Regulatory Effectiveness of Social Support

• Published in: Journal of personality and social psychology Vol. 119; no. 6; pp. 1316 - 1358
• Main Authors: Zee, Katherine S., Bolger, Niall, Higgins, E. Tory
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Psychological Association 01-12-2020
• Subjects: Activities of daily living; Bayesian Analysis; Construct Validity; Discriminant Validity; Effects; Emotions; Everyday life; Female; Human; Interpersonal relations; Male; Motivation; Needs; Predictive Validity; Regulation; Responsiveness; Self control; Self regulation; Social Support; Speech; Systematic review; Test Construction; Test Validity; Truth; social support; Bayesian models; self-regulation; control; truth
• ISSN: 0022-3514; 1939-1315
• DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000235

Receiving social support can entail both costs and benefits for recipients. Thus, theories of effective support have proposed that support should address recipients' needs to be beneficial. This paper proposes the importance of support that addresses recipients' self-regulatory needs. We present a novel construct-regulatory effectiveness of support (RES)-which posits that support that addresses recipients' needs to understand their situation (truth) and to feel capable of managing their situation (control) will engender support benefits. We hypothesized that receiving support higher on RES would predict beneficial support outcomes. We further hypothesized that these effects would be especially pronounced for self-regulation relevant outcomes, such as better mood and increased motivation, which, in turn, can be important for successful self-regulation. We established the construct validity of RES and then investigated its effects in daily life and in laboratory support discussions. In 8 studies and a meta-analysis pooling across studies, results showed that RES predicted self-regulation relevant support outcomes, and these effects of RES were stronger than the effects of perceived responsiveness, a construct that is known to enhance interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, RES was linked to self-regulatory success: Participants who received support higher on RES were more motivated to perform well on a stressful speech, which subsequently predicted better speech performance. These findings enhance knowledge of effective social support by underscoring the importance of addressing recipients' self-regulatory needs in the support process.