Social support encompasses various functions within social networks, facilitating emotional, instrumental, and informational exchanges that promote well-being (House et al. 1988; Thoits 2011; Sueur et al. 2021). Emotional support, such as empathy and reassurance, directly contributes to psychological health and can buffer against stress. However, perceived social support often correlates more strongly with well-being than enacted support, which may sometimes yield contrary effects, as studies have shown (Haber et al. 2007; Chu et al. 2010). This discrepancy between perceived and provided support underscores the role of individual perception in social dynamics (Sueur et al. 2024).

The cognitive triad theory by Beck (1979) suggests that depressive thought patterns—negative views of self, environment, and future—distort perceptions, which may affect social support recognition. Individuals with depression often struggle to perceive or remember supportive behaviors accurately, filtering out positive feedback (Gotlib and Joormann 2010). These biases highlight the importance of subjective interpretation in social relationships, with social cognition research suggesting that social support exhibits trait-like stability and that pre-existing cognitive schemas shape support perception (Mankowski and Wyer 1997).

Gender differences in support perception have been widely documented, with young women generally perceiving and offering more social support than men (Rueger et al. 2016). Socialization influences may explain these discrepancies; for instance, girls often learn to express warmth and empathy more readily, enhancing both their recognition of and access to support (Brashears et al. 2016). Consequently, support dynamics are not only shaped by individual mental health and social network structure but also by sociocultural factors that influence emotional processing and relationship assessment.

Krüger et al. (2024) brings innovative elements to understanding social support discrepancies among adolescents by employing a dual-perspective network analysis. Unlike traditional studies that focus on either the support provider’s or receiver’s perspective, this research uses both perspectives within adolescent social networks to reveal the degree of mismatch in support perception. For example, “provided but not perceived” and “perceived but not provided” support discrepancies were identified, illuminating how gender influences support dynamics. Findings reveal that young men are more likely to experience unnoticed support provision, suggesting that gender norms around emotional expression could hinder recognition of support in male-provided interactions.

Additionally, the study finds that discrepancies are more common in opposite-sex dyads than same-sex ones, highlighting how gender-based socialization impacts support perceptions. Adolescents, especially in cross-gender interactions, may face interpretative challenges in recognizing support, possibly due to gendered expectations around emotional engagement. This gender-focused insight into social support perception is unique, providing a new layer of understanding for support network dynamics in adolescence.

Another innovative aspect is the study’s integration of mental health and loneliness as variables. Contrary to previous assumptions, these factors do not significantly impact support perception discrepancies, challenging the view that mental health primarily skews support perception. This finding suggests that social support recognition issues may be less about individual mental health status and more about relational dynamics and social norms.

In methodological terms, the use of multi-level modeling to account for school-level variations and individual differences further advances social support research by offering a more granular view of how environmental and personal factors intersect to shape support perceptions among adolescents​. It would be particularly interesting to explore how this methodology could be applied to animal social network analyses (Sueur et al. 2012; Battesti et al. 2015; Borgeaud et al. 2017; Romano et al. 2018), especially given evidence that loneliness exists in monkeys (Capitanio et al. 2014, 2019). For example, studies could investigate whether similar discrepancies exist in animal groups, such as unrecognized affiliative behaviors or mismatches in perceived versus actual social bonds. By adapting this approach, researchers could examine how social perception and interaction influence group cohesion, stress buffering, and overall well-being in animal societies, potentially offering a deeper understanding of the evolutionary and ecological drivers of social support in non-human species.

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