Ph.D Biru Zhou
email: biru.zhou@gmail.com

Dara Heather

Alessia Di Cesare

Andrew G Ryder
email: andrew.ryder@concordia.ca

Dr David A Kenny

SOCIAL SUPPORT SEEKING AND PROVISION 1 Ask and You Might Receive: The Actor-Partner Interdependence Model Approach to Estimating Cultural and Gender Variations in Social Support

Keywords: Social Support, Gender, Friendship, Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, Cultural Contexts

As an essential part of close relationships, social support is a dynamic interactive process. This paper aims to simultaneously investigate social support seeking and provision behaviours using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM). 92 friendship dyads participated in this study. Supportive vs. negative friendship qualities were used to predict different support seeking and support provision behaviours during an experimental task.

Cultural and gender variations were also examined. Results showed that self-reported friendship qualities influence support seeking and provision behaviours intrapersonally and interpersonally. Female participants were more likely to provide emotion-focused support than were male participants. After accounting for friendship qualities in the dyads, there was no evidence of cultural group differences on support seeking or provision behaviours among same-sex friends. These results demonstrate the conceptual and empirical advantages of using APIM to unpack cultural and gender variations in social support processes.

Ask and You Might Receive: The Actor-Partner Interdependence Model Approach to Estimating Cultural and Gender Variations in Social Support When faced with loss, disappointment and life changing challenges, a helping hand from friends and family is both welcomed and expected. Social support has been examined in a variety of disciplines, such as anthropology, epidemiology, community health, and psychology (e.g., [START_REF] Cable | Friends are equally important to men and women, but family matters more for men's well-being[END_REF][START_REF] Goldsmith | Communicating social support[END_REF][START_REF] Jacobson | The cultural context of social support and support networks[END_REF] H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF], and has been shown to buffer a range of mental and physical health problems (e.g., [START_REF] Bolger | Invisible support and adjustment to stress[END_REF][START_REF] Masters | Specificity of social support for back pain patients: Do patients care who provides what[END_REF][START_REF] Wonderlich-Tierney | The effects of social support and coping on the relationship between social anxiety and eating disorders[END_REF]. The well-known positive effects of social support include reductions in social anxiety and eating disorder symptoms [START_REF] Wonderlich-Tierney | The effects of social support and coping on the relationship between social anxiety and eating disorders[END_REF], depressed mood [START_REF] Bolger | Invisible support and adjustment to stress[END_REF][START_REF] Schuster | Supportive interactions, negative interactions, and depressed mood[END_REF], and severity of chronic stressful physical conditions [START_REF] Martin | Specificity in social support: Perceptions of helpful and unhelpful provider behaviors among irritable bowel syndrome, headache, and cancer patients[END_REF][START_REF] Masters | Specificity of social support for back pain patients: Do patients care who provides what[END_REF]. The most frequently identified sources of social support include family, friends and romantic partners [START_REF] Carbery | Friendship and need fulfillment during three phases of young adulthood[END_REF]Day & Livingstone, 2003;Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, & Farley, 1988).

Although spousal support has usually been in the spotlight in the social support literature (e.g., [START_REF] Bolger | Invisible support and adjustment to stress[END_REF][START_REF] Bolger | Effects of social support visibility on adjustment to stress: Experimental evidence[END_REF]Cutrona, Shaffer, Wesner, & Gardner, 2007;[START_REF] Don | Indirect support seeking and perceptions of spousal support: An examination of a reciprocal relationship[END_REF][START_REF] Verhofstadt | Social support in couples: An examination of gender differences using self-report and observational methods[END_REF][START_REF] Verhofstadt | Support-seeking, support-provision and support-perception in distressed married couples: a multi-method analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Wang | Psychological well-being and job stress predict marital support interactions: A naturalistic observational study of dual-earner couples in their homes[END_REF], support from non-kin friends has also garnered some scholarly attention (e.g., [START_REF] Crocker | Creating and undermining social support in[END_REF]Day & Livingstone, 2003;Deci, La Guardia, Moller, Scheiner, & Ryan, 2006;[START_REF] Rubin | Peer interactions, relationships, and groups[END_REF][START_REF] Taylor | Social support[END_REF]. Friend support has traditionally focused on the quantitative features of the friendship network, such as size and density of the network, but the dyadic nature of the enacted friend support processes, especially among young adults, has rarely been examined [START_REF] Carbery | Friendship and need fulfillment during three phases of young adulthood[END_REF][START_REF] Gillespie | Close adult friendships, gender, and the life cycle[END_REF].

To this end, the overarching goal of the study is to unpack naturally occurring dynamic support seeking and provision behaviours within same-sex friendship dyads.

Social support in personal relationships is a dynamic process [START_REF] Leatham | Conversations with friends and the dynamics of social support[END_REF].

Understanding this process requires considerations of individual person's experiences within a specific relationship dyad. Social support interactions (i.e., seeking and provision) occur in specific relationships; relationships are embedded in groups (e.g., gender groups or classes); groups dictate the features and patterns of the relationships and interactions that would likely arise in a given sociocultural context [START_REF] Hinde | Individuals, relationships and culture: Links between ethology and the social sciences[END_REF][START_REF] Rubin | Peer interactions, relationships, and groups[END_REF]. As Hinde suggests, human experiences are inevitably influenced by different levels of social complexity.

Conclusions drawn from a single level of analysis are limited in explaining the dynamic processes at work in human interactions. Guided by Hinde and Rubin et al., we aim to address both conceptual and analytical concerns in the investigation of social support processes by examining the three levels of social complexity (i.e., interaction, relationship, and group) and the macrosystem of cultural contexts impacting the three levels. We begin with a brief review of previous research on social support according to these three levels of social complexity.

Interactions: Social Support Seeking and Provision

Social support can be defined as, "the social resources that persons perceive to be available or that are actually provided to them by nonprofessionals in the context of both formal support groups and informal helping relationships" (Wills, 1991, p. 4). Two support seeking strategies have been identified: direct vs. indirect support seeking [START_REF] Barbee | Effects of gender role expectations on the social support process[END_REF][START_REF] Barbee | An experimental approach to social support communications: Interactive coping in close relationships[END_REF]. Direct support seeking includes overt and explicit behaviours containing necessary information to allow support transactions to occur, such as asking someone to pass the salt during dinner. Indirect support seeking includes behaviours that are more subtle and passive; it may vaguely signal the need for help, but without specifying what kind of help is needed. An example of indirect support seeking could be complaining to a friend about a difficult situation at work without asking for help directly.

The vague and nonspecific behaviours of indirect support seeking make it more difficult for support providers to identify the actual needs of the support seekers. Eventually, indirect support seeking may even lead to a negative response because it is not clear for the support provider what specific help is needed [START_REF] Barbee | Interactive coping: the cheering-up process in close relationships[END_REF][START_REF] Barbee | An experimental approach to social support communications: Interactive coping in close relationships[END_REF]. [START_REF] Don | Indirect support seeking and perceptions of spousal support: An examination of a reciprocal relationship[END_REF] found evidence that for new parents, the use of indirect support seeking during pregnancy was related to elevated levels of perceived negative support responses at 1-month postpartum, which predicted indirect support seeking at 4-month postpartum, after controlling for relationship satisfaction. This study supported Barbee and Cunningham's argument that indirect support seeking may not be the best support seeking strategy due to its propensity to elicit negative responses from support providers.

Social support provided in dyads and small groups is often examined in three forms: informational, instrumental/tangible, and emotional/esteem (Cutrona & Suhr, 1994;[START_REF] Taylor | Social support[END_REF]. Informational/tangible support provision, such as giving advice or lending money, centers around concrete problem-focused resolution of the stressor [START_REF] Chen | Culture and social support provision: Who gives what and why[END_REF][START_REF] Chentsova-Dutton | Let me tell you what to do: Cultural differences in advice-giving[END_REF]. Emotional/esteem support provision, on the other hand, is an emotion-focused provision which aims at providing reassurance of the support recipient's positive self-worth, self-regard and emotional comfort [START_REF] Taylor | Social support[END_REF].

Although social support usually refers to the positive aspects of social interactions, not all support responses would yield positive effects on the individual in need. For instance, people can provide poor advice [START_REF] Shumaker | Gender differences in social support and physical health[END_REF], be overly intrusive [START_REF] Bolger | Close relationships and adjustments to a life crisis: The case of breast cancer[END_REF] or simply engage in negative and counter-supportive behaviours [START_REF] Crevier | Overt social support behaviors: Associations with ptsd, concurrent depressive symptoms and gender[END_REF][START_REF] Guay | How do social interactions with a significant other affect PTSD symptoms? An empirical investigation with a clinical sample[END_REF][START_REF] Schuster | Supportive interactions, negative interactions, and depressed mood[END_REF], such as criticism, complains, refusal to help, disagreeing or arguing with the support seeker, interruption, and making hurtful or insensitive remarks of the situation (Cutrona & Suhr, 1994;[START_REF] Don | Indirect support seeking and perceptions of spousal support: An examination of a reciprocal relationship[END_REF]. In short, support provision comprises both positive (e.g., giving advice and encouragement) and negative (e.g., criticizing and being hurtful) aspects of social interactions. In the present research, we rely on problem-focused, emotion-focused and negative responses as the three facets of support provision among same-sex peers.

Relationship: Friendship and Social Support

Seeking for social support is a coping strategy that occurs primarily within the context of close relationships (e.g., [START_REF] Bokhorst | Social support from parents, friends, classmates, and teachers in children and adolescents aged 9 to 18 years: Who is perceived as most supportive[END_REF][START_REF] Bolger | Invisible support and adjustment to stress[END_REF][START_REF] Bolger | Effects of social support visibility on adjustment to stress: Experimental evidence[END_REF][START_REF] Cable | Friends are equally important to men and women, but family matters more for men's well-being[END_REF]). Unlike parent-child or sibling relationships that are bonded by blood, friendship dyads are voluntary which make friendship particularly vulnerable because the loss of a single member will result in the termination of the relationship [START_REF] Rubin | Peer interactions, relationships, and groups[END_REF]. In this case, romantic relationships share some common ground with friendships in terms of voluntariness and membership size. However, previous research on the dyadic interactions of social support primarily focused on heterosexual married couples (e.g., [START_REF] Bolger | Invisible support and adjustment to stress[END_REF][START_REF] Bolger | Effects of social support visibility on adjustment to stress: Experimental evidence[END_REF]Cutrona & Suhr, 1994;[START_REF] Pasch | Gender, negative affectivity, and observed social support behavior in marital interaction[END_REF][START_REF] Sullivan | Social support, problem solving, and the longitudinal course of newlywed marriage[END_REF] whereas research on social support amongst friendship dyads are scarce [START_REF] Leatham | Conversations with friends and the dynamics of social support[END_REF]. In fact, friends are the second leading suppliers of support after spouses among married couples, and they are the single most frequent providers for support among single individuals [START_REF] Carbery | Friendship and need fulfillment during three phases of young adulthood[END_REF]. As [START_REF] Muraco | Odd couples: Friendships at the intersection of gender and sexual orientation[END_REF] stated in her book: "friendship is one of the most significant, and yet socially ignored, relationships" (p. 15).

Starting from adolescence, friend support starts to exceed parental support for both boys and girls (e.g., [START_REF] Bokhorst | Social support from parents, friends, classmates, and teachers in children and adolescents aged 9 to 18 years: Who is perceived as most supportive[END_REF]Day & Livingstone, 2003). Previous research shows that adult men receive more familial support [START_REF] Cable | Friends are equally important to men and women, but family matters more for men's well-being[END_REF], whereas adult women benefit equally from friends and family [START_REF] Derlega | Friendship, gender, and social support: Laboratory studies of supportive interventions[END_REF]. High quality friendships include many positive features, such as prosocial behaviours, self-esteem support, intimacy, loyalty; negative features, such as criticism, conflicts, dominance attempts and rivalry, may also be present even in the best friendships [START_REF] Berndt | Friendship quality and social development[END_REF]. In addition, supportive and negative interactions between intimate partners influence both the precipitating events and also the continuation, deterioration or dissolution of the intimate relationship (Cutrona, Russell, & Gardner, 2005).

Social support is closely related to previous experiences in a specific relationship (Cutrona et al., 2005;[START_REF] Leatham | Conversations with friends and the dynamics of social support[END_REF], and can also influence future interactions and the degree of relationship satisfaction (e.g., [START_REF] Lawrence | Partner support and marital satisfaction: Support amount, adequacy, provision, and solicitation[END_REF]. In the short term, how an individual asks for help from a friend has direct impact on the response he/she receives, and in turn influences how this individual asks for help at the next opportunity; in the long term, this particular social support interaction also has an impact on how the friend seeks help in the distant future due to the voluntary and reciprocal nature of friendship [START_REF] Rubin | Peer interactions, relationships, and groups[END_REF]. In sum, social support is both an interaction-specific and a relationship-specific phenomenon, which is also influenced by group and cultural contexts [START_REF] Taylor | Social support[END_REF].

Group: Gender Effects

As mentioned earlier, Don et al.'s (2013) study illustrated the reciprocal relation between indirect support seeking and perceived negative responses from new parents, but gender variations were neglected in their study. [START_REF] Barbee | Effects of gender role expectations on the social support process[END_REF] argue that gender role expectations have significant influences on the differential support seeking behaviours between men and women. The female gender role, associated with nurturance and emotional expressiveness, places women in an advantageous situation in terms of openly soliciting help or receiving unsolicited help because women are expected to need help during times of distress. On the other hand, men who are expected to be competent and independent may be reluctant to seek help indirectly or directly because requesting for help or hinting help is needed makes them look weak and dependent [START_REF] Barbee | Effects of gender role expectations on the social support process[END_REF][START_REF] Bolger | Effects of social support visibility on adjustment to stress: Experimental evidence[END_REF].

Consequently, the potential loss of face and threat to self-esteem may hinder men from seeking support. Cutrona et al. (2007), however, found that men and women were equally willing to seek and provide support. The gender variations in social support were actually due to the responsiveness of the support provider. For example, women were more responsive to their husbands during high distress days than were men to their wives (e.g., [START_REF] Neff | Gender differences in social support: A question of skill or responsiveness[END_REF]. [START_REF] Barbee | Effects of gender role expectations on the social support process[END_REF] also argue that men and women do not differ in the amount of help they provide but in the forms of help, with men more likely to provide instrumental help in an emergency situation which is congruent with male's gender role expectations, such as carrying a heavy package or fixing a door. Women, on the other hand, may provide more emotional-based support, such as comforting someone who just broke up with her boyfriend, which is also congruent with female's gender role expectations. However, other research showed that females were more likely to provide support in all forms, be it informational, tangible or emotional [START_REF] Carbery | Friendship and need fulfillment during three phases of young adulthood[END_REF]. [START_REF] Gillespie | Close adult friendships, gender, and the life cycle[END_REF] further attested that the gender differences in friendship may indeed be exaggerated, such that females would give advice and tangible support to their female friends in need and males would also share their feelings with their same-sex close friends. In other words, gender differences in emotional vs. instrumental support were in fact very small among same-sex friendships.

Furthermore, previous research showed some gender differences in adult friendships, such that women's best friendships were higher in quality, more supportive, more intimate, and lower in conflicts than men's (e.g., [START_REF] Bank | Gender and friendship: Why are men's best same-sex friendships less intimate and supportive?[END_REF]Demir & Orthel, 2011). It is unclear whether the mixed results of gender differences observed in social support processes are influenced by the differential gender effects of friendship qualities among same-sex friendships. Therefore, the present research will continue to investigate the potential gender differences on social support processes by taking into account friendship qualities, both support seeking and provision behaviours simultaneously.

Macrosystem: Cultural Variations

Cultural variations based on different views of the self have great implications on social support processes (H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Deviance or uniqueness, harmony or conformity? A cultural analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF][START_REF] Taylor | Culture and social support: Who seeks it and why[END_REF][START_REF] Wang | Cultural differences in daily support experiences[END_REF]. In individualistic cultural contexts, the self is understood as derived from its inner attributes, which are assumed to reflect the essence of the person [START_REF] Markus | Cultures and selves: A cycle of mutual constitution[END_REF]. People shaped by individualistic cultural contexts are then expected to take actions to express their opinions and realize their goals. Social relationships are assumed to be more autonomous with relatively few obligations. Hence, it is appropriate to actively seek support from others to cope with stress because social support is seen as a resource (H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Deviance or uniqueness, harmony or conformity? A cultural analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Taylor | How psychosocial resources enhance health and well-being[END_REF].

On the contrary, among collectivistic cultural contexts, such as those that predominate in Japan and China, the self can be viewed as a relational entity that is connected to and sustained by a number of significant relationships (e.g., family relations, occupational relations, and/or friendships). Here, the self is an extension of one's familial or social groups.

The person, as a part of a group, is defined with reference to the larger whole [START_REF] Markus | Cultures and selves: A cycle of mutual constitution[END_REF]. Members of the collectivistic cultural contexts are expected to conform to social norms and seek consensus within the social group. In this case, personal goals and needs become secondary to maintaining social solidarity and harmony (H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Deviance or uniqueness, harmony or conformity? A cultural analysis[END_REF]. Consequently, it is inappropriate to burden others with one's own troubles because doing so might disrupt social harmony (H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF].

Direct support seeking may be perceived as troublesome because the need for support is a sign of incompetence and lack of self-efficacy in individualistic cultural contexts [START_REF] Bolger | Effects of social support visibility on adjustment to stress: Experimental evidence[END_REF]; but it may also be perceived as problematic in collectivistic cultural contexts because imposing one's own problems on others might undermine social harmony (H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF][START_REF] Park | Clarifying the links between social support and health: Culture, stress, and neuroticism matter[END_REF]. In other words, cultural variations in social support seeking are based on self-oriented concerns for maintaining self-efficacy in individualistic cultural contexts, and other-oriented concerns for avoiding imposing troubles on others in collectivistic cultural contexts. For instance, Asians/Asian Americans are less likely to mobilize social support when coping with stressful negative and positive events [START_REF] Taylor | Culture and social support: Who seeks it and why[END_REF][START_REF] Wang | Cultural differences in daily support experiences[END_REF], compared to European Americans.

Asians/Asian Americans may in fact prefer social support seeking in a more subtle manner, without disclosing their problems or stressful events explicitly (H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF].

However, the studies that examined differential responses to direct vs. indirect support seeking behaviours were all conducted within "Western" cultural contexts (e.g., [START_REF] Barbee | An experimental approach to social support communications: Interactive coping in close relationships[END_REF][START_REF] Don | Indirect support seeking and perceptions of spousal support: An examination of a reciprocal relationship[END_REF]. Whether indirect support seeking would elicit negative responses among friendship dyads, as proposed by Barbee and colleagues, has not yet been examined in East Asian cultural contexts.

The benefits of social support are ubiquitous across many cultural contexts [START_REF] Taylor | Social support[END_REF]), yet cultural variations not only exist in how support is sought, but also in how support is provided. In a questionnaire based study examining cultural differences of social support provision, [START_REF] Chen | Culture and social support provision: Who gives what and why[END_REF] showed that Euro-Americans provided more emotional/esteem support whereas Japanese participants provided more informational/tangible support in response to their close others' stressors. Chentsova-Dutton and Vaughn (2011) also found that unlike the Euro-Americans who preferred providing emotional support, Russians -who are also highly collectivistic -showed a strong preference for giving advice (i.e., informational support) regardless what type of support was sought.

Furthermore, maintaining a harmonious relationship with others is a core concern in collectivistic cultural contexts [START_REF] Markus | Cultures and selves: A cycle of mutual constitution[END_REF]. Providing support to others is considered a social obligation in collectivistic cultural contexts, whereas it is dependent on the person's own volition in individualistic cultural contexts (H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF]. The differential cultural meanings attached to relationship obligations might give rise to differential support transactions in different cultural contexts. Given the different stressors and sources of support providers (e.g., romantic partners or confederates) in previous studies examining support provision cross culturally, it is unclear whether these results from previous studies can be generalized to other collectivistic cultural contexts and whether these questionnaire based studies can represent the cultural variations in enacted support provision among same-sex friendships. Therefore, more studies are needed to investigate the preference for actual informational/tangible support provision among collectivistic cultural contexts.

The Current Study

Interpersonal relationships, such as friendships, often create "nonindependence" between the two members of a dyad because people in close relationships influence each other's cognition, emotions, and behaviours [START_REF] Kelley | Interpersonal relations: A theory of interdependence[END_REF][START_REF] Kenny | Dyadic data analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Rusbult | Why we need interdependence theory[END_REF]. Behavioural interactions in interpersonal relationships are dynamic and reciprocal. Current behavioural interactions are affected not only by the partner's reactions within the dyad but also by the relationship shared by the two participants in the interaction. This study therefore uses the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM; [START_REF] Kenny | Dyadic data analysis[END_REF] to account for the nonindependence within friendships between the support seeker and support provider. Both actor and partner effects of APIM are examined simultaneously. An actor effect indicates how much a person's outcome variable is related to his/her own predictor, illustrated by the solid arrows in Figures 1 and2; a partner effect indicates how much a person's outcome variable is associated with his/her partner's predictor, illustrated by the dash arrows. This dyadic design allows estimations of both intrapersonal effects (i.e., actor effects) and interpersonal effects (i.e., partner effects) in one model. There are four sets of questions we would like to investigate using the dyadic design of APIM.

Research Question 1: Do positive features of friendship quality predict more direct support seeking behaviours and supportive responses? The perception of relationship quality is largely based on previous experiences shared between the two friends (e.g., Cutrona et al., 2005) and this perception of relationship can influence future interactions in the dyad (e.g., [START_REF] Leatham | Conversations with friends and the dynamics of social support[END_REF]). Even though it has been repeatedly argued that the association between relationships and actual interactions are dynamically interlocked, relationship satisfaction or relationship qualities have often been measured as the outcome of social support processes -but not the other way aroundamong friendship dyads. A few studies on romantic relationships suggest that perceived positive relationship quality is indeed positively related to perceived support and observed supportive behaviours (e.g., [START_REF] Don | Indirect support seeking and perceptions of spousal support: An examination of a reciprocal relationship[END_REF][START_REF] Gurung | Personal characteristics, relationship quality, and social support perceptions and behavior in young adult romantic relationships[END_REF]. Following the same line of logic, we hypothesized that positive friendship quality was expected to associate with higher levels of supportive responses (i.e., problem-focused and emotion-focused support; actor effect for the support provider). Similarly, since positive friendship could create a safe haven for friends to disclose their problems or concerns directly, we also hypothesized that positive friendship quality would be associated with higher levels of direct support seeking behaviours (actor effect for the support seeker). Direct support seeking would be positively related to supportive responses after controlling for both actor and partner effects of positive friendship quality.

Partner effects are the interpersonal effects that signify the mutual influences between the two members of the dyad [START_REF] Kenny | Dyadic data analysis[END_REF]. Understanding the interpersonal aspects of social support is as important as understanding the intrapersonal effects [START_REF] Rusbult | Why we need interdependence theory[END_REF]. However, as the partner and actor effects have not yet been studied simultaneously in relation to social support processes among friends, we consider the partner effects to be exploratory in this study and no specific hypothesis for partner effects were posited. Nevertheless, considering social support transactions in intimate relationships are reciprocal (e.g., Cutrona et al., 2005) and partners in close relationships can influence each others' emotions and behaviours [START_REF] Kenny | Dyadic data analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Kenny | Dyadic data analysis using multilevel modeling[END_REF][START_REF] Rubin | Peer interactions, relationships, and groups[END_REF][START_REF] Verhofstadt | Support-seeking, support-provision and support-perception in distressed married couples: a multi-method analysis[END_REF], the partner effects are presumed to show similar directions and patterns of influences as actor effects in this study.

Research Question 2: Do negative features of friendship quality predict more indirect support seeking behaviours and negative responses? Previous negative interactions within the dyad might inhibit support seekers to reveal their needs directly because they are afraid their requests would be rejected or criticized [START_REF] Barbee | Effects of gender role expectations on the social support process[END_REF][START_REF] Barbee | An experimental approach to social support communications: Interactive coping in close relationships[END_REF][START_REF] Don | Indirect support seeking and perceptions of spousal support: An examination of a reciprocal relationship[END_REF]. Given negative perception on friendship may hinder friends to seek help directly, perceived negative friendship quality was expected to predict higher levels of indirect support seeking behaviours (actor effect for the help seeker), and it would also positively relate to negative responses (actor effect for the help provider). Indirect support seeking would be positively related to negative responses after controlling for both actor and partner effects of negative friendship quality.

Research Question 3: Are there gender variations in support seeking and provision behaviours? Since gender role expectations are broadly similar in both "Western" and "Asian" cultural contexts [START_REF] Chueng | Growing up the Chinese way: Chinese child and adolescent development[END_REF][START_REF] Granrose | Employment of women in Chinese cultures: Half the sky[END_REF], gender variations in social support seeking and provision were expected to be similar between the two cultural contexts. Therefore, we hypothesized that female participants would seek more help than male participants. Following previous research [START_REF] Barbee | Effects of gender role expectations on the social support process[END_REF][START_REF] Carbery | Friendship and need fulfillment during three phases of young adulthood[END_REF], female participants were expected to provide more support (i.e., both problem-focused and emotion-focused) than male participants controlling for friendship quality. Furthermore, we expected that the interaction between friendship quality and gender would be significant, with the effects of friendship quality on social support seeking and provision would be stronger among female participants than male participants.

Research Question 4: Are there cultural variations in support seeking and provision behaviours? In line with H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF], we expected that Chinese participants in our study would use more indirect support seeking than would Euro-Canadian participants. Since support provision is considered an obligation in collectivistic cultural contexts (H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF][START_REF] Park | Clarifying the links between social support and health: Culture, stress, and neuroticism matter[END_REF][START_REF] Taylor | Social support[END_REF], Chinese participants were expected to be more inclined to provide support to their friends than Euro-Canadians. According to [START_REF] Chen | Culture and social support provision: Who gives what and why[END_REF] and [START_REF] Chentsova-Dutton | Let me tell you what to do: Cultural differences in advice-giving[END_REF], it was also expected that Chinese participants would provide more problem-focused support, whereas Euro-Canadians would provide more emotion-focused support after friendship quality was taken into account. Furthermore, since group harmony is a major concern in collectivistic cultural contexts (H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF][START_REF] Markus | Cultures and selves: A cycle of mutual constitution[END_REF], overt negative behaviours that disrupt group harmony might be less frequent during social interactions within close relationships in collectivistic cultural contexts. We hypothesized that Chinese participants might be less likely to use negative behaviours as a response in comparison to Euro-Canadians. We also expected that the interaction between friendship quality and cultural contexts would be significant, with the effects of friendship quality would be stronger for Chinese participants than for Euro-Canadian participants. We refer to one of the participants (randomly assigned) in each dyad as the Target and his/her friend as the Friend. Most of our participants (53.3%) were single, 34.2% in a relationship, 9.8% married or cohabiting, and 2.7% separated or divorced. Nobody considered their partner in the study as acquaintances or colleagues. The majority of the participants (79.3%) regarded their partner in the dyad as their best or good friend, and 20.7% regarded their counterpart in the dyad as their friend.

Method

Procedures. Participants completed online questionnaires related to demographic information (e.g., gender, age, cultural background and language proficiency) and a questionnaire regarding friendship quality with their friend prior to the laboratory visit. The gender of the experimenter was matched with the gender of the participants in each lab visit.

Participants came with their friends in pairs and they were first left alone inside the testing room for five minutes to habituate to the lab environment. The experimenter then returned and instructed one of the participants (the Target) to copy a picture depicting downtown Boston using an Etch-A-Sketch board in 10 minutes. The Friend was instructed to help if he/she wanted, but also instructed that he/she could not do the task for the Target. Since the purpose of this study was to investigate how friends provide and ask for help during distressing situations, this Etch-A-Sketch task presents a challenge that mimics a non-social daily hassle (e.g., preparing for a final exam) but it is not as threatening to the self-esteem as solving a set of math problems [START_REF] Mojaverian | Interpreting a helping hand: Cultural variation in the effectiveness of solicited and unsolicited social support[END_REF] nor is it as self-disclosing as talking about personal feelings. Therefore, this task presents a low cost scenario to the Target and the Friend, allowing support seeking and provision to occur naturally without posing a serious threat to self-esteem and self-efficacy. The choice of a challenging but non-math task strengthens the validity of the present study. After this Etch-A-Sketch task, participants completed several other filler tasks, such as completing additional questionnaires that were not relevant to the current study1 .

The experimenter answered any questions before starting the task. At the end of the lab visit, the experimenter thanked both participants and provided debriefing forms. All participants chose from one of three compensation methods: 1) four participant pool credits;

2) two participant pool credits with $20 cash; 3) $20 cash if not eligible for participant pool credits. Participants provided their written consent to participate prior to filling out the questionnaires and attending the lab visit. They were informed they could withdraw from the study anytime they wish. The study protocol and informed consent were approved by the university's ethics review board.

Measures. The Network of Relationships Inventory -Behavioural System Version

(NRI; [START_REF] Furman | The network of relationships inventory: Behavioral systems version[END_REF] were administered to each participant separately regarding the quality of their relationship with their friend in the study. The NRI consists of 24 items that assess both positive and negative features of social interactions in different relationships using a five-point Likert-type scale (ranging from 1 = "Little or None" to 5 = "The Most"). The positive features of relationships, including attachment, caregiving and affiliation, are assessed in the "Supportive Interaction Scale", whereas the negative features of relationships, including conflict, antagonism and criticism, are measured in the "Negative Interaction Scale". A sample item for the "Supportive Interaction Scale" is: "How much do you seek out this person when you are upset?". A sample item for the "Negative Interaction Scale" is: "How much do you and this person say mean or harsh things to each other?" Participants filled out this questionnaire online prior to the lab visit. In the subsequent analyses, we will refer to the "Supportive Interaction Scale" as the supportive NRI, and the "Negative Interaction Scale" as the negative NRI.

Seven participants provided incomplete data on the NRI. Little's Missing Completely At Random (MCAR) tests using SPSS v22 were conducted for the Targets and the Friends separately to avoid statistical interdependence between participants. Results showed that responses were missing completely at random, χ 2 (14) = 12.59, p = .56 for the Targets and χ 2 (23) = 15.28, p = .88 for the Friends in the supportive NRI (15 items). The negative NRI (9 items) was also missing completely at random for the Friends, χ 2 (7) = 11.78, p = .11. There were no missing items for Targets in the negative NRI. Therefore, Maximum-Likelihood data imputations were employed for Targets and Friends separately in each scale using the Expectation-Maximization algorithm [START_REF] Mcknight | Missing data: A gentle introduction[END_REF]. Mean scores for each scale were then calculated. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for supportive NRI were α = .97 for Euro-Canadians and α = .96 for Chinese. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the negative NRI were α = .81 for Euro-Canadians and α = .85 for Chinese.

Language Proficiency consists of three language related questions. Chinese participants were asked to rate their level of proficiency in speaking, understanding, and writing in English using a 7-point rating scale with 1 = "Very poor" to 7 = "Native-like". The mean level of English proficiency was 4.68, SD = 0.96. Students who were attending English as a Second Language classes were not recruited for this study. The recruitment criteria, verified by the language proficiency questions, indicated that Chinese participants in this study have adequate English proficiency to understand the online questionnaires and instructions during the lab visits.

The frequency of social support seeking behaviours was coded using the combination of the Social Support Elicitation Behaviour Code (SSEBC) developed by Cutrona, Suhr, and MacFarlane (1990) which contains verbal support seeking, and the nonverbal support seeking behaviours conceptualized by M. S. [START_REF] Kim | Cultural influences on the preferred forms of requesting and re-requesting[END_REF]. This study used event sampling method to code two types of support seeking behaviours. Indirect support seeking (IDSS) was coded when the Target exhibited difficulty in performing the task but did not indicate directly what kind of help was needed. Examples of IDSS include: "this is so difficult" or "Jesus!" Nonverbal example of IDSS includes: the Target stops the task and looks at the Friend with prolonged silence, sighing or sulking. The code of direct support seeking (DSS) was assigned if the behaviour explicitly showed support was needed. For instance: "How can I draw a tree?" The inter-rater reliability on 15% of the cases was Kappa = .91.

The frequency of social support provision behaviours was coded using the Social Support Behaviour Code (SSBC [START_REF] Suhr | The social support behavior code[END_REF]. The coding manual includes three supportive codes: information support (e.g., "You can draw the building first."), emotional and esteem support (e.g., "You are doing great!") and tangible support (e.g., holding the jiggling Etch-A-Sketch board). Informational and tangible support were grouped together to create the problem-focused support and the emotional and esteem support were grouped together to create the emotion-focused support [START_REF] Chen | Culture and social support provision: Who gives what and why[END_REF].

Negative behaviours (NB) were coded as comments or behaviours that would jeopardize or discourage the completion of the task by criticizing or complaining. An example would be "That looks terrible". The inter-rater reliability on 15% of the cases was Kappa = .84.

Results

Preliminary Analysis

Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations, and Table 2 presents the correlations of all variables for Euro-Canadian and Chinese participants. In order to obtain a general picture of cultural and gender variations on social support processes, we first used cultural contexts and gender as independent variables to predict support seeking and provision behaviours separately without considering friendship qualities. Because the dependent variables (i.e., support seeking and provision behaviours) were frequency count data, and distribution fit analysis [START_REF] Sheppard | Allfitdist[END_REF] using MATLAB R2012a showed that all coded variables of interest fitted best to negative binomial distributions, simple negative binomial regression with a Log link function was used in the preliminary analyses in SPSS v22 (see Table 3).

Without taking friendship qualities into account, Euro-Canadian Targets used indirect support seeking about two times more than Chinese Targets, but they were about 35% less likely than Chinese Targets to use direct support seeking. For support provision, Euro-Canadian participants were 36% less likely to provide problem-focused support to their friends than Chinese participants, but Euro-Canadians were 72% more likely to provide emotion-focused support than Chinese participants. Furthermore, Euro-Canadians were almost 3 times more likely than Chinese to display negative behaviors during the experimental task.

There were also some gender variations in the preliminary analyses. Males were less likely to seek help than females in general, with 31% less likely for indirect support seeking and 43% less likely for direct support seeking. Males were also less likely to provide problem-focused support (22% less), emotion-focused support (24% less) and display negative behaviours (46% less) than females according to our analyses. In sum, males sought less and provided less support to their friends during the experimental task.

Insert [Table 1, Table 2 andTable 3] here.

APIM Analysis

The preliminary analyses showed that there were both cultural and gender variations in social support seeking and provision behaviours. Since social support interactions are not isolated behaviours but rather occur within close relationships in a dynamic manner, we will be examining whether similar patterns of cultural and gender variations continue to exist when we take friendship qualities into consideration. The Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) with Log link function was used to estimate the parameters of APIM [START_REF] Loeys | Modeling actor and partner effects in dyadic data when outcomes are categorical[END_REF]. The two-intercept approach was used to create two separate equations with two intercepts: one for the Target and one for the Friend (see Appendix for equations; [START_REF] Kenny | Dyadic data analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Loeys | Modeling actor and partner effects in dyadic data when outcomes are categorical[END_REF]. By doing so, the results can be directly interpreted according to participant's roles as the Target or the Friend, accounting for both interpersonal and intrapersonal effects in the same model [START_REF] Kenny | Dyadic data analysis using multilevel modeling[END_REF][START_REF] Wickham | Interdependence theory and the actor-partner interdependence model: Where theory and method converge[END_REF].

Two sets of APIMs were conducted. Model 1: Cultural group (Chinese = 1, Euro-Canadians = -1) was entered into the Standard APIM as a moderator; Model 2: Gender (female = 1, male = -1) was entered also as a moderator. Because we used the two-intercept approach to conduct our APIM analysis, by entering a moderator into the models, it would create a three-way interaction in our APIM analyses -T arget(orF riend) * N RI * Culture for Model 1 and T arget(orF riend) * N RI * Gender for Model 2. Both supportive and negative NRI variables were grand mean centered prior to the APIM analysis. Marginal R 2 , which reveals the proportion of variance explained by the fitted model [START_REF] Hardin | Generalized estimating equations[END_REF], are presented in all APIM effect tables. All APIM a rate of 21.5% (Friend's actor main effect). No significant three-way interaction was obtained using cultural context as a moderator. The partial correlation between direct support seeking and emotion-focused support in Model 1 was .69.

Results in Model 2 using gender as the moderator showed that there were no significant main effects. However, there was a significant three-way interaction for Friend's actor effect -higher supportive NRI perceived by the Friend was related to more emotion-focused support provided by female friends at a rate of 32.6%. On the contrary, higher supportive NRI perceived by the Friend was related to less emotion-focused support provided by males at a rate of 12.7%. The partial correlation between direct support seeking and emotion-focused support in Model 2 was .44.

Insert [Figure 2 and Figure 3] here.

Research Questions 2, 3 & 4: indirect support seeking and negative responses

Regarding the analyses of indirect support seeking and negative behaviours (Figure 4), no significant results were obtained for Model 1 (analysis for cultural variations; see Table 5).

Target's actor and partner main effects were significant in Model 2 (analysis for gender variations). The significant main effects showed that with one unit increase in the Target's negative NRI, there was about 30.3% decrease in the use of indirect support seeking by Target participants (Target's actor main effect), and there was a 32.5% decrease of negative behaviours provided by the Friend (Target's partner main effect). Moreover, there were no significant three-way interactions for either cultural or gender variations. The partial correlations between indirect support seeking and negative responses were .13 in Model 1 and .21 in Model 2.

Insert [Table 5 andFigure 4] here.

Discussion

Social support plays an important role in individual's well-being and the development of intimate relationships (Cutrona et al., 2005;[START_REF] Park | Clarifying the links between social support and health: Culture, stress, and neuroticism matter[END_REF][START_REF] Taylor | Social support[END_REF]. Our experimental study used Actor-Partner Interdependence Models to incorporate cultural and gender influences into our understanding of social support seeking and provision within same-sex friendships. The GEE-approach used for analyzing the APIMs [START_REF] Loeys | Modeling actor and partner effects in dyadic data when outcomes are categorical[END_REF] provided appropriate estimates for the frequency count outcome variables of support transactions between the Friend and the Target. Our goal in this study was to identify not only intrapersonal but also interpersonal effects on enacted social support seeking and provision behaviours, taking friendship qualities, cultural and gender variations into consideration. Consistent with our hypotheses and previous research [START_REF] Barbee | Effects of gender role expectations on the social support process[END_REF][START_REF] Barbee | An experimental approach to social support communications: Interactive coping in close relationships[END_REF], direct support seeking was indeed positively related to both problem-focused and emotion-focused support after controlling for actor and partner effects of perceived supportive friendships among same-sex friends. Indirect support seeking was also found to be positively related to negative behaviours after controlling for actor and partner effects of perceived negative friendships.

Although there were no significant three-way interactions on partner effects in this study, partner main effects were apparent in our analyses, indicating the necessity of including both actor and partner effects while examining social support processes. Findings in partner main effects further supported interdependence theory that dyadic members in a relationship have mutual influences on each other's emotion, cognition and behaviours [START_REF] Kenny | Dyadic data analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Keppel | Design and analysis: A resercher's handbook[END_REF][START_REF] Rusbult | Why we need interdependence theory[END_REF][START_REF] Sadler | Tracing the Interpersonal Web of Psychopathology: Dyadic Data Analysis Methods for Clinical Researchers[END_REF][START_REF] Wickham | Interdependence theory and the actor-partner interdependence model: Where theory and method converge[END_REF]. The examination of either actor or partner effects in separate models is inadequate while studying social interactions in dyadic relationships.

Cultural Variations

In the preliminary analyses, simple negative binomial regression analyses using cultural context as a predictor revealed that Euro-Canadian participants were less likely to use direct support seeking and more likely to use indirect support seeking in the Etch-A-Sketch task than Chinese Target participants. These findings are different from previous research (e.g., H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Pursuit of comfort and pursuit of harmony: Culture, relationships, and social support seeking[END_REF][START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF][START_REF] Mojaverian | Interpreting a helping hand: Cultural variation in the effectiveness of solicited and unsolicited social support[END_REF].

However, Chinese participants were more likely to provide problem-focused support but Euro-Canadian participants were more likely to provide emotion-focused support, which are consistent with previous research [START_REF] Chen | Culture and social support provision: Who gives what and why[END_REF][START_REF] Chentsova-Dutton | Let me tell you what to do: Cultural differences in advice-giving[END_REF]. In our experimental task, the support seekers and the providers were informed the purpose of the tasks together. It is likely that Chinese participants no longer hesitated to ask for help directly because the Friend's role to help had been clearly defined and the need for help was justified in the instruction [START_REF] Park | Clarifying the links between social support and health: Culture, stress, and neuroticism matter[END_REF]. The Friend's help therefore is expected, because helping when needed is considered a social obligation and it is very central to the definition of friendship in Chinese cultural contexts [START_REF] Adams | The cultural grounding of personal relationship: Friendship in North American and West African worlds[END_REF][START_REF] Kim | Culture and social support[END_REF][START_REF] Gummerum | Affection, virtue, pleasure, and profit: Developing an understanding of friendship closeness and intimacy in Western and Asian societies[END_REF]. Therefore, Chinese participants were as likely as Euro-Canadian participants to ask for help directly or indirectly. In addition, most of the experimental studies on culture and social support were not examined in friendship dyads nor on actual support seeking behaviours. The use of a confederate (e.g., [START_REF] Mojaverian | Interpreting a helping hand: Cultural variation in the effectiveness of solicited and unsolicited social support[END_REF], who had no prior relation with the participants, may have inhibited participants from asking for help because no social obligation is attached to a stranger to offer help in both Chinese and Euro-Canadian cultural contexts. Moreover, support seeking behaviours were often examined using self-report measures without any considerations of actual supportive or negative responses during the social support interactions (e.g., H. S. [START_REF] Kim | Pursuit of comfort and pursuit of harmony: Culture, relationships, and social support seeking[END_REF].

Consequently, previous studies have only revealed cultural variations on the perception of social support seeking across relationships, but not actual support seeking behaviours in specific relationships as in our study presented here.

Our study used APIM to examine both the help seeker's and the helper's interpersonal (i.e., partner effects) and intrapersonal (i.e., actor effects) effects simultaneously, whereas previous studies often examined actor and partner effects in separate models with some exceptions (e.g., [START_REF] Crocker | Creating and undermining social support in[END_REF]Cutrona et al., 2007;[START_REF] Sullivan | Social support, problem solving, and the longitudinal course of newlywed marriage[END_REF][START_REF] Wang | Psychological well-being and job stress predict marital support interactions: A naturalistic observational study of dual-earner couples in their homes[END_REF]. Our analyses reflected the dynamic nature of social support processes in different levels of social complexity instead of only focusing on one level of analysis. When only investigating cultural variations on support seeking and provision separately without considering other levels of social complexity, such as relationship and actual interactions, we found evidence of cultural variations on both support seeking and provision behaviours in the preliminary analyses. However, once relationship quality, actual social support interactions and the macrosystem of cultural contexts were considered together in one model (i.e., APIM), the cultural variations no longer exist. Since social support often occurs within intimate relationships [START_REF] Leatham | Conversations with friends and the dynamics of social support[END_REF], the consideration of the relationship and actual interactions occurring in that particular relationship are imperative for a thorough understanding of social support processes. Our findings supported [START_REF] Hinde | Individuals, relationships and culture: Links between ethology and the social sciences[END_REF] that the different levels of social complexity are all interlocked together and they must be examined together because the investigation of only one level of social complexity will produce biased results otherwise [START_REF] Rubin | Peer interactions, relationships, and groups[END_REF][START_REF] Rusbult | Why we need interdependence theory[END_REF].

Gender Variations

Simple negative binomial regression analyses showed that male participants were less likely than female participants to seek or provide support. However, the significant three-way interactions indicated that supportive friendships were associated with more provision of emotion-focused support, with female participants providing higher rates of emotion-focused support during the Etch-A-Sketch task than male participants. This finding is consistent with the gender role expectation theory [START_REF] Barbee | Effects of gender role expectations on the social support process[END_REF]. Females are more expressive in their emotions [START_REF] Denton | Gender differences in health: a canadian study of the psychosocial, structural and behavioural determinants of health[END_REF][START_REF] Wilhelm | Gender and mental health[END_REF] and their friendship networks are often more intimate than males, therefore, it is no surprise that they are more likely to show compassion and display emotional support when their same-sex friends are in distress.

Furthermore, the lack of gender variations in support seeking behaviours in APIM analyses may be explained by the supportive nature of friendships. Supportive friendships could foster a positive and safe environment for social interactions to occur (Cutrona et al., 2005), and the potential risk of undermining one's competence when asking for help is minimized. As a result, support seekers are willing to ask for help directly. On the one hand, [START_REF] Barbee | Effects of gender role expectations on the social support process[END_REF] proposed that men's diminished use of support seeking is due to their fear of a potential threat to their self-esteem. On the other hand, our findings suggest that once this threat to the self is removed or minimized, such as being in a supportive relationship, there are no gender differences on support seeking. Males are equally likely to seek help as females as long as they perceive the relationship as safe and supportive.

Similar to the findings of cultural variations, the effects for gender variations disappeared after taking different levels of social complexity into account, except for emotion-focused support. The discrepancies in findings between one single level of analysis (i.e., the negative binomial regressions) and multiple levels of analyses (i.e., the analyses using APIM) highlight the elusiveness of reflecting individual's experiences by examining behaviours within one level of analysis without considering in what relationship these behaviours occur, and under what circumstances or influences these behaviours are most prominent. Our approach to bridging the theoretical model of multiple levels of social complexity and the analytical model of APIM provided a more comprehensive understanding of cultural and gender variations on enacted social support processes among same-sex friendship dyads.

Limitations, Future Directions and Implications

The present study has some limitations that should be taken into consideration while interpreting the results. Social interactions among friends consist of both positive and negative interactions. Positive interactions between two friends may influence future negative interactions and vice versa (e.g., [START_REF] Burleson | Comforting as social support: relational consequences of supportive behaviors[END_REF][START_REF] Rubin | Peer interactions, relationships, and groups[END_REF]. The investigation of the relationship between positive and negative interactions among friends is beyond the scope of this study, and [START_REF] Furman | The network of relationships inventory: Behavioral systems version[END_REF] argued that these are two distinctive aspects of peer interactions which should be examined separately. Nonetheless, future studies might consider a longitudinal approach to examine the mutual influences between positive and negative interactions.

Due to the complexities of the models we analyzed, it was not possible to examine the interaction between cultural group and gender. Nor can we run separate analysis for Chinese vs. Euro-Canadian participants because the sample size for each cultural context is too small. Furthermore, we had fewer male dyads than female dyads in our data (i.e., 34 male dyads vs. 58 female dyads). Future studies should replicate our findings with similar numbers of male vs. female dyads and analyze them within different cultural contexts. Since most of our participants are university students, replication with non-student populations is necessary to test the generalizability of the results obtained here.

Cultural contexts shape people's understanding and perception of relationships, which in turn influence their responses to support seeking and provision [START_REF] Jacobson | The cultural context of social support and support networks[END_REF][START_REF] Taylor | Culture and social support: Who seeks it and why[END_REF]. Future cultural/cross-cultural studies of social support should employ both self-reports and observed behavioural measures to investigate how and when perceived support is being translated into actual supportive/negative responses in close relationships.

This study focused on dyads that have the same sex and same cultural backgrounds. Given the ethnocultural diversity of modern industrial societies, where intergroup interactions among same-sex and cross-sex friends are frequent [START_REF] Muraco | Odd couples: Friendships at the intersection of gender and sexual orientation[END_REF], it will prove fruitful to extend this line of research to intergroup relationships and other cultural contexts to further unpack the cultural influences on social support interactions. Despite these limitations, the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model used in this study preserved the partner influences on social support, which was often lost in studies with a sole focus on actor effects. Our study also demonstrated the importance and feasibility of investigating multiple levels of social complexity (i.e., interaction, relationship, group and cultural contexts) simultaneously with an APIM approach. Besides of the methodological and analytical implications, this study could also inform help seeking behaviours in the healthcare system. It has been well documented in epidemiology and social sciences studies that men are more reluctant than women to seek help actively when encountering health or mental health issues (e.g., [START_REF] Galdas | Men and health help-seeking behaviour: literature review[END_REF][START_REF] Kessler | Sex differences in psychiatric help-seeking: evidence from four large-scale surveys[END_REF][START_REF] Tamres | Sex differences in coping behavior: A meta-analytic review and an examination of relative coping[END_REF]. Our analysis of gender effects suggest that these gender differences may be exaggerated if help seeking occurs within a supportive relationship. Bulletin, 32 (3), 313-327. doi: 10.1177/0146167205282148 Demir, M., & Orthel, H. (2011). Friendship, real-ideal discrepancies, and well-being: Gender differences in college students. The Journal of Psychology, 145 (3), 173-193. doi: Zimet, G. D., Dahlem, N. W., Zimet, S. G., & Farley, G. K. (1988). The multidimensional scale of perceived social support. Journal of Personality Assessment, 52 (1), 30-41. doi: 10.1207/s15327752jpa5201_2 Because Culture was coded as Chinese = 1 and Euro-Canadians =-1, Equation ( 3 In sum, the results for Target's actor effect are: with one unit increase in supportive interactions, there will be exp(β 2T + β 4T ) change for Chinese Target and exp(β 2T -β 4T ) for Euro-Canadian Target. Following the same logic, the results for Friend's partner effect are: with one unit increase in supportive interactions, there will be exp(β 3F + β 5F ) change for Chinese Friend and exp(β 3F -β 5F ) change for Euro-Canadian Friend.

Personality and Social Psychology

Participants.

  Participants were recruited through advertisements posted on a departmental participant pool website, local student association websites and throughout campus in an English-speaking university in Montréal. Participants who contacted us were asked to bring a same-sex non-romantic friend of a similar cultural background to participate in this study with them. Each participating dyad in this study consisted of two members of the same-sex and of the same cultural background. Euro-Canadian dyads (26 female dyads, mean age = 20.42; 10 male dyads, mean age = 24.25) were all born in Canada and self-identified as (a) having European heritage; (b) being "White (Caucasian)". Chinese dyads (32 female dyads, mean age = 24.92; 24 male dyads, mean age = 24.79) were all born in China and left China after the age of eight. The Chinese sample in this study consisted of either registered full-time international students (79.5%) or immigrants (20.5%).

  Health services or institutes perhaps should create a supportive environment for patients and promote judgement-free assessments for illnesses, particularly in the context of psychological counseling or psychiatric services in order to avoid delayed diagnosis or delayed treatment for men.relationships: The role of compassionate and self-image goals. Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 95 (3), 555-575. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.95.3.555 Cutrona, C. E., Russell, D. W., & Gardner, K. A. (2005). The relationship enhancement model of social support. In T. A. Revenson, K. Kayser, & G. Bodenmann (Eds.), Couples coping with stress: Emerging perspectives on dyadic coping. (p. 73-95). American Psychological Association. doi: 10.1037/11031-000 Cutrona, C. E., Shaffer, P. A., Wesner, K. A., & Gardner, K. A. (2007). Optimally matching support and perceived spousal sensitivity. Journal of Family Psychology, 21 (4), 754-758. doi: 10.1037/0893-3200.21.4.754 Cutrona, C. E., & Suhr, J. A. (1994). Social support communication in the context of marriage: An analysis of couples' supportive interactions. In B. R. Burleson, T. L. Albrecht, & I. G. Sarason (Eds.), Communication of social support: Messages, interactions, relationships, and community (p. 113-135). Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage Publications, Inc. Cutrona, C. E., Suhr, J. A., & MacFarlane, R. (1990). Interpersonal transcations and the psychological sense of support. In S. Duck & R. Cohen (Eds.), Personal relationships and social support (p. 30-45). London: Sage Publications, Inc. Day, A. L., & Livingstone, H. A. (2003). Gender differences in perceptions of stressors and utilization of social support among university students. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 35 (2), 73-83. doi: 10.1037/h0087190 Deci, E. L., La Guardia, J. G., Moller, A. C., Scheiner, M. J., & Ryan, R. M. (2006). On the benefits of giving as well as receiving autonomy support: Mutuality in close friendships.

  1.00-1.89 Note. NRI = Network of Relationship Inventory.

  Supportive NRI * Gender Friend's Problem-Focused Support (b) Actor-Partner Interdependence Model 2.

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1 . Actor-Partner Interdependence Models with three-way interactions for direct support seeking and problem-focused support.

Figure 2 .

 2 Figure 2 . Actor-Partner Interdependence Models with three-way interactions for direct support seeking and emotion-focused support.

Table 1

 1 Means and Standard Deviations for all Variables

	2. Direct support seeking 12.75 13.23	1. Indirect support seeking 12.68 7.95	Variables Mean SD	Chinese
	0-74	0-34	Range
	8.31	9-54 26.31 12.32	Range Mean SD	Euro-Can
		20.36 12.86	Mean SD	Females
		2-54	Range
		14.00 8.80	Mean SD	Males
		0-32	Range

Table 2

 2 Correlations for all Variables Friend negative NRI -0.14 -0.26 -0.02 -0.02 0.04 -0.12 0.07 -0.20 Note. Upper diagonal presents correlation coefficients for Chinese participants while the lower diagonal presents correlation coefficients for Euro-Canadians participants. NRI = Network of Relationship Inventory.

	Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
	1. Indirect support seeking		0.54** 0.36** 0.58** 0.13 -0.09 -0.17 0.22 -0.05
	2. Direct support seeking	0.38*		0.70** 0.75** 0.06 0.05 -0.02 0.17 -0.10
	3. Problem-focused support	0.44** 0.57**		0.61** 0.21 0.05 0.01 0.10 -0.09
	4. Emotion-focused support 0.30 0.51** 0.58**		-0.06 -0.01 -0.21 0.13 -0.06
	5. Negative behaviours	0.23 0.60** 0.62** 0.21		-0.02 0.15 -0.14 0.03
	6. Target supportive NRI	0.003 0.14 0.05 0.21 -0.01		0.40** 0.29* 0.15
	7. Target negative NRI	-0.13 -0.06 -0.01 0.05 -0.04 0.19		0.03 0.20
	8. Friend supportive NRI	0.002 0.39* 0.15 0.35* 0.16 0.84** 0.09		0.13
	9.

The original study also included a Webcam Task, which always followed the Etch-A-Sketch Task. Results from the Webcam Task followed a largely, although not entirely, similar pattern to those from the Etch-A-Sketch Task. Due to the length of the full manuscript originally submitted, the peer reviewers suggested dropping the Webcam Task from the final report. Results from the Webcam Task, and from cross-task analyses, are available upon request.

related analyses were conducted using the "PROC GENMOD" command in SAS v9.3 following the procedures specified in [START_REF] Loeys | The actor-partner interdependence model for categorical dyadic data: A user-friendly guide to GEE[END_REF].

Research Questions 1, 3 & 4: direct support seeking and problem-focused support In this set of analyses (see Figure 1), Target's partner main effect positively predicted problem-focused support (see Table 4). Every one unit increase in Target's supportive NRI was related to 33.1% 2 more problem-focused support provided by the Friend (Target's partner main effect). No significant three-way interaction was obtained using APIM with cultural context as a moderator (Model 1). There were no significant main effects or gender variations for predicting direct support seeking and problem-focused support in Model 2.

The partial correlations between direct support seeking and problem-focused support were .69 3 in Model 1 and .80 in Model 2.

Insert [Table 4 andFigure 1] here.

Research Questions 1, 3 & 4: direct support seeking and emotion-focused support

The same sets of APIM models were analyzed using direct support seeking and emotion-focused support as outcome variables (see Figure 2). Results in Model 1 using cultural context as the moderator showed that both Target's and Friend's main effects of supportive NRI were related to emotion-focused support provided by the Friend (Table 4).

Higher supportive NRI perceived by the Target was associated with more emotion-focused support provided at a rate of 33.9% (Target's partner main effect), and higher supportive NRI perceived by the Friend was associated with more emotion-focused support provided at 2 The exponentiated estimates (Rate Ratios) indicate the amount of change in the dependent variable for every unit increase in the independent variable, controlling for all other effects in the model [START_REF] Loeys | The actor-partner interdependence model for categorical dyadic data: A user-friendly guide to GEE[END_REF].

3 All partial correlations have accounted for both actor and partner effects. The partial correlation obtained using the "unstructured working correlation" in the GEE procedure does not come with significance test or standard error because it is a nuisance parameter [START_REF] Loeys | Modeling actor and partner effects in dyadic data when outcomes are categorical[END_REF]. Chinese cultural context was coded as 1 and Euro-Canadian cultural context was coded as 0; Female was coded as 1 and male was coded as 0 in these sets of analyses.

Equation for the Friend: