Societal Psychology Social support

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Societal PsychologySocial support social
capital
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Individual vs Society
Social Support - individual characteristics
(psychology) personal attribute
Community Psychology
- community characteristics (sociology) communi
ty/society attribute
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Poverty Social Exclusion Survey 1999

• 7 have no friend they see or speak to at least
  weekly
• 3 have no friend they see or speak to at least
  yearly
• Just over 1 of respondents have neither a family
  member nor a friend with whom they are in contact
  at least weekly. All of these are men. Although
  this is a tiny percentage, 1 of the population
  is in excess of half a million people, equivalent
  to a city the size of Bristol.

Levitas (2006142)
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Who cares about social support?

• being embedded in a network of supportive
  relationships is associated in general with
  health and psychological well-being.
• (Dalton et al. 2001234)

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Definitions of social support

• Structural
• Social Network Analysis
• (re journal - Social Networks)
• Convoys over the Life-course
• (Kahn Antonucci, 1980)
• Functional
• Optimal matching research

Flap, H., Völker, B. (2001). Goal specific
social capital and job satisfaction effects of
different types of networks on instrumental and
social aspects of work. Social Networks, 23,
297-320.
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Activity Mapping your social support network
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Lecture
Home
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J
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Work
Student Union
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Structure of Social Support

• Multi-dimensionality
• Density
• Reciprocity

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Multi-dimensionality

• In multi-dimensional relationships
• Friendships form quicker and easier
• Relationships last longer
• Multi-dimensional relationships are associated
  with improved self esteem, satisfaction with
  socialising and tangible support (Hirsch, 1980)

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Density

• High density networks are often quicker to help
  in a crisis High density networks offer greater
  consensus on norms and advice
• Low density networks offer a diversity of
  resources helpful when making life transitions
  (Wilcox, 1981)

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Reciprocity

• Reciprocity is arguably the most important aspect
  of a persons social network (Hartup Stevens,
  1997)
• Both giving and receiving support increases
  well-being more than giving or receiving support
  alone (Maton, 1987,1988)
• Self-help groups vs professional services

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• The vanity to give
• The generosity to take
• Arthur Koestler

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Structure of Social SupportConvoys over the
life course

• P - Person
• A - Spouse, close family, close friends
• B - Family relatives, Friends (work,
  neighbourhood etc)
• C - Neighbours, co-workers, supervisors, distant
  family, professionals

Re Mattinson Pistrang (2001)
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Function of Social Support

• Material
• Emotional
• Esteem
• Informational
• Companionship/social integration

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Forms of Social Support

• Generalised
• Occurs in ongoing interpersonal relationships
• companionship, emotional
• Specific
• Provided to help a person cope with a particular
  stressor
• esteem, informational, material

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Optimal Matching Hypothesis

• Chronic work stress
• Esteem support
• Financial stress
• Material support
• Severe illness
• Emotional support
• Job Loss Bereavement require multiple forms of
  social support
• (Cutrona Russell, 1990)

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Negatives of social support

• Receiving
• feeling patronised, helpless, dependent
• Giving
• all compassion-ed out
• Drains personal resources - energy, time,
  finances etc
• SEEKING A BALANCE

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Sources of Social Support

• Family
• Friends
• School staff
• Natural mentors - natural helpers
• Self-help groups
• ICT mediated support
• Professionals

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After the break

• Social Capital

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Multi-dimensionality
micro systems
organisations
localities
macro systems

• Social glue
• aka social cohesion
• aka social capital

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Social Capital

• egalitarian societies have ... social
  cohesion. They have a strong community life.
  Instead of social life stopping outside the front
  door, public space remains a social space
  People are more likely to be involved in social
  and voluntary activities outside the home
• Social capital lubricates the working of the
  whole society and economy. There are fewer signs
  of anti-social aggressiveness,and society appears
  more caring. In short, the social fabric is in
  better condition. (Wilkinson, 19964)

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• protection from danger was a principal
  incentive for building cities whose borders were
  often defined by vast walls or fences The
  walls, moats and stockades marked the boundary
  between 'us' and them', order and wilderness,
  peace and warfare enemies were those left on the
  other side of the fence and not allowed to cross
  it. From being a relatively safe place',
  however, the city has become associated, mostly
  in the last hundred years or so, more with
  danger than with safety'. .
• (Bauman, 200771)

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• the fear factor in the construction and
  reconstruction of cities has certainly grown, as
  indicated by the growth in locked car and house
  doors and security systems, the popularity of
  "gated" and "secure" communities for all age and
  income groups, and the increasing surveillance of
  public spaces, not to mention the unending
  reports of danger emitted by the mass media."
• (Bauman, 2007 77)

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Social Capital

• It is clear that poorer health and higher rates
  of crime, particularly violent crime, are
  strongly associated with the weaker social
  integration
• (Wilkinson, 1996170-171)

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Social Capital - Coleman

• Social capital is embedded in families and in
  relations between families. This social capital
  then gets passed into communal life through adult
  outcomes (Coleman, 1994, see critics in Portes
  and Landolt, 1996 Morrow, 1999).

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Bourdieu

• To obtain social capital, individuals have to
  possess a certain sociability, which is based on
  social competence dispositions acquired in the
  process of upbringing and in the development
  habitual practices.

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Putnams definition

• By social capital I mean features of social
  life - networks, norms, and trust - that enable
  participants to act together more effectively to
  pursue shared objectives To the extent that the
  norms, networks, and trust link substantial
  sectors of the community and span underlying
  social cleavages - to the extent that the social
  capital is of a bridging sort - then the enhanced
  cooperation is likely to serve broader interests
  and to be widely welcomed. (Putnam, 1995 664-5).

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Social Capital

• Networks
• Norms
• Trust

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Social Capital respecting diversity

• the unrelenting processes of social
  differentiation which reflect and amplify social
  hierarchy are fundamentally important in any
  analysis of social integration and community. It
  is these processes which create social exclusion,
  which stigmatise the most deprived and establish
  social distances throughout society. These
  processes are fed and nurtured by inequalities of
  what Bourdieu calls economic and cultural capital
• (Wilkinson, 1996171)

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Bourdieus other forms of capital

• Economic capital
• can be immediately converted into money as a
  ready form of exchange
• Cultural capital
• informational resources someone has, eg. ,
  educational credentials, knowledge, dispositions,
  cultural goods
• Symbolic capital
• the form different types of capital take once
  perceived or recognised as legitimate can be
  converted to power .

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• All these forms of capital interact. None are
  mutually exclusive.
• All forms of capital are differentially
  distributed across the population according to
  gender, sexuality, race, impairment, religion
  etc.
• All forms of capital are ameniable to transform
  not just reproduce existing systems of social
  inequalities.
• (re Anthias, 2001).

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Gendered Social Capital

• Social capital has mainly been focused on mens
  activities
• 'The cluster of activities, values, ways of
  thinking and ways of doing things which have long
  been associated with women are all conceived as
  outside the political world of citizenship and
  largely irrelevant to it (James cited in
  Lowndes, 2000)
• eg. Child-care

Class biased Social Support

• Most social support research has been
  middle-class focused and biased against
  non-dominant groups (Mickelson Kubzansky, 2003)

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