Social relationships play a central role in shaping the quality of people's lives. Yet surprisingly little is known about the specific social resources that influence health and well-being. This may be due, in part, to inconsistencies between the way that social support is denned and the way it is operationalized
(Coyne & Bolger, 1990; Coyne & DeLongis, 1986; Lakey & Cassady, 1990). Empirical research on support and health has been largely intrapersonal despite the interpersonal emphasis of social support theory. As noted by Gottlieb (1985), "investigators have settled into a way of measuring social support that makes
it a property of the person rather than an environmental resource or at least an interpersonal exchange that has some basis in actual experience" (p. 357).
In seeking to understand the role of supportive relationships in well-being, it is important to distinguish between the effects