Week 3
Apr. 19 Social Relationships and Adaptation to Life Stress: II
Discussion Questions:
1. For what kinds of potential confounds do social support researchers need to be vigilant in their investigations? What approaches are useful in dealing with these confounds?
2. Many researchers are keenly interested in identifying the underlying mechanisms that account for the hypothesized beneficial effects of social support. What mechanisms have been postulated to account for the association between social support and physical health? between social support and mental health? How might these causal mechanisms be studied empirically?
3. How might these causal mechanisms be studied empirically?
4. Some researchers have argued that individuals' needs for social support and their response to social support will differ at different stages in the process of adapting to a major life stress. What kinds of temporal models have been proposed? How persuasive do you find these models to be?
5. Much of the research on social support examines contemporaneous associations between current social support and current health status. Yet the etiology of many illnesses has a long time course. How should social support be investigated to reflect the temporal course of various kinds of physical or mental illness?
6. Similarly, experiences in social relationships unfold over a person’s life time. To what extent might the cumulative effects of such experiences differ from the effects of current social relationships and interactions? How might we attempt to capture such cumulative effects?
Reading Assignment:
Cohen, S. (l988). Psychosocial models of the role of social support in the etiology of physical
disease. Health Psychology, 7, 269-297.
Cohen, S., Doyle, W.J., Turner, R., Alper, C. M., & Skoner, D. B. (2003). Sociability and susceptibility to the common cold. Psychological Science, 14, 389-395.
Jacobson, D. E. (1986). Types and timing of social support. Journal of Health and Social
Behavior, 27, 250-264.
Seeman,T. E., & McEwen, B. S. (1996). Impact of social environment characteristics on neuroendocrine regulation. Psychosomatic Medicine, 58, 459–471.
Thoits, P. A. (1982). Conceptual, methodological, and theoretical problems in studying social
support as a buffer against life stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 23, 145-159.
Uchino, B., Caciopo, J. T., & Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K. (1996). The relationship between social
support and physiological processes: A review with emphasis on underlying mechanisms and
implications for health. Psychological Bulletin, 119, 488-531.
Cacioppo, J. T., Berntson, G. G., Sheridan, J.F., & McClintock, M. K. (2000). Multi-level
integrative analyses of human behavior: Social neuroscience and the complementing nature of
social and biological approaches. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 829-843. (optional)
Kennedy, J., Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., & Glaser, R. (1990). Social support, stress, and the immune
system. In B. R. Sarason, I. G. Sarason, & G. R. Pierce (Eds), Social support: An interactional view (pp. 253-266). New York: Wiley. (optional)
Week 4 Social Support: Current Controversies, Critiques, and Intriguing Issues
Apr. 26
1) Researchers differ in the extent to which they view social support as an objective or subjective state. What is the nature of this controversy? What kind of evidence would tend to substantiate each perspective? Why does this distinction matter for research? for potential interventions? In a related vein, a consensus is emerging among many researchers that "perceived support" matters more for well-being than "received support." What is the strength of the empirical evidence for this claim?
2) What does research on “invisible” support suggest about the kinds of interpersonal processes or transactions in close relationships that are most beneficial to health? The research on invisible support has been conducted primarily with healthy adults. Do you think the findings from this
work generalize to ill individuals, such as those coping with chronic illness? Why or why not?
3) The effects of social support have not always been found to be positive, particularly in studies of emotional health or mental health. Stress-buffering effects appear inconsistently, and instrumental support has been associated in some research with negative, rather than, positive outcomes. How should we reconcile this work with generalizations that prevail in the literature about the beneficial effects of social support?
4) What implications for our research designs, sampling strategies, assessment procedures, and data analyses stem from consideration of the chronicity of some human disorders? For example, in studying the role of social support in predicting levels of depression, how might our results change if we include vs. exclude individuals with a history of chronic depression. More generally, how might our understanding of the association between interpersonal processes and health be affected by systematic attention to the chronicity (or stability) of the outcomes under investigation?
5) On what conceptual grounds has research on social support been criticized? On what methodological grounds has this research been criticized? Which of these various criticisms do you find most compelling? How might these (or other) criticisms be addressed in future research?
Reading Assignment:
Bolger, N., Zuckerman, A., & Kessler, R. C. (2000). Invisible support and adjustment to stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 953-961.
Burton, E., Stice, E., Seeley, J. R. (2004). A prospective test of the stress-buffering model of depression in adolescent girls: No support once again. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 72, 689-697.
Coyne, J. C., & Bolger, N. (1990). Doing without social support as an explanatory concept.
Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 9, 148-158.
Kessler, R. (1992). Perceived support and adjustment to stress: Methodological considerations. In
H. O. F. Veiel & U. Baumann (Eds.), The meaning and measurement of social support (pp. 259-
271). Washington, DC: Hemisphere.
Lakey, B., & Cassady, P. F. (1990). Cognitive processes in perceived social support. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1-7.
Lieberman, M. A. (1986). Social supports - the consequences of psychologizing. Journal of
Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 54, 461-465.
Monroe, S. M., & Johnson, S. L. (1992). Social support, depression, and other mental disorders.
In retrospect and toward future prospects. In H. O. F. Veiel & U. Baumann (Eds.), The
meaning and measurement of social support (pp. 93-105). Washington, DC: Hemisphere.
Dunkel-Schetter, C., & Bennet, T. L. (1990). Differentiating the cognitive and behavioral aspects
of social support. In B. R. Sarason, I. G. Sarason, & G. R. Pierce (Eds), Social support: An
interactional view (pp. 267-296). New York: Wiley. (optional)
Week 5 A) Social Networks, Health, and Mortality
May 3 B) Loneliness and Health
A) Discussion Questions:
1. A sizable literature has emerged that links involvement in social networks to mortality. Although specific studies vary, they share many features in common. How would you describe a typical study? What potential confounds and alternative explanations have been considered in these studies? Have any been overlooked? How has the association between social network indicators and mortality been interpreted (what explanations have been offered)? What appear to be promising directions for advancing this literature, either conceptually or methodologically?
2. Much of the evidence in this literature is derived from longitudinal studies that were initiated before the evolution of sophisticated approaches to conceptualizing and measuring social support and social network involvement. Yet, across these studies, an assortment of relatively "crude" measures of support/involvement has proved to be rather effective in predicting mortality. What should we make of the fact that these simple measures perform as well as they do?
3. The literatures on the health effects of social support and the health effects of loneliness have developed largely in isolation of each other. Should these literatures be integrated in some fashion? Do they offer distinctive or duplicative (redundant) conceptual perspectives and empirical findings? For example, is loneliness synonymous with a lack of social support? If not, how do they differ?
4. What health effects of loneliness have been documented in the literature? What mediating mechanisms have been posited to account for these effects?
Reading Assignment:
Berkman, L. F., & Syme, S. L. (1979). Social networks, host resistance, and mortality: A nine-
year follow-up study of Alameda County residents. American Journal of Epidemiology, 109,
186-204.
Berkman, L. F., Glass, T., Brissette, I., & Seeman, T. E. (2000). From social integration to health:
Durkheim in the new millenium. Social Science and Medicine, 51, 843-857.
Hawkley, L. C., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2002). Loneliness and pathways to disease. Brain, behavior, and immunity.
Marangoni, C., & Ickes, W. (1989). Loneliness: A theoretical review with implications for measurement. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 6, 93-128.
Cacioppo, J. T., Hawkley, L. C., & Bernston, G. C. (2003). The anatomy of loneliness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12, 71-74. (optional)
Week 6
May 10 Social Relationships as a Source of Social Control
Discussion Questions:
1. What is the historical origin of researchers' interest in social control? How has social control generally been defined in the sociological literature? How does social control differ conceptually from health-related social support? How could health-related social control and social support be distinguished empirically?
2. Through what specific mechanisms is social control believed to affect health outcomes? How could these various mechanisms be studied, and their distinctive effects distinguished?
3. Some theorists believe that social control has dual effects (on health behavior and psychological well-being, respectively). What does this mean? How might the dual effects hypothesis be investigated? In the assigned readings, social role obligations are posited to promote better health behavior. Can you think of circumstances when this would not be true? How might we elaborate "social control theory" to provide a basis for predicting when social role obligations would have beneficial vs. detrimental effects on health behavior?
4. How has social control typically been studied? From what limitations do these approaches suffer? How have researchers attempted to grapple with the threat of selection (or “social drift”) in their studies of the health effects of being married, being a parent, etc.? What alternative methodologies seem promising for investigating the health effects of social control in personal relationships?
5. How might we seek to integrate theoretical and methodological perspectives on social support and social control in studying interpersonal processes and health? For example, to what extent might efforts to provide social support and efforts to exercise social control within a relationship represent compatible versus incompatible relationship functions? How could we investigate these joint effects in empirical studies?
6. Some forms of health-related “influence” in social networks serve to undermine, rather than foster, sound health practices. Examples might include peer initiation into substance use or peer undermining of compliance with medical regimens. This sometimes been termed “negative social control.” Do you think this is a useful construct, or is it redundant with existing constructs that address the same phenomena? How might existing theoretical perspectives be developed to allow us to develop hypotheses about the presence and effects of positive vs. negative forms of social control in social networks?
Reading Assignment:
Burman, B., & Margolin, G. (1992). Analysis of the association between marital relationships and
health problems: An interactional perspective. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 39-63.
Helgeson, V. S., Novak, S. A., Lepore, S. J., & Eton, D. T. (2004). Spouse social control efforts: Relations to health behavior and well-being among men with prostate cancer. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 21, 53-68.
Hughes, M., & Gove, W. R. (l981). Living alone, social integration, and mental health. American
Journal of Sociology, 87, 48-74.
Lewis, M. A., & Rook, K. S. (1999). Social control in personal relationships: Impact on health
behaviors and psychological distress. Health Psychology, 18, 63-71.
Rook, K. S. (1990). Social networks as a source of social control in older adults' lives. In H. Giles, N. Coupland, & J. Wiemann (Eds.), Communication, health, and the elderly (pp. 45-63). Manchester, England: University of Manchester Press.
Umberson, D. (1987). Family status and health behaviors: Social control as a dimension of social integration. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 28, 306-319.
Tucker, J. S. (2002). Health-related social control within older adults’ relationships. Journal of Gerontology:Psychological Sciences, 57, P387-P395. (optional)
Westmaas, J. L.,. Wild, T. C., & Ferrence, R. (2002). Effects of gender in social control of smoking cessation. Health Psychology, 21, 368–376. (optional)
Week 7
May 17 Social Relationships as a Source of Stress/Conflict
Discussion Questions:
1. Why is it important to consider the implications for health of negative as well as positive aspects of social network involvement?
2. How have the negative aspects of social ties been conceptualized? What categorizations or taxonomies have been developed? How do these taxonomies compare with those developed by social support researchers? What approaches have been developed for assessing negative social exchanges?
3. How has the association between negative social exchanges and health (physical or emotional) typically been studied? What are some of the limitations of this approach? What alternative approaches appear promising?
4. Some research has sought specifically to compare the effects on health of negative versus positive social interactions. How have these effects typically been compared? What conclusions about these effects have emerged from work conducted thus far? From what kinds of limitations does this "comparative" research suffer?
5. What explanations have been offered for the apparently disproportionate effects of negative social interactions that have been documented in some studies? What other explanations seem plausible? How might these explanations be tested?
6. What does existing research suggest about the covariation between positive and negative
interaction within particular dyads, within a social network? How persuasive is this research? How might it be improved?
7. What directions for future research seem most promising?
Reading Assignment:
Coyne, J. C., Wortman, C. B., & Lehman, D. R. (1988). The other side of support: Emotional
overinvolvement and miscarried helping. In B. H. Gottlieb (Ed.), Marshaling social support:
Formats, processes, and effects (pp. 305-330). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Ewart, C. K., Taylor, C. B., Kraemer, H. C., & Agras, W. S. (1991). High blood pressure and
marital discord: Not being nasty matters more than being nice. Health Psychology, 10, 155-163.
Finch, J. F., Okun, M. A., Pool, G. J., & Ruehlman, L. S. (1999). A comparison of the influence
of conflictual and supportive social interactions on psychological distress. Journal of
Personality, 67, 581-621.
Rook, K. S. (1990). Stressful aspects of older adults' social relationships: An overview of current
theory and research. In M.A.P. Stephens, J. H. Crowther, S. E. Hobfoll, & D. L. Tennenbaum
(Eds.), Stress and coping in later life families (pp. 173-192). Washington, DC: Hemisphere.
Rook, K. S. (1998). Investigating the positive and negative sides of personal relationships:
Through a lens darkly? B. H. Spitzberg & W. R. Cupach (Eds.), The dark side of close
relationships (pp. 369-393). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Harris, T. O. (1992). Some reflections on the process of social support and nature of unsupportive
behaviors. In H. O. F. Veiel & U. Baumann (Eds.), The meaning and measurement of social
support (pp. 171-190). Washington, DC: Hemisphere. (optional)
Kessler, R. C., McLeod, J. D., & Wethington, E. (1985). The costs of caring: A perspective on the
relationship between sex and psychological distress. In I. G. Sarason & B. R. Sarason (Eds.),
Social support: Theory, research and applications (pp. 491-506). The Hague, the Netherlands:
Martinus Nijhoff. (optional)
Schuster, T. L., Kessler, R. C., & Aseltine, R. H., Jr. (l989). Positive interactions, negative
interactions, and depressed mood. American Journal of Community Psychology, 18, 423-438.
Week 8
May 24 A) Determinants of Social Support: Person and Environmental Factors
B) Special Topics (TBD based on class members’ interests) – e.g., gender
differences; interpersonal processes in the context of chronic illness
Discussion Questions:
1. Some theorists argue that social support resides more in the eye of the beholder than in the responses of the immediate social environment - that social support is a stable, trait-like characteristic that emerges from early experiences with caregivers (parents and others). What links do they postulate? How has attachment theory been applied to the study of social support?
2. What role might social skill (or social competence) play in shaping the kind of social supoprt a person has? Based on the study by Cohen et al., does social competence) appear to influence levels of social support or to account for the stress-buffering effects of social support? What further research would be valuable in examining the implications of individual differences in social skill?
3. How might features of the social environment and broader social structure influence the kind of social support people have?
4. TBD
Reading Assignment:
Berkman, L. F., Glass, T., Brissette, I., & Seeman, T. E. (2000). From social integration to health:
Durkheim in the new millenium. Social Science and Medicine, 51, 843-857.
Cohen, S., Sherrod, D. R., & Clark, M. S. (1986). Social skills and the stress-protective role of
social support. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50, 963-973.
Collins, N. L., & Feeney, B. C. (2004). Working models of attachment shape perceptions of social support: Evidence From experimental and observational studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 363-383.
House, J. S., Umberson, D., & Landis, K. (1988). Structures and processes of social support.
Annual Review of Sociology, 14, 293-318. (Note: This was listed as an optional reading for
Week 2)
Sarason, B. R., Pierce, G. R., Shearin, E. N., Sarason, I. G., & Waltz, J. A. (1991). Perceived
social support and working models of self and actual others. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 60, 273-287.
Week 9 Loss or Disruption of Important Social Relationships
May 31
Reading Assignment: TBD
Week 10
Jun. 6 Applications: The Design and Evaluation of Interventions
Discussion Questions:
1. What can practitioners/interventionists learn from theoretical and empirical work on interpersonal processes and health? What kinds of quandaries do practitioners face in seeking to draw upon research to guide their interventions? 20
2. What can researchers learn from interventions that seek to enhance people's emotional or physical health by influencing their social relationships in some way? 30
3. What kinds of underlying assumptions (explicit or implicit) have guided researchers' efforts to derive recommendations for intervention from their work? To what extent do these assumptions appear warranted? 30
4. How can we encourage greater collaboration among basic researchers, applied researchers, and practitioners? What kinds of barriers appear to interfere with meaningful collaboration?
20
5. What lessons can be drawn from existing intervention studies, including those that have been unsuccessful? Do common themes or issues cut across these "failed" intervention studies?
20
6. Why do correlational studies and intervention studies of social support processes sometimes yield dissimilar results?
20
Reading Assignment:
Gottlieb, B. H. (1992). Quandaries in translating support concepts to intervention. In H. O. F.
Veiel & U. Baumann (Eds.), The meaning and measurement of social support (pp. 293-309). New York: Hemisphere.
Helgeson, V. S., & Cohen, S. (1996). Social support and adjustment to cancer: Reconciling
descriptive, correlational, and intervention research. Health Psychology, 15, 135-148.
Heller, K., Thompson, M. G., Trueba, P. E., Hogg, J. R., & Vlachos-Weber, I. (1991). Peer
support telephone dyads for elderly women: Was this the wrong intervention? American
Journal of Community Psychology, 19, 53-74. (See also commentaries published in the same
issue.)
Kiesler, C. A. (1985). Policy implications of research on social support and health. In S. Cohen &
L. Syme (Eds.), Social support and health (pp. 347-364). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Rook, K. S. & Dooley, D. (1985). Applying social support research: Theoretical problems and
future directions. Journal of Social Issues, 41, 5-28.
Source Books and Special Journal Issues
Cohen, S., & Syme, S. L. (Eds.) (1985). Social support and health. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Cohen, S., Underwood, L. G., & Gottlieb, B. H. (Eds.) (2000). Social support measurement and intervention: A guide for health and social scientists. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. .
Duck, S. (Ed.) (1988, 1997). Handbook of personal relationships. Chichester, England: Wiley.
Duck, S., & Silver, R. C. (Eds.) (1990). Personal relationships and social support. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Gottlieb, B. H. (Ed.) (1981). Social networks and social support. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Gottlieb, B. H. (1983). Social support strategies. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Gottlieb, B. H. (Ed.) (1988). Marshaling social support: Formats, processes, and effects. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
House, J. S. (l981). Work stress and social support. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Knipscheer, C. P. M., & Antonucci, C. C. (Eds.) (1990). Social network research. Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Milardo, R. (Ed.) (1988). Families and social networks. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Pierce, G. R., Sarason, B. R., & Sarason, I. B. (1996). Handbook of social support and the family. New York: Plenum.
Pilisuk, M. (1986). The healing web: Social networks and human survival. Hanover, NH : University Press of New England.
Sarason, B. R., Sarason, I.G., & Pierce, G. R. (Eds.) (1990). Social support: An interactional view. New York: Wiley.
Sarason, I. G., & Sarason, B. R. (Eds.) (1985), Social support: Theory, research and applications. The Hague, the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.
Spitzberg, B. H., & Cupach, W. R.. (1998). The dark side of close relationships. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Vaux, A. (l988). Social support: Theory, research, and intervention. New York: Praeger.
Veiel, H. O. F., & Baumann, U. (Eds.) (1992). The meaning and measurement of social support. Washington, DC: Hemisphere.
The following special journal issues that focused on social support or social networks:
Journal of Social Issues, 1984 (vol. 40, no. 4) and 1985 (vol. 41, no.1)
Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 1990, (vol. 9, no. )
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 1990 (vol. 7, no. 4) and 1992, (vol. 9, no. 3)
Communication Research, 1992 (vol. 19, no. 2)
最終更新：2010年11月20日 11:18
