Empirical evidence for the widely accepted assumption that social support is an antecedent to well-being has been correlational and quasi-experimental. Recent evidence has challenged this assumption by demonstrating that stressful life events affect one's perceptions of social support. / The current study was designed to address two questions. The first question involved the directionality of the relationship between social support and induced depressed mood, one indicator of psychological health, utilizing an experimental design. The second question was designed to explore how induced state depression interacts with trait depression to affect perceptions of social support. / A random block assignment, using subjects' trait depression scores, was used to assign undergraduate psychology students to groups. Subjects completed pre-treatment questionnaires assessing their state depression, trait depression, and perceptions of social support availability. Two weeks later, subjects were exposed to either Velten's depressed mood induction procedure or Velten's neutral mood induction procedure. / Subjects who experienced the depressed mood induction manifested a significant decrease in perceptions of social support availability. This finding supports the hypothesis that mood affects perceptions of social support, but does not preclude a bi-directional relationship between social support and well-being. Contrary to prediction, control subjects demonstrated a significant increase in perceptions of social support and a significant decrease in state depression. The unexpected changes in mood and support perceptions suggest that the neutral mood induction could have had a positive effect, and/or that subjects may have become comfortable with the experimental situation over time. Although depressed mood did not interact with levels of trait depression, the change in support perceptions was related to levels of trait depression. Experimental group subjects who scored high on trait depression manifested a greater decrease in perceptions of social support than subjects who scored low on trait depression. / The finding that increments in depressed mood were not directly related to levels of trait depression and to the corresponding changes in support perceptions, reflects the complexity of the relationship between social support, stress and well-being. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-05, Section: B, page: 2857. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_77460 |
| Contributors | Burmenko, Olga., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 149 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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