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Beginning in the early 1980s, many researchers started to conceptualize support not as a unitary concept but rather as a mixture of several different concepts. The social support construct can be thought of as encompassing three components:(a) the existence of social relationships,(b) the structure of one’s social networks, and (c) the functions of social support (House, Kahn, McLeod, & Williams, 1985). Barrera (1981) made a further distinction regarding the content of social support: the perceived availability of support and received support. Perceived support is defined as support that is available if needed. Received support refers to the actual occurrence of a socially supportive exchange. Most of our focus in this chapter is on the processes of actual social support exchanges rather than analyses of social networks or perceived support.(PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)