We often turn to our friends, family, spouses, and partners for help in coping with daily stress or major crises. Daena Goldsmith provides a communication-based approach for understanding why some conversations about problems are more helpful than others. In contrast to other research on the social support processes, Goldsmith focuses on interpersonal communication--what people say and how they say it, as well as their reactions to the conversations. Her studies cover adults of all ages and various kinds of stresses, ranging from everyday hassles to serious illnesses and other major crises.
Social Support and Health in the Digital Age discusses how theinformation age has revolutionized nearly every facet of human communication—from the ways in which people purchase products to how they meet and fall in love. These exciting new communication technologies can both unite and divide us. People who are separated by great distances can now communicate with each other in real time, whereas parents often find themselves competing with smartphones and tablets for their children’s attention. This book explores the many ways that digital communication media, such as online forums, social networking sites, and mobile applications, enhance and constrain social support in health-related contexts. We already know a great deal about how the Internet has altered how people search for health information, but less about how people seek and receive social support in this new age of information, which is critical for maintaining our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.
This survey of the nature, problems and outcomes of supportive interactions covers a wide range of contexts and relationships. Exploring social support between friends, spouses, family members and co-workers, both qualitative and quantitative studies in natural and laboratory settings are discussed. The contributors examine: methods and models for assessing specific messages through which people attempt to provide support; approaches for examining the form and content of specific social support interactions; and how features of social relationships convey and contextualize support.
Albrecht and Adelman address theoretical and methodological issues for understanding the social support process in everyday life. They contend that social support is inextricably linked to communication behaviour and that the logical and empirical link between the two is long overdue. @3They present a theoretical overview (including strategies for measuring social support), examine support in specific settings and consider the dilemmas of supportive communication. They also discuss future directions for research and practice.
Surgery and pharmaceuticals are not the only effective procedures we have to improve our health. The natural human tendency to care for fellow humans, to support them with social networks, has proven to be a powerful treatment as well. As a result, the areas of application for social support intervention have expanded dramatically during the past 20 years. As these areas have expanded, so too has the literature on the theory and measurement of social support. Yet, the literature has focussed on very particular areas. Investigators in the social sciences have mainly focused on the protection that social support confers in the context of stressful life events and transitions, whereas studies in the health sciences have concentrated on the effects of social networks and supports on population mortality and morbidity. Although no single theoretical framework has been widely accepted, there is consensus that both the psychological sense of support and actual expressions of support play critical roles in maintaining health and well being. This book is a state-of-the-art resource for the selection and development of strategies for social support assessment and intervention. Designed for use by behavioral and medical scientists conducting studies of physical illness, psychological adjustment, and psychiatric illness in human populations, this volume presents a broad conceptual framework addressing the role of social support in mental and physical health. The book is divided into four sections. The first provides some historical context as well as a conceptual overview of how social support might influence mental and physical health. The second discusses techniques for measuring social networks and support, and the third addresses the design of different types of support interventions. The final section presents some general comments on the volume and its implications for social support research and intervention. This resource is meant to aid researchers in understanding the conceptual criteria on which measurement and intervention decisions should be made when studying the relations between social support and health. Furthermore, the information provided on both measurement and intervention will be valuable to practitioners interested in designing and evaluating prevention and treatment initiatives. Sponsored by the Fetzer Institute as a follow up to their successful 1995 publication, Measuring Stress, this book will provide the most up to date research on the effects of social support interventions on physical and mental health.
While insights sometimes are slow in coming, they often seem obvious when they finally arrive. This handbook is an outcome of the insight that the topics of social support and the family are very closely linked. Obvious as this might seem, the fact remains that the literatures dealing with social support and the family have been deceptively separate and distinct. For example, work on social support began in the 1970s with the accumulation of evidence that social ties and social integration play important roles in health and personal adjustment. Even though family members are often the key social supporters of individuals, relatively little re search of social support was targeted on family interactions as a path to specifying supporter processes. It is now recognized that one of the most important features of the family is its role in providing the individual with a source of support and acceptance. Fortunately, in recen t years, the distinctness and separateness of the fields of social support and the family have blurred. This handbook provides the first collation and integration of social support and family research. This integration calls for specifying processes (such as the cognitions associated with poor support availability and unrewarding faIllily constellations) and factors (such as cultural differences in family life and support provision) that are pertinent to integration.
The Routledge Handbook of Health Communication brings together the current body of scholarly work in health communication. With its expansive scope, it offers an introduction for those new to this area, summarizes work for those already learned in the area, and suggests avenues for future research on the relationships between communicative processes and health/health care delivery. This second edition of the Handbook has been organized to reflect the goals of health communication: understanding to make informed decisions and to promote formal and informal systems of care linked to health and well-being. It emphasizes work in such areas as barriers to disclosure in family conversations and medical interactions, access to popular media and advertising, and individual searches online for information and support to guide decisions and behaviors with health consequences. This edition also adds an overview of methods used in health communication and the unique challenges facing health communication researchers applying traditional methods to efforts to gain reliable and valid evidence about the role of communication for health. It introduces the promise of translational research being conducted by health communication researchers from multiple disciplines to form transdisciplinary theories and teams to increase the well-being of not only humans but the systems of care within their nations. Arguably the most comprehensive scholarly resource available for study in this area, the Routledge Handbook of Health Communication serves an invaluable role and reference for students, researchers, and scholars doing work in health communication.
This survey of the nature, problems and outcomes of supportive interactions covers a wide range of contexts and relationships. Exploring social support between friends, spouses, family members and co-workers, both qualitative and quantitative studies in natural and laboratory settings are discussed. The contributors examine: methods and models for assessing specific messages through which people attempt to provide support; approaches for examining the form and content of specific social support interactions; and how features of social relationships convey and contextualize support.
This book gives readers an understanding of the theoretical foundations of social support communication along with practical tools to ethically and justly connect with and support others in daily life. Incorporating research, real-world examples, and autoethnographic methods, this book examines how social hierarchies, personal power dynamics, and relational and social histories can be better understood to create stronger social support messages across all our relationships, including family, friend, workplace, and health provider-patient relationships. The book translates theories of social support communication into practical application, examining how support messaging goes wrong and how to do it right. Intended as a supplementary text in interpersonal communication, psychology, and social work undergraduate courses, the book is also ideal for professionals who engage in caretaking and support tasks and wish to enhance their knowledge of social support theory.
