ABSTRACT
Although social support is widely acknowledged to play an important role in health outcomes and psychological well-being, researchers are not in agreement concerning what aspects of support are most beneficial. Perhaps the extent of this controversy has been prolonged because too much attention has been focused on social support and, as a consequence, other broader categories of relationship behavior have been ignored. Social support has been granted an extraordinary amount of explanatory power and precision, but to be optimally useful it needs to be considered in the context of the complexities of social life. In this chapter, we explore how, by taking a more inclusive view of the aspects of human interaction, we may be able to refine our understanding not only of social support, but also of how personal relationships impact on health and well-being. We also explore how relationship satisfaction and maintenance may be related to these categories of relationship behavior as well as serving as potential mediators between relationship behaviors and health outcomes.
