Social support and adjustment to a novel social environment.

The present article aims to examine the ways in which social support may affect the adaptation of individuals to a novel social environment. A distinctive feature of this research was the assessment of social support both before and after entering a completely new network of social relationships. A cohort of international exchange high school students (N = 242) was administered a battery of self-report questionnaires dealing with personality traits, perceived social support, coping behaviors and emotional distress before leaving Japan and six months after living with a host family in a foreign community.

Increasing participation of blood donors in a bone-marrow registry.

In an experiment to increase recruitment of unrelated bone-marrow donors, Ss were selected from a list of people who had donated blood within the past 24 months. They were randomly assigned to 3 groups. Members of the experimental group, 2 months before receiving a mailed brochure about a bone-marrow registry, were complimented on being blood donors and asked to complete a self-descriptive questionnaire.

Promotion of high school blood donations: testing the efficacy of a videotaped intervention.

"Life to Life," an 11-minute videotape based on social learning principles, was used by 10 blood centers in presentations to 4970 high school students one week before school blood drives. At each school, some students saw the videotape and others attended a blood center's customary presentation. Students also completed a brief questionnaire assessing donation attitudes, donation history, and intent to donate.

General and specific support expectations and stress as predictors of perceived supportiveness: an experimental study.

Fifty-four undergraduates and their mothers participated in an experiment to evaluate hypotheses derived from a theory of perceived social support (Pierce, Sarason, & Sarason, 1990). Regression analyses indicated that the variables in the model accounted for 14.83% and 40.

General and relationship-based perceptions of social support: are two constructs better than one?

Two hypotheses derived from a theory of perceived social support were investigated: (a) relationship-based perceptions of social support are distinct from general perceptions of support, and (b) measures of each construct contribute uniquely to the prediction of loneliness. Ninety-four male and 116 female undergraduates completed measures of loneliness and general perceived social support and the Quality of Relationships Inventory, a new instrument to assess relationship-based perceptions of social support, conflict, and depth in specific relationships. General and relationship-based perceptions of social support were found to be related, but empirically distinct, constructs.