Temporal trends in depression-related hospitalizations and suicide among patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

When a friend is feeling stressed, people offer their support. What determines the type of support someone offers? Past work suggests that people tailor their support to the person and situation (i.e., support is a relational dynamic). However, like other interpersonal behaviours, perhaps people have general tendencies to give and receive particular types of support as well. Given that past work focuses on dyadic interactions, which makes it impossible to tease apart relational dynamics from broader tendencies, we use the Social Relations Model (SRM; ) in the current work to tease these possibilities apart in friend groups. Most commonly, support is divided into four types: , which reduces distress through empathy and reassurance; , which involves problem-solving and advice-giving; , which refers to concrete favours; and , which consists of compliments, validation, or praise. Notably, people can also engage in such as criticizing, blaming, or interrupting when attempting to provide support (). As for which type of support is best, some support behaviours are more effective in some situations and for some people more than others (; ; ). Thus, to provide effective support, people should be adjusting their support depending on the situation. While past work has explored the types of support offered in certain contexts, here we explore the degree to which support provision is multidetermined by individual differences in how people and/or support, and the relational dynamics (tailoring). The Social Relations Model (SRM) provides a theoretical and statistical framework for understanding these different sources of social support.