10.2: What is Social Support?

Social support is described as the resources that one has available or perceives available to them from their social relationships (Gottlieb & Bergen, 2010). These resources are the ways that other people can help a person. One example of social support would be realizing there is a friend that someone could invite to be physically active with, while another person may rely on a spouse to watch their children, so they can be active themselves. Another person might value having a person motivate them so they can reach their goals. Different people may be able to provide different types of support for an individual to help them be physically active.

There are two general ways to view social support: (a) perceived support and (b) received support (Gottlieb & Bergen, 2010). Perceived social support is the support one perceives available from others regardless of whether they use it or not. Someone who knows that they could call a friend would perceive that support is available to them if they were to need it. Received social support is the support that others provide to a person. An example of this would be when a teen reports that their parent encouraged them to keep going on a run. This is the support that has been provided often in response to stressful situations. While both types of social support have been related to health behaviors, perceived support may help individuals develop positive coping skills and subsequently decrease the development of chronic disease (Uchino, 2009). Knowing that support is available if needed, regardless of whether one uses it or not, is important for engaging in health behaviors such as physical activity.

10.2.1. Models of Social Support

When looking at how social support may influence health behaviors and health, several different models have been suggested. These models include a main-effect model, stress-buffering model and more recently the thriving through relationships model. Each model specifies a different path through which physical activity may be influenced by our social relationships.

10.2.1.1. Main-Effect Model

The view that social support has a direct effect on well-being is called the main-effect model(Cohen & Wills, 1985). This model is closely tied to the idea that large social networks are associated with positive outcomes such as well-being and health. According to this model, the social support received has a protective effect on an individual as a whole. In this model, social support directly influences physical activity regardless of whether a person is experiencing stressful events. For example, someone driving a friend to the gym would be having a direct effect on their physical activity. In this example, the social support directly helps someone engage in physical activity. The direct effect on behavior and well-being occurs directly as a function of the social support provided.

10.2.1.2. Stress-Buffering Hypothesis

The stress-buffering hypothesis focuses on the role of social support in helping individuals cope and manage stress (Cohen & Wills, 1985). Stress is experienced when a person does not think they will be able to meet the demands of the situation (Lazarus et al., 1984). This perception of a threat leads to the experience of stress including feelings of worry and helplessness. It also may lead to negative changes in behaviors including less exercise, alcohol abuse, and poor diet (Cohen & Wills, 1985). Social support may help a person in these potentially stressful situations in two ways. First, with support, they may not perceive that situation as stressful. Someone who knows that they have a friend that they can call on for help may not find a situation as stressful. When in the potentially stressful situation of juggling the demands of being physically active and their job, a friend providing encouragement may help someone realize they can handle the situation. The second way that social support could help in these potentially stressful situations is that support may provide added resources that will help them cope with the situation. For example, someone balancing being active and other demands finds this situation stressful. By having a co-worker help them balance the job demands, they may now have the resources to cope with the situation and be able to fit exercise into their schedule. In this instance, social support helps a person cope with the situation by providing resources. In this model, social support plays a role in protecting someone from the negative effects of stress.

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10.2.1.3. Thriving Through Relationships

A newer model of social support put forward by Feeney and Collins (2015) focuses on how to help people thrive. This model looks at how social support plays a role in someone’s overall well-being. This model focuses on two pathways in which social support influences one’s well-being: (a) in the face of adversity and (b) seeking opportunities.

In the first pathway, the focus is on helping an individual deal with life adversity. This pathway is similar to the stress-buffering pathway. It looks at how social support can help someone cope with challenges they are facing. In this case, the support person serves as a source of strength and provides support in a way that may help someone deal with challenges. Think about someone who is trying to return to being active following an injury. In this case, they might need the encouragement and support from someone as they are just starting out. The support may take the form of emotional comfort such as listening to someone’s fears about returning to being active. The support also could take the form of helping the individual build up their abilities by assisting them with activity modifications that they could do. Another way that support could occur during this return following injury would be to help motivate the person as they are returning physical activity. In these instances, the support provided is helping someone cope with the stress of returning from injury and the support person serves as a source of strength to the recipient. Also see Chapter 31 (Griffin et al., 2021).

The second pathway involves support that encourages people to seek out opportunities. In this manner, social support from others would encourage someone to set goals and push someone to grow, develop and thrive. In this pathway, the person is called a relational catalyst as they are helping someone seek out new opportunities. Many of the examples in the physical activity context may relate to this pathway of support. The support provided could take the form of encouraging someone to reach goals they might not usually set for themselves, such as running a half marathon, or helping a person to push themselves outside of their comfort zone and try something new. Other examples of this support include helping the individual reach their goals by helping them plan (e.g., creating an exercise program with them), and providing assistance (e.g., driving someone to a fitness facility or watching their children while they exercise). Within this pathway, the support involves helping someone to develop and grow as they strive to achieve their physical activity goals.

Learning Exercise One

What are the main differences between a person serving as a “source of strength” and a“relational catalyst” when providing social support?

10.2.1.4. Social Support and Physical Activity

Social support has frequently been examined as a correlate of physical activity. Several reviews have suggested that there is a positive relationship between social support and physical activity (Scarapicchia et al., 2017; Smith et al., 2017). In a review of 20 prospective studies that examined the role of social support for future physical activity participation, there was a small positive effect for social support, meaning that those who reported more social support at one time tended to be more active at a later point in time (Scarapicchia et al., 2017). Two of the most common sources for social support examined were from family, friends, and significant others. However, in this review, there was a lot of variation in results. For instance, support from family appeared to be related to physical activity, but the studies looking at friend social support were inconsistent. In a review of 27 studies examining social support in older adults, family-provided social support showed a positive association with physical activity participation (Smith et al., 2017). In a review of 75 articles examining social support in adolescents, an overall positive association with physical activity was reported for social support provided by parents, family, and friends (Mendonca et al., 2014). These reviews support the positive effects of the provision and receipt of social support on physical activity across the lifespan (e.g., Mendonca, et al., 2014; Scarapicchia et al., 2017, Smith et al., 2017).

Several studies have started to look at social support that is provided on a day-to-day basis. Using the thriving model of social support, Berli and colleagues (2018) examined how daily support from a spouse influenced one’s physical activity level that day. Couples who were previously inactive participated in the study with the goal of becoming more physically active. In this study, people completed an average of 25 more minutes of physical activity on days when their spouse provided support towards their goals than on days when they did not provide support. They also reported more physical activity on days when both partners engaged in physical activity together. This joint activity may reflect a type of companionship support where the partners have someone to be active with. In another study, daily support by spouses was related to increased perceptions of confidence and physical activity in individuals with type 2 diabetes (Khan et al., 2013).

One population in which social support for physical activity is particularly influential is cancer survivors (McDonough et al., 2020). Physical activity settings provide the opportunity for social support both for being active as well as coping with cancer. This is an example of how—in the case of adversity, surviving cancer—the social support is vital for coping with stress and overall well-being (McDonough et al., 2020). In a review of 39 qualitative studies, cancer survivors described many ways their social relationships supported their physical activity, such as through encouragement, accountability, and companionship (McDonough et al., 2020). Support for coping with cancer was also commonly described across several studies; this included strategies such as understanding the cancer experience, being able to talk about cancer, normalizing cancer, and modeling living after cancer.

Social support, especially if it is from family, appears to have a positive influence on physical activity behavior (Scarapicchia et al., 2017; Smith et al., 2017). Most of the research has looked at social support as a whole and has not differentiated the types of social support (e.g., Scarapicchia et al., 2017; Smith et al., 2017). However, as people support each other in many different ways, researchers look at the role of specific types of social support, such as instrumental support (e.g., tangible aid), emotional support (e.g., encouragement and caring), and companionship (Golaszewski & Bartholomew, 2019).

10.2.1.5. Types of Social Support

Given that social support has big potential to influence physical activity behavior, what does it involve? There are several different ways of classifying social support. These different types of social support pertain to what is the actual content of the social support. Is someone providing information or encouragement, or are they someone to be active with? While there are different ways of conceptualizing the types of social support, (Gottlieb & Bergen,2010; Golaszewski & Bartholomew, 2019),some common types are described below in Table 10.1.

Research in the physical activity area often combines social support into a summary score and does not differentiate the types of support (Beets et al., 2010; Scarapicchia et al., 2017). Among studies examining social support and youth physical activity, social support is sometimes separated into tangible support (e.g., instrumental and companionship) and intangible support (e.g., emotional and informational; Beets et al., 2010). Both types of support have been related to youth’s physical activity. Using a newly developed measurement tool, Golaszewski and Bartholomew (2019) reported that five different types of support (emotional, companionship, instrumental, informational, and validation support) were positively related to self-reported physical activity behavior, with companionship and informational support showing the strongest relationships. While social support can influence physical activity in many ways, social support is not the only social influence on physical activity.

Table 10.1. Examples of Different Types of Social Support (Gottlieb & Bergen, 2010; Golaszewski & Bartholomew, 2019)

Type of support	Definition	Examples
Emotional	Provision of caring and encouragement	Helping someone keep going when they are struggling to reach a goal Cheering a person on or listening to challenges that someone is facing
Instrumental	Tangible aid such as the provision of resources or services	Someone helping a friend by driving them to the gym. A parent purchasing sport equipment for their child Spotting another person as they lift weights
Informational	Provision of advice, feedback, or help problem-solving	Advice from a friend on how to overcome a plateau in their fitness goals Enlisting the help of a partner to problem-solve how to deal with a particular barrier for physical activity
Companionship	Having someone to be active with and spend time with	Having someone to go for a walk with or lift weights with
Esteem	When others make someone feel like they matter, are valued, and accepted	Someone commenting on how much they value being active with a person Helping another feel like they are needed
Validation	Provides social comparison in terms of behaviors and norms	An individual who feels sore after just starting to work out, may seek out validation support from others who also were working out to see if this “soreness” is normal

Learning Exercise Two

Think about your own physical activity and provide an example of each type of social support that you have experienced. Which type do you think made the biggest difference in your own physical activity?