Jay L. Cohen

Objective. Examine distress, emotional approach coping, and attachment as moderators of effects of written (WED) versus interpersonal (IED) emotional disclosure and written time management (WTM). Design/Methods. Fifty‐seven undergraduates with stressful experiences randomized to a single session of WED, IED, or WTM. Assessment of immediate reaction (NA) and 6‐week follow‐up (intrusions/avoidance). Results. Those with higher baseline distress had increased NA, avoidance and intrusions when engaged in WED or IED (vs. WTM). For emotional processors, WED (vs. IED) produced less NA, avoidance, and intrusions. Attachment predicted increased NA in WTM. Conclusions. Baseline distress and personality characteristics form boundary conditions for written disclosure.

This study examined agreement between recipients and providers about social support and personality. One hundred daughter caregivers of a parent with Alzheimer's disease and each caregiver's most important support provider independently reported supportive behaviors provided to caregivers, the perceived supportiveness of the provider, and providers' personality traits. For all indices, agreement was higher for enacted support than for perceived support and personality, which were similar to each other for some, but not all, indices of agreement. These findings support the validity of measures of enacted and perceived support.

In this chapter, we review different approaches to assessing social support, as well as research evidence indicating the psychological and environmental characteristics that these measures reflect. A comprehensive review of all of the major social support measures is beyond the focus of this chapter, and we refer readers to recent comprehensive reviews (e.g. Brissette et al., 2000; Wills & Shinar, 2000). In this chapter, we briefly describe different types of social support measures, and review research bearing on their validity. We focus on the most widely used types of measures, although we also briefly describe under-utilized and more recently developed approaches. Types of social support measures There are at least three different types of social support constructs and measures; perceived support, enacted support and social integration/network characteristics (Barrera, 1986) (see ‘Social support and health’). Each type is most often assessed by self-report, whereby research participants complete questionnaires about participants' perceived availability of support (perceived support), the amount of specific supportive actions received (enacted support), or the number of different types of relationships in which people participate (social integration). Measures of these different types of support are only modestly related to each other, and relate to mental health, physical health and other constructs in different ways (Barrera, 1986). Description of types of social support measures Measures of perceived support Measures of perceived support (also termed ‘functional support’, see chapter on ‘Social support and health’) ask respondents to make subjective judgments about the availability of support, or for some measures, about the quality of the support typically received.