The dynamic behavior of elastically restrained beams under the action of distributed tangential forces is investigated in this paper. The beam, which is fixed at one end, is assumed to rest on an intermediate spring support. The governing equations of motion are derived from the energy expressions, and the finite element formulation is employed to calculate the critical distributed tangential force. Jump phenomena for the critical distributed tangential force and instability types are presented for various spring stiffnesses and support positions. Stability maps are generated by performing parametric studies to show how the distributed tangential forces affect the frequencies and the stability of the system considered. Through the numerical simulations, the following conclusioils are obtained: (i) Only flutter type instability exists for the dimensionless spring stiffness K $leq$ 97, regardless of the position of the spring support. (ii) For the dimensionless spring stiffness K $leq$ 98, the transition from flutter to divergence occurs at a certain position of the spring support, and the transition position moves from the free end to the free end of the beam as the spring stiffness increases. (iii) For K $leq$ 10$^{6}$ the support condition can be regarded as a rigid support condition.