Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 29, No. 6, 2010, pp.

624-645

CHU ET AL.
SOCIAL SUPPORT AND WELL-BEING

Meta-Analysis of the Relationships

between Social Support and Well-Being
in Children and Adolescents
Po Sen Chu, Donald A. Saucier, and Eric Hafner
Kansas State University

Research has started to explore the associations between social support and wellbeing among children and adolescents, but the overall relationship is still unclear. This study explored: (1) the overall association between social support and
well-being, (2) the association differences among categories of well-being, (3)
the association differences among different types of social support measures, (4)
the association differences among different support sources, and (5) whether the
association between social support and well-being changed with participants
age. Two hundred forty-six studies were collected and analyzed, and the results
indicated a positive but small association between social support and well-being.
Additionally, moderator analyses indicated that social support was more strongly
associated with self-concept, perceived support was more strongly associated
with well-being, support from teachers and school personnel was more strongly
associated with well-being, and the association between social support and wellbeing increased with age. The implications and possible applications of the relationship between social support and well-being among children and adolescents
are discussed.

The associations between social support and well-being in adults

have been heavily researched, but the study of such relationships
among children did not receive much attention until the 1980s (Belle,
1989; Dubow & Ullman, 1989; Wolchik, Beals, & Sandler, 1989), despite it having been suggested that children and adolescents need
social support more than adults do (Belle, 1989). Fortunately, the
Address correspondence to Po Sen Chu or Donald Saucier at Kansas State University,
Department of Psychology, 492 Bluemont Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506-5302; E-mail:
chupo@k-state.edu or saucier@ksu.edu.

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625

quantity of research on children and adolescents social support has

since grown plentifully (Wolchik, Beals, & Sandler, 1989). However,
the overall relationships between social support and well-being in
children and adolescents remain unclear, and researchers have not
yet identified which aspects of social support are critical for children
and adolescents (Dubow & Ullman, 1989). Therefore, the main purpose of this meta-analysis was to explore the associations between
social support and well-being in children and adolescents. We believed it would be beneficial to aggregate related studies in order
to determine the valence and magnitude of the relationships, providing an authoritative basis for describing the association between
social support and well-being among children and adolescents.
Social support is defined as the provision of both psychological
and material resources with the intention of helping the recipients
to cope with stress (Cohen, 2004). Cohen and Wills (1985) proposed
that social support is related to well-being because it offers positive emotions, a sense of self-worth, and predictability in life; it also
functions as a stress buffer by reinforcing self-esteem, self-efficacy,
and problem solving behaviors. They stated that though most of
the studies on social support are correlational and therefore do not
imply causal relationships, the evidence from studies using animal
research, social-psychological analogue experiments, and prospective surveys suggest that social support has positive effects on wellbeing.
However, in studying the relationship between social support and
well-being, researchers and practitioners have faced a legitimate
problem: the diverse definitions, measurements, and outcome variables utilized across studies (Barrera, 1986; Smith, Fernengel, Holcroft, Gerald, & Marien, 1994). The definitions of social support for
children and adolescents by different researchers, though similar,
often have slightly different emphases. Researchers have noted that
social support is a multidimensional construct and therefore is analyzed and measured via many different approaches, such as ones
social network size, how much one believes he or she has actually
received support from others, or how much one believes he or she
will receive support when help is needed (Barrera, 1986; Dubow &
Ullman, 1989). We believe it is important to synthesize related studies to detect the overall relationship of social support and children
and adolescents well-being, and it is equally important to learn
whether these different types of measures associate with well-being
differently. Furthermore, many studies also assess how much chil-

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dren and adolescents receive support from different sources such as

family, friends, and teachers. Which source provides support that is
in general more strongly associated with the well-being of children
and adolescents?
The purposes of this meta-analysis, therefore, were to estimate the
overall relationship between social support and well-being among
children and adolescents, and to examine moderators that would
affect this relationship. The three categories of moderators examined in this study were types of measures of social support, sources
of social support, and different outcomes of well-being.

The Overall Relationship Between

Social Support and Well-Being, and
Different Outcomes of Well-Being
Evidence of the benefits of social support for adults is bountiful (for
example, see Cohen & Wills, 1985; Schwarzer & Leppin, 1991; Uchino, Cacioppo, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 1997). Similarly, studies generally
show a positive relationship between social support and well-being
in children and adolescents (for example, see Malecki & Demaray,
2006 for a brief review about social support as a buffer to stress for
students). But some studies have found trivial or even negative relationships. For instance, Berndt (1989) suggested that the friendships
among children and adolescents can have negative aspects such as
conflicts and/or competition that need to be examined. There is also
evidence suggesting the association between social support and
psychological adjustment among pregnant teenage mothers could
be trivial (Barrera, 1981). Borcherding, SmithBattle, and Schneider
(2005) further stated that many methods used to measure teenage
mothers social support only focus on its benefits, rather than the
potential difficulties and conflicts in their relationships, indicating
that supportive relationships may not always be positive. Thus,
though evidence suggests an overall positive relationship between
social support and well-being among children and adolescents,
many factors may influence its magnitude.
Further, because children and adolescents relationships with their
support providers are potentially quite different from adults, the association between social support and well-being among them may
also be different. Unlike adults, most children, especially younger
children, tend to have vertical relationships with other adults (e.g.,
parents, teachers); in other words, those adults can potentially ex-

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627

ert control over them (Russell, Pettit, & Mize, 1998). Hartup (1989)
stated that vertical and horizontal relationships have somewhat
different impacts on children and adolescents, and thus the social
support they receive and perceive, and its effects, may be different
as well.
Because the overall magnitude of the relationship between social
support and well-being is not well-established for children and adolescents, and because children tend to experience support differently than adults (e.g., vertical vs. horizontal), a synthesis of studies
to investigate these issues is beneficial. Furthermore, Barrera (1986)
showed that the outcome variables examined among children and
adolescents across studies were very diverse. This suggests that a
moderator analysis is necessary. In Amato and Keiths (1991) metaanalysis on parental divorce and the well-being of children, they
coded outcome measures into 8 categories (e.g., academic achievement, conduct problems of children and adolescents, psychological adjustment) and performed a moderator analysis across these
categories. In our current meta-analysis, we adopted and adjusted
their coding schemes to examine and compare different categories
of outcomes across studies.

The Types of Measures

When studying the relationship between social support and wellbeing, the diverse definitions and measures of social support have
posed a challenge (Barrera, 1986; Smith et al., 1994). Barrera (1986)
attempted to overcome the problem by categorizing the instruments into three types of measures based on what they assess: first,
social network assesses children and adolescents social network size
and density; second, enacted support assesses the frequency of support that children and adolescents believe they have received; and
third, perceived support assesses children and adolescents perceptions of how much support is available if needed. Research from
adult literature recognized perceived support as a better measure
when evaluating the association between social support and wellbeing. For example, Cohen and Wills (1985) discovered that social
supports protective effect was only found in studies measuring
perceived social support, and that those studies that utilized instruments for measuring social network and actual support received in
the past did not produce significant effects. Their review suggested

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that among the three types of measures, perceived support is the

type that is most related to well-being.
Indeed, based on past literature, it appears that the measures of
social network and enacted support did not relate to well-being as
strongly as perceived support did. For the measure of social network, Rook (1984) indicated that supportive relationships might
also be the sources of conflicts, and therefore are not necessarily
beneficial. Dubow and Ullman (1989) also found that ones measure
of network size was unrelated to enacted and perceived support.
They reasoned that one deep and meaningful relationship may be
sufficient to protect one from stress, and more relationships are not
necessarily more beneficial. Consequently, simply counting ones
number of relationships seems not to be the best predictor of ones
well-being.
Regarding enacted support, studies show that support that is actually received may not be as beneficial as perceived support. Taylor et al. (2004) summarized some potential reasons: the provided
support may not be what is really needed, the help offered may be
perceived as intrusive, and help by others may reduce ones self-esteem. In contrast, an individual may be comforted by knowing that
social support is available during times of stress. From this perspective, Taylor et al. (2004) suggested that social support does not need
to be activated to be beneficial; the perception of social support may
be more important than received support.
Thus, based on past research, perceived social support should be
best related to well-being, followed by enacted support and social
network size. The moderator analysis of this meta-analysis examined this prediction.

The Sources of Support

Cauce and Srebnik (1990) identified three main sources of support
for children and adolescents: family, friends, and school personnel. Though research recognizes the importance of both family and
friend supports for children and adolescents well-being (e.g., see
Bugental & Grusec, 2006 for a review), these relationships can also
be sources of conflicts (e.g., Barrera, Chassin, & Rogosch, 1993).
Rook (1984) stated that the interactions within individuals social
networks are often assumed by many researchers to be supportive,
but in fact may sometimes be negative, including such things as

SOCIAL SUPPORT AND WELL-BEING

629

arguments and invasion of privacy. Further, some studies found

negative associations between friends support and well-being. For
example, Borum (2000) found adolescents relationships with peers
sometimes are associated with negative outcomes of well-being
(e.g., drug abuse or delinquency); Kerr, Preuss, and King (2006) also
found a positive relationship between peer support and suicidal
ideation among male adolescents. These studies, along with many
others, discovered trivial or negative outcomes from peer support
among children and adolescents. Though at least one study suggested that the conflicts may not necessarily neutralize the positive
outcomes (Barrera, Chassin, & Rogosch, 1993), it is still important to
investigate the magnitude of overall relationships of these sources
of support with well-being.
Regarding school personnel (e.g., teachers) support, though there
is relatively little research on this source compared to parent and
friend support (Benhorin & McMahon, 2008), studies suggest positive associations between teachers support and well-being outcomes, including improved emotional adjustment, better academic-related achievement and behaviors, and fewer psychosomatic
symptoms (e.g., Bru, Murberg, & Stephens, 2001; Natvig, Albreksten, Anderssen, & Qvarnstrom, 1999; Wentzel, 1998). Murdock and
Bolch (2005) also found a positive link between teacher support
and school adjustment (assessed by school belonging and academic
achievement) among gay, lesbian, and bisexual high school students. The empirical evidence generally shows a positive relationship between school and teacher support and well-being among
children and adolescents.
Based merely on the related studies on different sources of support, it is difficult to distinguish which source of support will be
associated with well-being most strongly. Indeed, until now, research seems to be inconclusive on the relative importance of these
sources of support on children and adolescents well-being (e.g.,
Criss, Shaw, Moilanen, Hitchings, & Ingoldsby, 2009). Therefore,
this meta-analysis explored the relationships between these sources
and well-being in order to examine which source was associated
with well-being most strongly.
To summarize, we investigated the following research questions
in our meta-analysis:
1. What is the magnitude of the mean effect size between social
support and well-being among children and adolescents?

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2. Are there differences in the magnitude and direction of mean

effect sizes among the different categories of well-being (e.g.,
academic achievement, conduct problems of children and adolescents, psychological adjustment)?
3. Are there differences in the magnitude and direction of mean
effect sizes between different types of social support measures
(e.g., size, enacted, and perceived) and well-being?
4. Are there differences in the magnitude and direction of mean
effect sizes between different support sources (e.g., family
members, peers) and well-being?
Finally, because younger children tend to have vertical relationships
with their support providers, we examined whether the relationship between support and well-being changes with age. Therefore,
we also examined whether age served as a significant moderator of
the relationship:
5. Is age a significant moderator of the relationship between social support and well-being?

Method
Locating Studies
We located studies for potential inclusion using the PsycINFO
(1900-2008) and Eric databases (1966-2008). First, the key word social support was used to search for studies (articles, book chapters,
and dissertations) that specifically used participants of childhood,
preschool age, school age, or adolescence as samples. Studies had
to be written in English, be published in the United States,1 and be
quantitative studies. A total of nearly 1,400 articles, abstracts, or texts
were scanned or reviewed. Reference lists of studies we retrieved
were examined to identify other studies for potential inclusion.
1. We set this criterion in order to control the variable of culture. Evidence suggests
that the relationships between social support and well-being are influenced by culture.
Kim, Sherman, and Taylor (2008) stated that the study of social support should take
the social relationships patterns of different cultures into account, because how
people sense and utilize social support depends on how they see the self and their
relationships with others, and different cultures have different assumptions and
expectations on these aspects. In other words, people of different cultures have different
perceptions of social support, and inclusion of those people could cause potential
confounds. This was the same reason we excluded studies of immigrant samples.

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631

Inclusion Criteria
Correlational studies that met the following inclusion criteria were
included. First, participants must have been children and/or adolescents, including preschoolers, kindergarteners, elementary students, middle school students, and high school students. Second,
studies were conducted in the United States. Third, correlations,
means and standard deviations, p values, or other statistics sufficient for the calculation of an effect size of the relationship between
social support and well-being were included. If a study did not
have information adequate for the calculation of effect sizes (e.g.,
only reported multivariate statistics), it was excluded. Fourth,
samples were not sojourners or immigrants. Finally, the measure
of social support was derived directly from self-reports of the samples instead of from parent-report or lab-observation. For example,
Wertlieb, Weigel, and Feldstein (1987) realized the limitation of obtaining childrens social support from their mothers and suggested
childrens self-report was a more valid index of their own social
support. This opinion is shared by other researchers (e.g., Cauce &
Srebnik, 1990; Compas, 1987; Dubow & Ullman, 1989).
Sample of Studies
Two hundred forty-six published (N = 199) and unpublished (N
= 47) studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the
analyses.2 The sample sizes of individual studies ranged from 21
to 14,211, and samples ages ranged from 3 to 20 years.3 The total
number of participants across all studies was 121,432. The publication years ranged from 1980 to 2008, with a mean publication year
of 2000.94.
Coding Procedures
Each study was coded for the following characteristics: name of the
first author, publication year, number of total participants, mean age
2. All the studies included in the meta-analysis are available from the authors.
3. Though our maximum age limit was high school students only, 8 studies (k =
26) reported students in high schools up to the age of 20. Because the number of high
school students over age 18 was very small, in order to preserve the information the
studies could provide we decided to retain those studies.

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or grade levels of participants, races of participants if reported, the

instrument used to measure social support, gender differences in
terms of effect sizes if reported, and the relevant statistics for calculation of effect sizes. If a study did not provide an r value to report
the effect size between social support and well-being, we extracted
the statistics reported that could be transformed into correlation
coefficients assessing the effect sizes of the relationships between
social support and well-being according to the formulas provided
by Rosenthal and Rosnow (1991).
Categories of Outcomes of Well-Beings
When studying the associations between parental divorce and the
well-being of children, Amato and Keith (1991) coded the variables
related to well-being into the following eight categories:
(a) academic achievement (standardized achievement tests, grades,
teachers ratings, or intelligence); (b) conduct (misbehavior, aggression, or delinquency); (c) psychological adjustment (depression, anxiety, or happiness); (d) self-concept (self-esteem, perceived competence, or internal locus of control); (e) social adjustment (popularity,
loneliness, or cooperativeness); (f) mother-child relations (affection,
help, or quality of interaction); (g) father-child relations; and (h) other.
(p. 28)

After scanning and reviewing the 246 articles, we found that the
outcome variables that were studied generally fit this categorization, and therefore we adopted this categorization with some modifications. The first 5 categories (a-e) were adopted, and 4 additional
categories were added: health (e.g., exercise frequency, eating habits, Body Mass Index (BMI), healthy habits such as diet and avoiding
substance use); coping skills (e.g., with anger, burnout); career (e.g.,
career planning, career outcome expectation, self-efficacy in finding
a good career path after graduation); and other (included different
overall measurements, such as overall life satisfaction, overall adaptive/maladaptive behaviors, quality of life, self-concept combined
with academic achievement, or some variables that did not belong
to any category, such as capacity for reflection).

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633

Types of Measures
Social support measurements were coded into 5 categories: first,
size (those that measure the number of people in participants social
network, such as number of friends); second, enacted (those that ask
participants perception of how much help they actually received
for a certain period of time in the past, such as participants estimation of the frequency of parents praising or listening to them in
the past month); third, perceived (those that measure participants
perception of availability of help if they need it, such as how much
the participants believe they can rely on their parents when they
are in trouble); fourth, seeking (those that measure how much participants seek social support when they are depressed or anxious);
and fifth, other (those measures that failed to differentiate different aspects of social support such as The Network of Relationships
Inventory by Furman and Buhrmester (1985), or the measures that
access size and satisfaction of social support but the studies failed
to report them separately).
Sources of Support
We also coded the sources of support into 4 categories: family/relative support, friend support, teacher and school support, and others
(e.g., counselors, other adults, and communities).
Other Moderators
Age. We coded participants mean age in order to examine the relationship between age and effect sizes using a continuous moderator
analysis. Some studies did not provide the mean age of the participants, but almost all provided participants grade levels in school,
therefore we used that information to estimate the mean age.
Publication Years. Finally, we were interested in examining whether the relationships remained stable over time. Therefore, the publication years of the studies were tested as moderators of the relationship between social support and well-being.
A study may contribute more than one effect size because social
support was often used to correlate with more than one outcome.

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A total of 901 effect sizes were extracted from the 246 studies and
included in the analysis. Forty-four studies (17.89%) contributed 1
effect size, 72 studies (29.27%) contributed 2 effect sizes, 44 studies
(17.87%) contributed 3 effect sizes, 26 studies (10.57%) contributed
4 effect sizes, 5 studies (2.03%) contributed 5 effect sizes, 27 studies
(10.98%) contributed 6 effect sizes, 8 studies (3.25%) contributed 8
effect sizes, 12 studies (4.88%) contributed 9 effect sizes, 3 studies
(1.22%) contributed 12 effect sizes, 2 studies (0.81%) contributed 15
effect sizes, 1 study (0.41%) contributed 16 effect sizes, and 2 studies
(0.81%) contributed 18 effect sizes.
Most of the coding of the variables was straightforward, but the
classification of well-being variables and types of support into categories was somewhat more subjective. Therefore, we performed
reliability tests in which the first and third authors independently
coded 50 well-being variables and types of support. The Cohens
Kappa was .71 (p < .05) for well-being variables and .80 (p < .01) for
types of support. The disagreements were resolved by discussion.

Results
DSTAT (Johnson, 1989), a computer software program for the metaanalytic review of research literature, was utilized to analyze the
effect sizes. The overall effect size was calculated using two methods. First, when one study provided more than one effect size, the
studys effect sizes were first synthesized and corrected based on
sample sizes, such that each study contributed only one effect size.
Second, all 901 effect sizes were analyzed for an overall effect size.
A histogram of the distribution of all 901 effect sizes is presented
in Figure 1. As Figure 1 illustrated, the distribution approximates a
normal distribution.
Based on the analysis of only one effect size per study, both the
overall unweighted and weighted effect sizes have the same value
when rounded to two decimal places, r = .18, p < .0001. Using all 901
effect sizes, both the overall unweighted and weighted effect sizes
have the same value when rounded to two decimal places, r = .17,
p < .0001. These results indicated that the relationship between perceived social support and overall well-being was positive in direction but only small in magnitude. Because the results of one effect
size per study and all effect sizes were very close, we used all 901
effect sizes for all following analyses.4

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635

Figure 1. The distribution of the 901 effect sizes of the relationships

between social support and well-being for children and adolescents.

Among the 246 analyzed studies, 47 of them were unpublished

(19%). Interestingly, the mean effect size of unpublished studies (k
= 203, r = .191, p < .00001) was significantly stronger than that of
published studies (k = 698, r = .167, p < .00001), QB (1) = 47.84, p <
.00001. We calculated the Fail-safe N using Orwins (1983) formula
(dc = .01) in order to address the concern of the file-drawer problem: how many unpublished studies that we did not retrieve that
would be needed to nullify the results using the effect size from the
246 effect sizes. The result showed that 3,936 unpublished studies
with nonsignificant results were needed to nullify the effect size to
a near-zero level, which suggests the results are robust.
A homogeneity analysis indicated significant heterogeneity among
the effect sizes of the studies, Qw (900) = 17,844.57, p < .00001. The
analysis revealed that 462 effect sizes (51.28%) would need to be
excluded in order to achieve homogeneity among the effect sizes,
Qw (438) = 501.42, p = .051. The results indicated that it would be
worthwhile to perform moderator analyses in order to potentially
account for some of the variance among the effect sizes.
4. We realized using all 901 effect sizes could potentially raise independence issues.
However, because the results of one effect size per study and all effect sizes were very
close, it suggested independence was not a serious threat. Therefore, we retained all
effect sizes to have more informative moderator analyses.

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TABLE 1. Mean Weighted Effect Sizes by Categories of Outcomes of Well-Being

Categories

90% CI

Academic achievement

164

.105a

.101 / .108

Conduct

141

.141b

.137 / .145

Psychological adjustment

262

.199c

.195 / .202

Self-concept

138

.265d

.259 / .270

Social adjustment

68

.212c, e

.204 / .220

Health

45

.238e, f

.230 / .247

Coping skills

17

.098a, b

.081 / .116

Career

14

.215c, e, f

.199 / .231

Other

34

.252d, f

.241 / .262

Note. Effect sizes with different subscripts differ significantly.

Effect Sizes Across Categories of

Outcomes of Well-Beings
The overall weighted mean effect sizes of the 9 categories of wellbeing were calculated and the results are shown in Table 1. The
mean effect sizes range from .098 to .265, which suggests somewhat
weak to medium magnitudes of relationships between social support and these well-being outcomes. Post hoc contrasts were performed and the results are indicated in Table 1. The results of the
contrasts show that the mean effect sizes of self-concept and other
outcomes are significantly stronger than the rest of outcomes, and
academic achievement and coping skills are significantly weaker
than the rest.
Effect Sizes across Types of Measures
The relationships between types of social support measures and
well-being are shown in Table 2. As the results indicated, the mean
effect sizes range from .01 to .201, which suggests the mean effect
sizes of social support measures vary from almost zero (social network size) to moderate in magnitude (perceived support). Because
research suggests that perceived support is a better predictor to
adjustment relatively to other types of measures (e.g., Dubow &
Ullman, 1989; Taylor et al., 2004), a priori contrasts was conducted
among the support measures, and the results are shown in Table 2.
The results indicated that the measures of perceived support were

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637

TABLE 2. Mean Weighted Effect Sizes by Types of Social Support Measures

Categories

90% CI

Size

53

.01a

.004 / .017

Enacted

147

.143b

.139 / .147

Perceived

604

.201c

.199 / .204

Seeking

21

.069d

.056 / .082

Other

76

.191e

.183 / .199

Note. Effect sizes with different subscripts differ significantly.

significantly more strongly associated with well-being than the other measures of social support.
Effect Sizes Across Sources of Support
The mean weighted effect sizes for support sources were also calculated (see Table 3). The mean effect sizes ranged from .098 (other)
to .209 (teacher and school personnel support), which suggests that
the relationships between different sources of support and wellbeing vary from somewhat weak to moderate in magnitude. Post
hoc contrasts were also performed and the results are indicated in
Table 3. The results of the contrasts show that the mean effect size of
teacher and school personnel support is significantly stronger than
the rest of the effect sizes, and the support of other sources is significantly weaker than the rest.
Other Moderator Analyses
Age. Average age was used as a continuous moderator. The mean
age was 13.75, and the moderator analysis revealed a positive significant correlation between age and effect sizes, z = 3.93, p < .0001.
This indicated that the strength of the relationship between social
support and overall well-being increases with the age of participants across the studies.
Publication Year. The publication year was analyzed as a continuous moderator. The result was significant, z = 2.55, p < .05, suggesting that the effect sizes have increased significantly over the years.
Gender Difference. Finally, there were 18 studies measuring male
and female participants relationships between support and well-

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TABLE 3. Mean Weighted Effect Sizes by Sources of Support

Categories

90% CI

Family/Relative

297

.192a

.189 / .195

Friend

213

.100b

.096 / .103

Teacher/School

125

.209c

.204 / .213

Other

42

.098b

.087 / .109

Note. Effect sizes with different subscripts differ significantly.

being separately, 23 studies used female participants only, and 1

study used males only. Though these were only 17% of the total
number of studies analyzed, we still conducted an analysis comparing the gender difference on mean effect sizes among these studies. The results indicated a significant difference between genders:
female participants (n = 8,430, k = 76, r = .199, p < .00001) had a
significantly stronger mean effect size than did male participants (n
= 2,683, k = 22, r = .144, p < .00001), QB (1) = 17.11, p < .0001. This suggests that female participants have a stronger relationship between
social support and well-being than do male participants.

Discussion
This meta-analysis explored the relationships between social support and childrens and adolescents well-being. The results indicated a significantly positive but small association, and that was moderated by different outcomes of well-being (e.g., academic achievement, conduct problems, psychological adjustment). Additional
moderator analyses revealed that measures of perceived social support are more strongly associated with well-being than other types
of measures. Different sources of support had different strengths
of relationships with well-being, with teacher and school personnel support being stronger than other sources of support. Age was
a significant moderator in the relationship between social support
and well-being, which indicated that the effect sizes increased as the
average age of the children and adolescents increased. Studies that
reported effect sizes across genders were analyzed and the results
suggested female children and adolescents have stronger relationships between support and well-being than do male children and
adolescents. Finally, publication year was a significant moderator
between social support and well-being, suggesting that effect sizes
increased significantly over the years.

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639

The Overall Relationship between

Social Support and Well-Being,
and Different Outcomes of Well-Being
Though the overall association between social support and wellbeing was significant, the magnitude was small. This result may
fall short of the expectations of some researchers; after all, social
support is considered one of the most effective ways for individuals to cope with stress (e.g., Cohen & Wills, 1985; Dubow & Ullman, 1989; Taylor et al., 2004). However, small relationships do not
necessarily indicate insignificant or unimportant effects (Lipsey &
Wilson, 1993). In fact, according to Rosenthals (1984) formula for
binomial effect sizes, a correlation of .17 between social support and
well-being indicates that 58.5% of participants who have social support experience well-being, which implies that nearly 60% of children and adolescents benefit from social support. We believe that
the magnitude of this impact is substantial, and therefore deserves
further research efforts. Further, the moderator analyses revealed
weak to medium magnitudes of relationships between social support and different well-being outcomes. The mean effect sizes for
self-concept and other were the strongest, while the effect sizes for
academic achievement and coping skills were the weakest. Future
research should further explore the potential reasons for the differences in these effect sizes, and also the mediators of the relationships between support and these outcomes of well-being among
children and adolescents.
Types of Measures
The analysis also revealed that the measures of perceived social
support were more strongly associated with well-being than other
types of measures, confirming what most literature suggests (e.g.,
Cohen & Wills, 1985; Dubow & Ullman, 1989; Taylor et al., 2004;
Wethington & Kessler, 1986). On the other hand, the size of social
networks was nearly unrelated to well-being, supporting the view
that counting ones number of supportive relationships is not a
good indicator of well-being (Cohen & Wills, 1985; Dubow & Ullman, 1989). Also, enacted support was less strongly related to wellbeing than was perceived support, suggesting that the support one
actually receives is not as beneficial as ones perception of support.
As Taylor et al. (2004) suggested, receiving actual support from oth-

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ers might reduce ones self-esteem, received support might not be

what one really needs, or the support may be seen to be intrusive.
These factors may cause stress to individuals that receive support,
and may therefore explain why enacted support is not strongly related to well-being.
Furthermore, the association between seeking support and wellbeing was also weak. Bolger, Zuckerman, and Kessler (2000) indicated that seeking support from ones social network may cause additional stress because asking for help makes one see him or herself
as less capable, and feel embarrassed to trouble others. Thus, enacted and seeking support may not be as strongly related to well-being
as perceived support because they may activate stress. However, an
alternative viewpoint was suggested by Barrera (1986), who found
that some studies reported negative relationships between measures of enacted support and psychological well-being (assessed
by psychopathological symptoms), and explained that the reason
could be a mobilization of support due to individuals increased
stress. In other words, seeking or receiving actual support does not
activate stress; it is when under stress that individuals activate these
types of support. We suggest that future research should further
investigate how much the relationship between enacted or seeking
support and well-being is explained by individuals activating these
types of support due to increased stress.
Among the five types of social support measures, the other category had a relatively strong relationship with well-being when
compared to other types of measures. We further examined the instruments in this category and found that some measures were multidimensional scales and the authors did not report effect sizes independently (e.g., failed to report measures of support network size
and perceived support satisfaction separately). Some other scales
were developed by the authors themselves and some contained
only one item. Therefore, the validity of these measures is questionable. Speculatively, this could potentially contribute to spuriously
high correlations between these measures and well-being, but further research investigating this issue is needed.
Sources of Support
In terms of sources of support, support from teachers and school
personnel had the strongest association with children and adoles-

SOCIAL SUPPORT AND WELL-BEING

641

cents well-being among the four sources, followed by the support

from family members. Friend support and other support had the
weakest relationships with well-being. The findings that the mean
effect sizes of both family and friend support were weaker than
support from teachers and school personnel deserve further exploration. Many studies suggest the importance of parental support
in children and adolescents development (e.g., Ainsworth, Blehar,
Waters, & Wall, 1978; Steinberg, 1990), but some studies found that
relationships with family and friends can also be sources of conflicts
(Barrera, Chassin, & Rogosch, 1993; Rook, 1984). We speculated that
these conflicts might lessen the effects of family and friend support
on well-being. Further, research has failed to definitively determine
the relative importance of family support and friend support (Criss
et al., 2009). The results of this moderator analysis should offer evidence for this issue: friend support was significantly less strongly
related to well-being than was family support. We speculate that
one of the reasons may be that friends are the only source of support
that children and adolescents can choose by themselves. Therefore,
children of similar characteristics, whether or not those are welladjusted characteristics, tend to associate with each other (Erdley,
Nangle, Newrnan, & Carpenter, 2001), and thus are more likely to
encourage each other on the qualities they share. For instance, aggressive children will be more likely to choose aggressive friends
(Earls, Cairns, & Mercy, 1993). As a consequence the aggressive behavior may be magnified, and well-being diminished because it is
not a well-adjusted behavior. Future research should study whether
this magnifying effect of characteristics associated with maladjustment does account for the weaker association between friend support and well-being, or whether there are other important factors.
Other Moderators
Age was significantly associated with the effect sizes between support and well-being. The older the participants were, the stronger
the effect sizes became. This seems to indicate that teenagers potentially benefited from social support more than did children. One
potential implication is that vertical relationships, which are typical
among younger children and the adults they relate to, may not be as
beneficial for well-being as horizontal relationships. More research
is needed to examine why age is a moderator for the relationship
between support and well-being.

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The effect sizes have increased significantly over the years. Speculatively, because the number of studies of children and adolescents
social support has been growing over the years (Wolchik et al.,
1989), the increasing of the effect sizes may imply that better measures were developed later that evaluated the relationship between
support and well-being more effectively.
Regarding gender differences, though some studies of children
and adolescents showed no gender differences in the correlation
between support and well-being (e.g., Santos, Richards, & Bleckley,
2007), and some found the relationship to be significant only for
male participants (e.g., Cumsille & Epstein, 1994), our analysis of 42
studies (k = 98) suggested that the mean effect size for female participants was stronger than was the mean effect size for male participants. This may indicate that teenage girls rely more on interdependent relationships for well-being (Caselman, Self, & Self, 2006).
This seems to be consistent with the adult literature. For example,
Belle (1987) indicated that women use and receive more support
than do men. Miller and Stiver (1997) stated that womens health
development is associated with their interpersonal relationships.
Kendler, Myers, and Prescotts (2005) longitudinal study involving
more than 1,000 opposite-sex dizygotic twin pairs also found that
supportive relationships are more protective against depression for
women. Thus, it appears that women may have learned to rely on
their relationships for well-being at a young age. However, given
the diverse outcome variables of well-being studied in social support literature, the same pattern of gender difference may not be
consistent across all outcomes of well-being. We believe more research is needed on these gender differences.

Conclusion
We believe the results found in this meta-analysis have practical
implications. First, to our knowledge, this meta-analysis is the first
attempt to synthesize the literature assessing the relationship between social support and well-being among these age groups. Consequently, the findings should offer new knowledge and direction
for future research on the well-being of children and adolescents.
Furthermore, Cohen and Wills (1985) suggested that social support
is a significant contributor to the well-being of individuals. Therefore, the finding that social support is positively linked to the well-

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643

being of children and adolescents may indicate possibilities for intervention. We also have suggested potential research directions in
regard to moderators such as measures of social support, sources of
social support, different outcomes of well-being, and age and genders of children and adolescents. In conclusion, this meta-analysis
has provided a further understanding of social support and wellbeing among children and adolescents, and may serve as a foundation for future research on the benefits of social support for the
well-being of children and adolescents.

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