support (Bessière et al. 2008). This suggests that use of the internet for socializing appears to augment the benefits of social support for those who use it to contact face-to-face supports or create new supports. The increase in depression scores for people who had reported moderate to high levels of support but then were looking to meet new people online may be due to a breakdown in social-support networks necessitating looking for new sources of support.

Measures of Social Support

There are several commonly used measures of social support, which vary by format, whether they assess global (support across people) or significant other (support from specific individuals) social support, and whether they differentiate social support by source or type. The Social Support Scale for Children (SSSC; Harter 1985) measures children’s perceptions of social support from parents, teachers, classmates, and close friends. The measure consists of 24 items that result in parent, teacher, classmate, and close-friend support scales. Items are presented in a structured alternative format to decrease the effects of social desirability by legitimizing either option and not requiring the child to endorse an “I” statement. Scores can be averaged across the four subscales to derive a composite global social-support score. The internal consistency for the subscales ranges from α = 0.72 to α = 0.88. The close-friend support scale was found to correlate r = 0.46 with a measure of personal disclosure to friends. The classmate support scale was found to correlate r = 0.62 with a measure of social acceptance and popularity among peers (Harter 1985).

The Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI; Furman and Buhrmester 1985) is a 33-item self-report measure that asks the youth about his or her relationship with his or her mother, father, siblings, another relative, teacher, best friend, and boyfriend/girlfriend (if applicable). It is designed to assess children’s perceptions of their relationships with significant others. The child responds to questions about 11 characteristics of each relationship using a five-point scale. The characteristics assessed include: importance of the relationship, relative power of the child and the other, conflict, satisfaction with the relationship, intimacy, companionship, affection, guidance, enhancement of worth, punishment, and reliable alliance. Several studies have used the NRI to assess significant relationships and have found it to be valid and reliable as a measure of children’s social networks (Furman and Buhrmester 1992). The internal consistency of the NRI was found to be α = 0.80 in a sample of fifth- and sixth-grade children (Furman and Buhrmester 1985).

The Child and Adolescent Social Support Scale (CASSS; Malecki et al. 2000) is a 60-item self-report measure of global social support for youth in grades 3 through 12. The CASSS is based on Tardy’s multidimensional model of social support and is made of five 12-item subscales (classmates, close friend, parents, teachers, and school). It assesses appraisal, emotional, informational, and instrumental support on a six-point scale. The CASSS provides scores by source of support or a total support scale. It has good internal consistency (α = 0.89–0.97) and test-retest reliability (0.58–0.78 over 8–10 weeks). Factor analysis supports the five-factor structure, and there is evidence of convergent validity (Malecki et al. 2004).

The multidimensional scale of perceived global social support (MSPSS; Zimet et al. 1988) was developed with college students, but is frequently used with adolescents. It is a 12-item measure of perceived support from family, friends, and a significant other. It assesses respect, social popularity, and social support on a seven-point scale. This three-factor structure is supported by factor analysis. The measure also yields a total support scale. Scores range from 12 to 84. The scale has strong internal reliability (α =0.85–0.91) and test-retest reliability is good (0.72–0.85; Zimet et al. 1988).

The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors (ISSB; Barrera 1981) is a 40-item measure of the types of support a person has received over the past month. It consists of a five-point scale on three factors: advice/information, nondirective assistance, and tangible assets as well as a total score.

The Arizona Social Support Interview Schedule (ASSIS; Barrera 1981) is a 56-item, five-point scale that assesses significant other support by source (mothers, fathers, boyfriends, teachers, best friends, grandparents, sisters, brothers) and type (sharing private feelings, money, advice, positive feedback, physical assistance, social participation, and interpersonal conflict). It also asses changes in support over the past 2 years.

Conclusions

This essay examined definitions of social support as well as key factors that relate to it. As was seen, social support constitutes an important aspect of study relating to adolescence. This area of study continues to grow as new measures are being created and researchers are making important steps in understanding the nature of social support and its potential significance.