Online Social Support: The Interplay of Social Networks and Compu ...

Then a group that required close continuous contact could be matched to a task that benefits from close continuous contact thus indicated that group is capable of providing the support entailed in that task. To illustrate, the marital dyad has close continuous contact, whereas kin tend to have more distant ad hoc contact. Nightly meals are prepared mostly in the home on a continuous basis as opposed to celebratory meals that can be held in a distant location on an ad hoc basis. Matching groups and tasks along the dimension of proximity reveals the marital dyad as best suited to providing nightly meals, whereas kin are better suited to providing celebratory meals.

Moreover, when a group can provide a task that is necessary to ameliorate health, there will be a positive relationship between social support and health if that group is present. If the group is not present or there is a mismatch, support will have no influence on health or a negative one.⁵ For example, if a cancer patient is suffering from severe fatigue after a chemotherapy session and has no food at home, it would be detrimental to her health if she does not eat or if she has to go food shopping. The task for which the patient needs assistance is not something an oncologist would perform but can be provided by a family member or friend. Hence, having the support of a primary group member may positively influence health, whereas not having a primary group or relying on a doctor for such support could create a negative effect or no effect at all. Conversely, when this patient is in need of chemotherapy to fight her cancer, it will not be a family member or friend who provides such a task but an oncologist.

Accordingly, support from a group will produce a buffer effect when matched with tasks that manage crisis situations, and a main effect when matched with tasks of a preventative nature. Thus, the expanded organization contingency theory exposes both the buffer hypothesis and the direct effect hypothesis as first-order theoretical formulations and overcomes most of the specific limitations of these hypotheses. Stressful life events cannot be confounded with support because life events are not measured, but rather tasks that provide support for life events.