social support

Meaning: Social support is the help and caring a person receives, or believes is available, from others such as family, friends, coworkers and community groups. Common types are emotional (comfort, empathy), esteem (reassurance of worth), informational (advice), tangible or instrumental (money, goods, help with tasks), and network support (belonging to a group with shared interests). Two accounts explain the health benefit: the direct-effects view says support improves well-being with or without stress, and the buffering view says it mainly protects against stress by supplying coping resources.

On the MCAT: A passage may describe a study linking greater social support to lower stress, less depression or better recovery. Questions ask you to classify the type of support in a vignette, predict which group fares better, or notice that a correlation does not show causation. It connects to stress appraisal: support can raise perceived coping resources in secondary appraisal, making a stressor seem more manageable.

Common confusion: Support is not the same as network size or social integration; many contacts do not guarantee that any provide help. Perceived support often predicts outcomes as well as or better than support actually received, and help can sometimes backfire if it threatens a person's self-esteem.