Social Connectedness

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Support and more specifically social connectedness acts as a defense against negative effects of stress on anxiety. Support can be defined in many ways but generally, it is the thought and actual awareness that you are supported and cared for. It is a resource that is provided by others in a transactional manner. Support may be expressed in many ways not usually independent of one another and the benefits can be seen both psychologically and physically. Emotional support (the expression of trust, empathy, care & love), instrumental support (material assistance and physical services), informational support (providing information, advice, suggestions), and appraisal support (the material that is useful for self- appraisal). Much research has …show more content…
Support is then relevant to well-being psychologically by cause of the security a person feels when they are undergoing stress. As referenced the article by stress ss and buffering hypothesis, the social support buffering hypothesis recommends that support is effective as a buffering system because it protects from the influence of the stressful event (Cohen, & Wills, 1985). It further describes that decent levels of support may interfere between the stressful experience and the reaction exhibited, thereby reducing and even eliminating the levels of anxiety and stress a person experiences. Therefore, a person that receives family support may not display high levels of anxiety caused by mortality salience. Stress would be managed …show more content…
(Mann, & Simpson, 2013) As a result, they are included into more social networks and as noted above involvement in support groups, family and friends alike have been strongly correlated to physical and mental wellbeing. These findings further confirm that optimism does have an impact on support provided by support network. Therefore, it should be safe to assume that optimist have better mental and physical health due to the social support they receive (Antoniw, Hartung, Renner, & Vollmann,