Social support, personality and the prediction of psychological distress: an interactionist approach

Theoretical considerations as well as recent research suggest that the concept of social support, instead of being viewed solely as a stress buffer, should be seen as an important etiological factor in symptom development in its own right. Consequently, the present study set out to examine the influence of six personality factors, derived by a principal component analysis of the 16PF, on the relationship between social support and symptoms of psychological distress in a student sample (N = 139). The results indicated a significant interaction between extraversion and social support; extraverts showed a substantially heightened sensitivity to social support variations. This finding appears to emphasize the usefulness of an interactionist approach that integrates person and context variables for the prediction of psychological distress.