Забота и поддержка в близких отношениях.

the practice of support giving within intimate relationships
Caring in intimate relationships is the practice of providing care and support to an intimate relationship partner. Caregiving behaviours are aimed at reducing the partner's distress and supporting their coping efforts in situations of either threat or challenge. Caregiving may include emotional support (expressions of care, affection, sympathy, and encouragement) and/or instrumental support (provision of information, advice, and tangible resources). Effective caregiving behaviour enhances the care recipient's psychological well being, as well as the quality of the relationship between the caregiver and the care recipient. Attachment theory proposes that this evolutionary pressure favoured the emergence of the caregiving behavioural system, which functions to safeguard the vulnerable dependent from harm by providing them with protection, comfort, and help during times of threat or need. Although this system was first conceptualized in child–parent bonds, its operation has since been established in adult intimate relationships, where both partners may occasionally take on the role of caregiver.

According to attachment theory, the two goals of the caregiving behavioural system are to protect close others from harm and decrease their suffering during times of threat, and to promote close others’ personal growth and exploratory behaviour. toward another person's suffering or needs. Sensitivity refers to the ability to effectively detect and interpret the partner's cues of distress, worry, or need, and to provide the type and amount of support that is well matched to the partner's wants and needs. This tailoring of caregiving efforts to the particular characteristics of the specific situation is essential for effective care. Responsiveness is the ability to provide support in a way that makes the partner feel understood (i. e., the caregiver has accurately captured the speaker's problem, needs, and emotions), validated (i. e., the caregiver confirms that the care recipient is a valued individual and that the recpieint's feelings and responses in the situation are reasonable), and cared for (i. e., caregiver should communicate affection and concern). Caregiving that lacks these two components may be ineffective or even detrimental to the care recipient's well being. Unhelpful attempts at social support include: minimization (e. g., downplaying or denying the problem), maximization (e. g., catastrophizing, making the problem seem unwieldy or unresolvable), blaming or criticizing the partner for their misfortune, inducing feelings of guilt or indebtedness, and overinvolvement (e. g., being overly protective, making the care recipient feel incompetent, inserting oneself into the problem when the partner wishes to solve it independently).

Even well intentioned support can negatively impact the care recipient's psychological adjustment to stressful events if it is inappropriate or excessive, or inadvertently highlights the fact that the care recipient does not have sufficient skills or resources to handle the stressor by themself. Consequently, Niall Bolger and colleagues have put forward the idea that support is most effective when it is invisible, or operates outside of the care recipient's direct awareness. To investigate this proposition, the researchers recruited couples in which one member was a law student preparing to undergo a highly stressful event, the New York State Bar Examination, and had both members of the couple complete daily diary entries about given and received emotional support. They found that the law students exhibited heightened levels of depression on days they reported receiving support, but lowered levels of depression on the days when their partners reported providing more support than the law students reported receiving. That is, participants in this study gained most psychological benefits from support they were not explicitly aware of having received. However, other researchers have argued that the responsiveness of enacted support is a more important factor than the visibility of the support. One study examining the effects of visible and invisible support on emotional and relationship well being showed that visible support was linked to neutral or positive outcomes when it was high in responsiveness, and invisible support was linked to negative outcomes when it was low in responsiveness. This phenomenon was originally observed in young children; children whose parents showed more intrusiveness were less likely to engage in play and exploration in a novel environment. Simultaneously, people also hold a need for "autonomy", or the desire to maintain a sense of independence and self sufficiency. For example, Feeney (2007) showed that individuals whose romantic partners were more comfortable with having their partner depend on them were more likely to independently pursue and achieve their personal goals over a period of 6 months (without their partner's direct assistance). Research shows that individuals who share news of a positive event (such as, for example, acceptance to graduate school or a promotion at work) with a close other and receive a supportive response from that person, show increases in positive emotions and personal well being above and beyond the boost given by the positive event itself. Furthermore, support for positive event sharing has positive implications for relationship well being. Specifically, receipt of such support increases feelings of trust and the endorsement of a more prosocial orientation (i. e., the willingness to respond positively in an unpleasant or conflict situation involving one's relationship partner). Additionally, support for positive event sharing is more strongly linked to higher levels of relationship quality and lower likelihood of break ups in the future than support extended during discussion of negative events. Gable and colleagues This variability is determined by a multitude of factors, including characteristics of the caregiver, the care recipient, and the relationship.

As effective caregiving involves a great amount of responsibility, as well as the expenditure of cognitive, emotional, and/or tangible resources, caregivers must be sufficiently motivated in order to provide responsive support to their relationship partner. That is, people who do not possess enough motivation to help will be less effective at providing care that is appropriate for their partner's needs. Furthermore, individuals may differ in the degree to which they hold altruistic versus egoistic motivations for helping. More altruistic and less egoistic motivations for caregiving are linked to better outcomes for the care recipient and enhanced relationship quality. Approach motivations are oriented toward gaining positive outcomes, such as increases in intimacy or the partner's happiness. Avoidance motivations are oriented toward avoiding negative outcomes, such as conflict or the partner's loss of interest in the relationship. Sacrifice for approach motives is associated with more positive emotions and greater life and relationship satisfaction for both partners, as well as less relationship conflict. In contrast, sacrifice for avoidance motives is linked to less life and relationship satisfaction for both partners, more negative emotions and conflict for the person making the sacrifice, less positive emotions for the sacrifice recipient, as well as greater likelihood of breaking up. For example, caregivers higher on empathic accuracy tend to provide more instrumental support and less negative support (e. g., accusing or criticizing) to their spouse.

Attachment theory postulates that the quality of caregiving an individual receives shapes many of the skills and motivations necessary for that individual to enact caregiving themself. When avoidant individuals do provide support, they tend to be more controlling. In the context of romantic relationships, researchers have similarly argued that in order to enact caregiving, individuals must first realize that their partner requires care. Therefore, one potential obstacle to caregiving behaviour is that the person in need of help may not actively seek support from the caregiver, or may communicate their need for support through indirect strategies (e. g., hinting, sulking, sighing) that are overly ambiguous. However, while greater communications of need can effectively elicit support,

Researchers have argued that individuals in high quality relationships, in which partners feel attached and committed to each other, should evidence more motivation to provide responsive support to their partner. and relationship interdependence Provision of effective care can also benefit the caregiver because it is likely to foster feelings of self worth and efficacy, build confidence in one's interpersonal skills, promote the self view that one is a moral person, and increase feelings of love and social connectedness. For example, higher levels of support in newlywed couples predicted higher relationship satisfaction two years later. Responsive care is especially important for relationship satisfaction.