While insights sometimes are slow in coming, they often seem obvious when they finally arrive. This handbook is an outcome of the insight that the topics of social support and the family are very closely linked. Obvious as this might seem, the fact remains that the literatures dealing with social support and the family have been deceptively separate and distinct. For example, work on social support began in the 1970s with the accumulation of evidence that social ties and social integration play important roles in health and personal adjustment. Even though family members are often the key...

The work of 47 contributors from the U.S., Canada, and Israel, the Sourcebook gives special attention to the complexity of the social support construct, expanding the field's theoretical base by seriously reappraising social support research in the context of findings from other fields of psychology and related disciplines. Personality processes are specified to account for observed associations between social support and physical well-being. Several new studies are included which illustrate empirical approaches to exploring these processes. And key contributions highlight the great...

Cognitive interference refers to unwanted, often disturbing thoughts which intrude on a person's life. This text examines the effects of this thinking on behaviour, particularly how stress can distort cognition and performance and the role it plays in social maladjustment and slow learning.

In this volume, the first synthesis of work on cognitive interference, leading researchers, theorists, and clinicians from around the world confront a number of important questions about intrusive thoughts and suggest a challenging agenda for the future.

The work of 47 contributors from the U.S., Canada, and Israel, the Sourcebook gives special attention to the complexity of the social support construct, expanding the field's theoretical base by seriously reappraising social support research in the context of findings from other fields of psychology and related disciplines. Personality processes are specified to account for observed associations between social support and physical well-being. Several new studies are included which illustrate empirical approaches to exploring these processes. And key contributions highlight the great...