Environmental and personal determinants of support perceptions: three generalizability studies

The extent to which perceived social support reflects characteristics of the environment, the personality of the perceiver, and their interaction is unknown. This article shows how the methods of generalizability theory can be used to address these questions. When participants rate the same targets on the targets' supportiveness, generalizability theory provides methods for determining the extent to which support judgments are determined by effects due to targets (supporters), perceivers, and their interaction. In 3 studies, each source of variance made significant contributions to support judgments, with the Perceivers x Supporters interaction, characteristics of supporters, and biases of perceivers making the largest contributions, respectively. The implications for theoretical models of perceived support are discussed.