Depth and Breadth Tactics in Support Seeking

Past support-seeking research has examined how much support people seek (strategic level) or the way they seek it (tactical level). However, there are questions that can only be answered by looking at both levels simultaneously. In this article, we investigated how the overall amount of support soug...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSocial psychological & personality science Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 39 - 46
Main Authors Armstrong, Benjamin F., Kammrath, Lara K.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.01.2015
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Gender differences
Self esteem
Supporters
Tactics
social support
self-esteem
well-being
attachment style
gender
coping
support seeking
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Summary:Past support-seeking research has examined how much support people seek (strategic level) or the way they seek it (tactical level). However, there are questions that can only be answered by looking at both levels simultaneously. In this article, we investigated how the overall amount of support sought can be decomposed into two component tactics: the number of supporters one seeks (breadth) and the amount one seeks from each supporter (depth). In a 2-week diary study of support seeking, it was found that gender and attachment differences in overall support seeking were driven by the breadth rather than the depth of seeking. It was also found that breadth was associated with increases in perceived support availability, whereas both breadth and depth were associated with increases in self-esteem.
ISSN:1948-5506
1948-5514
DOI:10.1177/1948550614546049