SOCIAL SUPPORT - GLOBAL AND RELATIONSHIP-BASED LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

This article reviews the development of a program of research on social support. It began with the construction of an instrument to assess overall support and determination of its correlation with various indicators of adjustment and performance. This led to inquiries into how people at different support levels behave socially and how they perceive the behavior of others. The results of these studies led, in turn, to focusing attention on the relative contributions to outcomes of both global and relationship-specific perceived support. We provide examples of studies that characterize each phase of the research and discuss needs for future research, with special emphasis on the need for closer integrations of research on social support and personal relationships.