Do Individual Differences in Global Social Support Affect How Daily Support Buffers Daily Stress?

It has long been known that stress can influence well-being outcomes and social support can buffer one's reaction to stress. Using 56 days of daily diary data from 296 participants, this study explores how daily social support contributes to greater daily stress resistance on those days when more perceived stress is reported. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), this study considers how the type of global social support buffers the impact of daily stress on daily negative affect. The Level-1 within-person analyses include the buffering role of daily social support perceived as cooperative (nondirective) support and that perceived as intrusive (directive) on the stress-negative affect relationship. The Level 2 between-person analyses test whether the buffering role of daily support is moderated by any of four selected global measures of support Ì¢‰âÂ' an individual's perception of support received from family, support from friends, a measure of one's perception of control over access to his or her support group, and social coping strategies (emotion-focused or problem-focused). Level-1 results suggest that nondirective support is more effective at reducing negative affect on days of increased stress when compared to directive support. Level-2 findings include the moderation of daily directive support-stress relationship for those endorsing more global social control; however, receiving greater daily directive support accentuates the stress-negative affect slope. In contrast, for those participants endorsing greater social coping strategies, daily negative affect increased, and those reporting greater daily directive support had steeper stress-negative affect slopes. Findings suggest that directive support may be detrimental to daily well-being and global resources used on days of increased stress may vary in buffering efficacy.