Social support and beyond: social co-regulation and health-related outcomes in couples and close others

Abstract

Aims: This symposium will explore diverse health-related social co-regulation processes a) by concentrating on contexts where they occur, i.e., couples and close others; b) by addressing - yet also going beyond social support and taking up less-well understood co-regulation processes such as transmission, social control, and dyadic planning; c) by investigating distal and proximal health-related criteria including health behaviour, physiological outcomes, or mortality; and d) by investigating subjectively as well as objectively assessed outcome indicators. Rationale: To better understand the well-established link between social embeddedness and survival, it is important to recognise the diversity of potential connecting pathways. We hold that social co-regulation of health should be studied where it occurs, i.e., within the social context; that different means of how persons interact to regulate each other’s health should be addressed; and that different types of proximal health-related outcomes should be taken into account, while making an effort to capture them in meaningful and possibly unbiased ways. Summary: Gawrilow and colleagues present insights into relations between daily received social support from friends and family and physical activity in young adults. Stadler and colleagues investigate how caregiver support processes are linked with survival in blood and lymphoid cancer patients after transplant. Ditzen and colleagues focus on positive and negative co-regulation mechanisms of couples’ intertwined physiological stress parameters in daily life. Scholz and Berli address social control and Knoll and colleagues investigate dyadic planning as spousal co-regulation strategies to enhance daily physical activity. Finally, Revenson will discuss findings and suggest future directions for the investigation of links between social co-regulation and health.