SOCIAL SUPPORT - GLOBAL AND RELATIONSHIP-BASED LEVELS OF ANALYSIS

This article reviews the development of a program of research on socia l support. It began with the construction of an instrument to assess o verall support and determination of its correlation with various indic ators of adjustment and performance. This led to inquiries into how pe ople 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 example s of studies that characterize each phase of the research and discuss needs for future research, with special emphasis on the need for close r integrations of research on social support and personal relationship s.