Page 24 - Never Too Far Away? The Roles of Social Network Sites in Sojourners’ Adjustment

The Mediating Roles of Perceived Social Support and Homesickness
Earlier models of sojourners’ adjustment emphasized the important roles of subjective outcomes as mediating factors between the relation of social interactions and adjustment. In this dissertation, I focus on two relevant indicators of subjective outcomes of social interactions: Perceived social support (positive subjective outcome) and homesickness (negative subjective outcome). Perceived social support and homesickness are considered two of the most crucial factors in sojourners’ adjustment (Smith & Khawaja, 2011; Stroebe et al., 2015a; Van Tilburg, 2005).
Defining Perceived Social Support
Perceived social support is defined as the belief that support is available if needed (Mikal et al., 2013; Trepte & Scharkow, 2016). Compared to other forms of social support (e.g., face-to-face and SNSs-based received support), perceived social support has been shown to predict psychological adjustment (Li, Chen, & Popiel, 2015; Trepte, Dienlin, & Reinecke, 2015; Trepte & Scharkow, 2016). Moreover, in the context of international sojourn, the belief that there are others that one can turn to in times of need could be relevant considering that sojourners are still in the process of building support networks in the host country, and established networks are geographically distant to provide actual support.
Social Interactions Predicting Perceived Social Support. Adelman’s (1988) social support theory on cross-cultural adjustment is consistent with the general framework based on the models of Berry (2006) and Ward et al., (2001). In this communication theory, Adelman (1988) argued that communication processes foster social support, which, in turn, promotes adjustment. Communication and social interactions help sojourners cope with adjustment difficulties by reducing the uncertainties experienced during cross-cultural transitions (Adelman, 1988). As with other early models, the social interactions described by Adelman (1988) were largely based on face-to-face interactions. Moreover, earlier studies often described access to social support of sojourners being mostly limited to the host- country network (Ward et al., 2001).
Research on the role of SNSs on perceived social support in the context of international sojourn is scarce. As for CMC in general, Mikal and colleagues (2013) proposed a framework that shows the potential role of CMC in life
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