Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Enacted Support’S Links To Negative Affect And Perceived Support Are More Consistent With Theory When Social Influences Are Isolated From Trait Influences, Brian Lakey, Edward Orehek, Kate L. Hain, Meredith Vanvleet

Peer Reviewed Articles

Social support theory typically explains perceived support’s link to mental health as reflecting the role of specific supportive actions (i.e., enacted support). Yet enacted support typically is not linked to mental health and perceived support as predicted by theory. The links are examined among enacted support, affect, and perceived support when links reflected (a) aspects of support and affect that generalized across relationship partners and time (i.e., trait influences) and (b) aspects that reflected specific relationship partners (i.e., social influences). Multivariate generalizability analyses indicated that enacted support was linked to low negative affect as predicted by theory only when correlations …