Ask and you Might Receive: The Actor–Partner Interdependence Model Approach to Estimating Cultural and Gender Variations in Social Support

As an essential part of close relationships, social support is a dynamic interactive process. This paper aims to investigate social support seeking and provision behaviors simultaneously using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM). The APIM approach provided estimates for both interpersonal and intrapersonal effects within the relationship. This study relied on the analysis of different levels of social complexity (Hinde, 1987) to examine how support was sought and provided within same-sex friendships from two cultural contexts. Ninety-two friendship dyads from either Chinese or Euro-Canadian cultural contexts participated in this study. Friendship qualities were used to predict different support seeking (direct vs. indirect) and support provision (supportive vs. negative) styles during in lab observations. Cultural and gender variations were also examined. Results showed that self-reported friendship qualities influenced support-seeking and provision behaviours intrapersonally and interpersonally. Without taking friendship qualities into account, Euro-Canadian participants used more indirect support seeking and less direct support seeking than the Chinese participants. For support provision, Euro-Canadian participants were less likely to provide problem-focused support to their friends than Chinese participants, but Euro-Canadians were more likely to provide emotion-focused support than Chinese participants. After accounting for friendship qualities in the dyads, female participants were more likely to provide emotion-focused support than were male participants. However, there was no evidence of cultural group differences on support-seeking or provision behaviours among same-sex friends. These results demonstrate the conceptual and empirical advantages of using APIM to unpack cultural and gender variations in social support processes.