Importance of Social Support in College

There have been many studies that have investigated the impact that social support has on an individual’s overall psychological well-being. Plenty of research has shown that social support has a major role in making a decision on different types of mental health outcomes such as anxiety, depression, mood disorders, and such similar ones. There are many ways in which we can get access to social support which include interactions with family and friends, having a significant other, being married, or through other forms of close relationships.

While having these types of social support interactions, it is also important to consider the quality of these types of relationships.

In a society where the way we interact with one another has considerably changed, the need to understand the impact of social support has gotten greater than ever. A lot of studies in the past have shown the impact social support has on many different factors including our psychological well-being. According to Zhou, Zhu, Zhang, and Cai (2013), social support is defined as having access to reliable people who care, love and value us as an individual.

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Additionally, Hefner and Eisenbeg (2009) came up with this idea that there are two different types of social support which included structural support and functional support. Based on their investigation, structural support is defined as the quantity of relationships although functional support is defined as the quality of relationships. In addition, other studies have also indicated that the source from which we receive social support may obtain different effects on psychological well-being.

For example, Wang and Castaneda-Sound (2008) found that perceived social support from family may have more of a direct impact on psychological wellness in comparison to other sources of social support such as friends or colleagues.

It is important to mention that social support can be found in many different aspects of life, including personal, professional as well as academic. One area of focus among researchers has been about the kind of social support we receive in schools and other education institutions. One particular study managed by Gosnell (2019) pointed to understanding how school-related social support helped promote and contribute to feelings of belongingness and connections among students. Specifically, this study focused on a specific type of social interaction called capitalization, which is defined as the process of sharing positive experiences with others. In this study, undergraduate college students were recruited and placed in either a capitalization condition which allowed them to engage in capitalization activities or a concept activity which served as a baseline condition.

A survey was then handed iut to them afterward in order to measure a number of variables including college satisfaction and sense of belongingness among others. The findings indicated that those students in the capitalization condition who received beneficial support for the positive events reported significantly greater outcomes for a number of variables including class belongingness, college identification, and satisfaction with college life. These findings are consistent with the idea that social support plays an important part in an individual’s academic environment. Additionally, 6-week longitudinal study managed by Zhao, and Huebner (2015) also examined the impact social support has in a school setting specifically among adolescents. A random sample of 1476 students were drawn from eight public schools and were given a questionnaire regularly in order to figure out the effect social support has on their subjective well being. The findings indicated that both school-related social support are important to maintaining a better subjective well-being for adolescents in school. These findings suggest that having social support in an academic setting can help improve a student's psychological wellness.

Social support has not only been shown to impact the feel of satisfaction and identification in an individual’s academic life, but also in one’s personal life. Several studies have examined how social support influences an individual’s overall health and well-being. Liu, Li, Ling, and Cai (2016) managed a study which tried to understand how core self evaluations and coping styles influenced the relationship between social support and well-being. In addition to concluding that coping styles had significant effects on well-being, it was also concluded that participants with more social support reported higher core self evaluations and overall higher life satisfaction. These findings show the kind of increased effect social support has on the way we perceive the quality of our lives. These findings also suggest that there may be a link between social support and how we evaluate ourselves, which may also contribute to our overall mental health.

Mental illness has become a focus of concern in today’s society which has in this way indicated a closer look into how we can manage our psychological well-being. According to Klainin-Yobab et al. (2016), psychological well-being has a serious indication in the prevention of health issues and living a long life. In order to understand these indications, it is also important to understand what causes psychological well-being. Past research run by Ryff and Keyes (1995) have defined psychological well-being as having self-acceptance, purpose, autonomy, ability to control one’s own environment, personal growth and having positive relationships with other individuals. The six-factor model supports the hypothesis of this study, as it involves a major link between psychological well-being, social interactions, and relationships with others. Based on this model, psychological well-being is defined as long-term wellness rather than short-term wellness. In other words, when we talk about psychological well-being, we are not just talking about whether or not an individual is feeling happy or is satisfied with their life. Instead, this model indicates a more complete and deeper meaning behind psychological wellness.

Previous research has shown a strong relationship between different parts of social support and mental health outcomes. In a study run by a Hefner and Eisenberg (2009), a Web-based survey was given to 1,378 randomly selected college students in order to find out whether students with different characteristics than most other students have a higher possibility of being socially isolated. The different characteristics that were investigated included ethnicity, race, international status, and low socioeconomic status. This study concluded that both structural and functional measures of social support were positively associated with having better mental health. This means that both having people around us who we are able to talk to and having good quality interactions with those people are necessary in having positive mental health.

Additionally, Klann-Yobas et al. (2016) managed a non-experimental research study that also explored the effect of social support and other factors on psychological well-being among undergraduate college students and found that social support was found to be a significant predictor of psychological well-being. Based on this study, students who received more social support from friends, family, and their significant other also reported higher psychological well-being. In addition, psychological well-being increases a person’s ability to cope with stress, increases positive feelings and also presents as a guard against adverse experience. According to the findings of this study, social support not only impacts psychological well-being, but may also act a supportive factor in cases where we experience negative experiences.

Not only does social support play an important part in our psychological well-being, but also the quality of our social support has significant meaning. According to Lincoln (2000), the kind of social support that we receive can either have positive or negative effects depending on whether we take part in having positive or negative interactions. According to her investigation, when we take part in having negative social interactions, it can cause more harm than social support being helpful. In other words, in cases where we are constantly engaging in negative social interactions. It may actually be better to avoid those connections of social support altogether in order to maintain better psychological well-being. Therefore, it is not enough to just have people we interact with, but it is important to make sure that our interactions with people are positive and helpful. This investigation suggests that the relationship between social support and psychological well-being is a bit more complicated than we may think it to be, which brings into the question of how these two factors impact each other.

In addition to understanding the type of social interaction we engage in, another important part includes our overall perception of the kind of social support we receive and how that in turn impacts our psychological well-being. Rankin, Paisley, Mulla, and Tomeny (2018) managed a study that looked into the overall difference between perceived need support and support received of college undergraduate students in order to find out if these differences had an impact on psychological well-being. The findings of this study indicated that greater differences between needed support and received support were strongly associated with depressive symptoms. Additionally, the results indicated that most college students actually perceived needing more support that they actually received, which was also linked to depressive symptoms.

These findings are important in understanding the kind of role perceptions have on how we interpret social support factors. We hypothesize that college students who report higher social support will have greater outcomes for psychological well-being. College students who report little to no social support have lower outcomes for psychological well-being. In other words, the more social support an individual has the better their psychological well-being will be.