<P> Other costs have been associated with social support . For example, received support has not been linked consistently to either physical or mental health; perhaps surprisingly, received support has sometimes been linked to worse mental health . Additionally, if social support is overly intrusive, it can increase stress . It is important when discussing social support to always consider the possibility that the social support system is actually an antagonistic influence on an individual . </P> <P> There are two dominant hypotheses addressing the link between social support and health: the buffering hypothesis and the direct effects hypothesis . The main difference between these two hypotheses is that the direct effects hypothesis predicts that social support is beneficial all the time, while the buffering hypothesis predicts that social support is mostly beneficial during stressful times . Evidence has been found for both hypotheses . </P> <P> In the buffering hypothesis, social support protects (or "buffers") people from the bad effects of stressful life events (e.g., death of a spouse, job loss). Evidence for stress buffering is found when the correlation between stressful events and poor health is weaker for people with high social support than for people with low social support . The weak correlation between stress and health for people with high social support is often interpreted to mean that social support has protected people from stress . Stress buffering is more likely to be observed for perceived support than for social integration or received support . The theoretical concept or construct of resiliency is associated with coping theories . </P> <P> In the direct effects (also called main effects) hypothesis, people with high social support are in better health than people with low social support, regardless of stress . In addition to showing buffering effects, perceived support also shows consistent direct effects for mental health outcomes . Both perceived support and social integration show main effects for physical health outcomes . However, received (enacted) support rarely shows main effects . </P>

Absence of social support has been related to an increase in