“Is This a Church? Such a Big Bunch of Believers Around Here!”: Fan Expressions of Social Support on Floydlandis.com (original) (raw)
Related papers
Social support: the many faces of helpful social interactions
International Journal of Educational Research, 1988
Broadly defined, social support is regarded as resources provided by others. Its importance has been widely demonstrated in many fields of study. However, unclear definitions and shortcomings in theory and measurement have :esulted in a number of inconsistencies limiting the generalizations of empirica; findings. The present articte reviews some of the critical issues and tries to organize this domain in terms of some basic dimensions of social support. Most authors agree upon the usefulness of distinctions such as received vs. perceived support, structural vs. functional support, and different types and sources of support. Their relative merits as documented in the recent literature are discussed here. The paper concludes with some thoughts about social support and educational research.
Structures and Processes of Social Support
Annual Review of Sociology, 1988
This chapter reviews the recent literature on social support and health and its relation to preexisting research and theory in the areas of social networks and social integration. We identify crucial directions for future theoretical and empirical work, focusing on the need to better understand the structures and processes through which social relationships affect human health and wellbeing. Two elements of social relationship structure are distinguished: (a) social integration, which refers to the existence or quantity of social relationships, and (b) social network structure, referring to the structural properties that characterize a set of relationships. We further identify three social processes through which these structures may have their effects: (i) social support, which pertains to the emotionally or instrumentally sustaining quality of social relationships; (ii) relational demands and conflict, referring to the negative or conflictive aspects of social relationships; and (iii) social regulation or control, referring to the controlling or regulating quality of social relationships. We also consider the social (as well as psychological and biological) determinants of levels and consequences of relationship structures and processes. In conclusion, we discuss the relevance of research and theory on social relationships and health to current demographic trends and public policy concerns. Recent scientific interest in social support derives largely from lectures by two distinguished physician epidemiologists with strong psychosocial interests and expertise-John Cassel's (1976) Wade Hampton Frost Memorial Lecture to the American Public Health Association and Sidney Cobb's (1976) Presidential Address to the Psychosomatic Society. Cassel and Cobb each reviewed extant studies to demonstrate the centrality of social relationships and supports to the maintenance of health, emphasizing their potential to moderate or buffer potentially deleterious health effects of psychosocial stress and perhaps of other health hazards (also see Caplan 1974 and Caplan & Killilea 1976). Their papers stimulated new research on the impact of social relationships on all aspects of health as well as subsequent reviews of relevant studies conducted both before and after 1976.
The structure of social support: A Conceptual and empirical analysis
Journal of Community Psychology, 1983
The growth of research on social support has led to a comparable proliferation in the ways it is conceptualized and operationalized. The overall purpose of the present paper was to bring some clarity to this concept by critically examining how it has been presented in the literature and by proposing both rationally and empirically derived typologies for organizing social support functions. From a review of prominent discussions of support functions, a rational typology was proposed that included six categories: Material Aid, Behavioral Assistance, Intimate Interaction, Feedback, and Positive Social Interaction. To empirically examine the structure of social support, a factor analysis was conducted on items from a scale of socially supportive behaviors. The four factors that subsequently emerged were labeled Directive Guidance, Nondirective Support, Positive Social Interaction, and Tangible Assistance. Application of these findings to the assessment of support and future research on support/wellbeing relationships were discussed. w P 5 z C m r
Social Interaction and Social Support
Journal of Social Issues, 1984
Typical research models of social support are overly simple on two grounds. First, they treat social support as exogenous to the model. That is, models incorporate the effects of social support on stressors and on psychological distress, but typically ignore the influences of stressors, psychological distress, personal characteristics of recipients, and environmental constraints on support. Second, the models typically consider only positive consequences of social interactions, although these interactions may also have negative consequences. Further, actions that are perceived as helpful by the donor, the recipient, or both can have harmful effects if they do not fit individual circumstances. Five dimensions offit between the characteristics of the recipient and those of the supportive act are proposed: amount, timing, source, structure, and function. Implications for research and intervention are discussed. Models and studies of social support should be improved in two ways. First, many studies treat social support as though it were exogenous to the model. Such studies, in caricature, assess some form of stressor, show the effects of the stressor on some mental or physical health outcome, and demonstrate that social The writing of this article was supported, in part, by the Russell Sage Foundation. The authors are grateful for criticisms and suggestions from Urie Bronfenbrenner, Arlene Brownell, Barbara J.
An Interpersonal Conceptualization and Quantification of Social Support Transactions
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2000
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Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2008
This research introduces the Social Support Opinion Survey (SSOS), the first measure of social support from the provider's perspective. Studies 1–3 developed the SSOS and confirmed that support opinions can be reliably characterized as directive (attempting to govern how others cope) and nondirective (facilitating without governing how others cope). Studies 4–6 showed that social support opinions relate to more basic cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal styles. Directive opinions were related to cognitive rigidity (need for structure, need for certainty, and just-world beliefs) and to an exchange orientation. Nondirective opinions, in contrast, were related to emotional differentiation, use of emotions as information, empathy, and a communal orientation. Thus, people may reveal who they are by how they help.