Abstract
Most prior research on culture and the dynamics of social support has focused on the emotional outcomes for social support recipients. Though an existing body of research has identified cross-cultural differences in the emotional correlates of receiving different types of social support, researchers have seldom examined possible cultural differences in the experience of social support providers. This study used the Day Reconstruction Method to examine cultural differences in the emotional correlates of the provision of solicited and unsolicited and emotional and informational social support in the daily lives of Singaporean (n = 79) and American (n = 88) participants. Singaporean participants reported providing more social support overall. Regardless of culture, participants reported more positive emotion (affection, happiness) and less negative emotion (anger, anxiety) when they provided emotional social support. Also, multilevel modeling analyses revealed a 3-way interaction between culture, social support provision, and social support solicitation, indicating cultural differences in negative emotional responses to providing solicited social support. Specifically, results suggest that attempts to provide more solicited social support were associated with more negative emotions in the U.S. In contrast, provider negative emotions were highest in Singapore when the provider did not meet the recipient’s request for support. Patterns of cultural differences in social support provision are dissimilar to—rather than simply mirroring—those found in published research on social support receipt, highlighting the importance of studying social support provision as a distinct phenomenon.
Highlights
Cultural beliefs and practices can influence how provision of social support (SS), in its many forms, affects SS providers
The primary focus of this study is to compare the dynamics of SS provision with those of SS receipt rather than to study cultural differences or speculate upon what mechanisms drive them, we suggest that differences in our Culture, emotion, and social support provision
There were no cultural differences in the percent of SS provision episodes that participants described as having been requested, t(165) = 1.81, p =
Summary
Cultural beliefs and practices can influence how provision of social support (SS), in its many forms, affects SS providers. While cultural differences in the effects of SS receipt have been studied in recent years [1,2,3,4,5], the interaction between the dynamics of SS provision and culture has been left largely unexamined. Notable exceptions include investigations into SS provision [1, 6]. We investigated which, if any, of the recognized cross-cultural. Emotion, and social support provision differences in SS receipt have parallels in SS provision, and how SS provision and culture interact. It is necessary to first define SS, and to outline the ways in which SS receipt varies by culture
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