This study was conducted to examine social support in college student populations by way of the popular social networking website, Facebook. Relational regulation theory was used to drive the study as it posits that social support occurs when a person has conversations and/or shared activities with another individual with whom they identify as relationally meaningful. The conversation, activity, and individual are matters of personal taste; thus, this study examined whether Facebook was a good modality for this to occur. Participants were college students attending a predominately White university located in a semirural, western area of the United States. There were 122 participants across three experimental conditions. Data were collected in group format. Participants completed self-report measures, read news stories, completed puzzles as distractor tasks, and in some conditions interacted with their Facebook accounts. Results indicated that individuals receiving relational social support had a higher positive affect (M = 2.76) as compared to individuals who received no social support (M = 1.81) but were expecting it, and individuals who received nonrelational social support (M = 2.06). The difference between the no social support subgroup and the relational social support subgroup was significant, p = .012.

The first goal for the study was to estimate trait effects and social influences for racial centrality, racial private regard, and racial public regard. The second was to estimate correlational relationships between racial identity, depression, and anxiety symptoms. The study used 110 Black university students (Mage=19.5,SD=4.13) from a southeastern American university. Restricted maximum likelihood estimation was conducted to estimate variance components for all constructs. Racial centrality, racial private regard, and racial public regard consisted of mostly trait effects, although reflecting substantial social influences. Correlational findings indicated that providers who evoked high racial centrality also evoked low depression, low anxiety, and were seen as supportive. Providers who evoked racial private regard also evoked low depression, low anxiety, and were seen as supportive. Socially influenced racial public regard had no statistically significant links to other constructs. Findings suggest socially influenced racial identity holds links to mental health outcomes and social support.