Social support, life stress, and psychological adjustment: a test of the buffering hypothesis

Research on the relationship between stressful life events and psychological judgment has been criticized for not attending more fully to the multitude of factors potentially mediating that relationship. The present study assesses the influence of one such factor, social support, on that relationship. A group of 320 community residents completed questionnaires including two measures of support, two psychological distress scales, and a stressful life events scale. The hypothesis that social support mediates or serves as a buffer between life events and psychological distress was tested for each of the two support measures in combination with the life events measure in predicting each of the two psychological distress variables. All four of the resulting hypotheses were supported, although the amount of variance accounted for was much greater when the support measure used tapped quality of support rather than quantity of supportive relationships.