The role of social support in mediating the psychological consequences of economic stress

Abstract

The idea that social support can act as a buffer against the negative consequences of stress has been a particularly influential one. Most of the relevant research has focused on the impact of life events as measured through the standard life‐event inventory methodology. Such research has lacked a sociological character in that the structural contexts of people's lives are treated as if they were extraneous to the stress process. In this paper I have drawn on the sociological literature relating to the conceptualisation and measurement of poverty in order to situate the stress process in the context of people's location within an unequal distribution of resources. The measure of chronic stress which is employed is based on enforced absence of socially defined necessities. Exposure to such stress is the primary determinant of psychological distress. Both instrumental and emotional support, however, serve to buffer the effects of extreme life‐style deprivation. Copyright © 1993, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved