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Social support and personality among male police officers in Singapore
Personality and Individual Differences 36 (2004) 109–123 www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Social support and personality among male police officers in Singapore Eddie M.W. Tonga, George D. Bishopa,*, Siew Maan Dionga, Hwee Chong Enkelmanna, Yong Peng Whya, Jansen Angb, Majeed Khaderb a
Department of Social Work and Psychology, National University of Singapore, 11 Law Link, 117570, Singapore b Police Psychological Unit, Singapore Police Force, Singapore Received 20 May 2002; received in revised form 13 December 2002; accepted 27 January 2003
Abstract This study examines the relationship between perceived social support and personality among police officers from Singapore’s three main ethnic groups, Chinese, Indians, and Malays. Perceived social support was measured by the short version of the Social Support Questionnaire [SSQ: Sarason, Sarason, Shearin, & Pierce (1987) and personality was assessed by the NEO PI-R. Of the three ethnic groups Chinese participants reported the largest number of social supports but the lowest satisfaction with that support. Regression analyses revealed that none of the NEO PI-R domains stood out as independent predictors of Satisfaction with Social Support (SSS) whereas Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Openness contributed independently to Number of Social Supports (SSN). In addition, SSN was divided into two components: Number of Social Supports from Family (SSN-fm) and Number of Social Supports from Others (SSN-o). Regression analyses showed Agreeableness and Conscientiousness to be independent predictors of SSN-fm and Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Openness to be independent predictors of SSN-o. In addition, the relationships were found to be equally descriptive of the three ethnic groups. These results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications. # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Social support; Personality; NEO PI-R; Ethnic differences; Singapore
1. Introduction The literature on social support grew out of epidemiological studies that focused on the social and environmental factors contributing to the well-being of individuals (Pierce, Lakey, Sarason, * Corresponding author. Tel.: +65-6874-6415; fax: +65-6778-1213. E-mail address: [email protected] (G.D. Bishop). 0191-8869/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(03)00072-2
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Sarason, & Joseph, 1997). While early studies conceptualized social support as a transaction of supportive provisions that comes from one’s social environment, later studies make the important distinction between the actual supportive transaction in the environment (sometimes referred to as received support) and the recipient’s subjective evaluation of that exchange (also known as perceived support). This distinction proves to be of substantial theoretical and practical importance, as several studies have shown that it is perceived support, rather than received support, that is related to various health outcomes (Collins, Dunkel-Schetter, Lobel, & Scrimshaw, 1993; Dunkel-Schetter & Bennett, 1990; Hobfoll, Nadler, & Leiberman, 1986; Lakey & Heller, 1988; Procidano, 1992; Wethington & Kessler, 1986). Findings to date suggest that perceived social support may actually be, at least in part, an individual difference variable (Pierce et al., 1997). Indeed, several studies hint at the trait-like status of perceived support. For instance, Sarason, Sarason, and Shearin (1986) found perceived availability of and satisfaction with social support to be stable for up to 3 years (Sarason, Levine, Basham, & Sarason, 1983; Solomon, Mikulincer, & Avitzur, 1988). Other studies show that perceive support is positively associated with reported parental care and family support during childhood (Lakey & Dickinson, 1994; Sarason, Pierce, Bannerman, & Sarason, 1993; Sarason et al., 1986). Cognitive models of social support have also pointed to a personality-like conception. Several researchers have suggested that perceived social support can be conceptualized as being a cognitive framework that guides one’s attention to and interpretation of social information (Lakey & Cassidy, 1990; Lakey & Drew, 1997; Sarason, Pierce, Shearin, Sarason, Waltz, & Poope, 1991). If perceived social support can be conceptualized as a dispositional variable, it seems likely that perceived social support would be related to other personality variables. Indeed, several such relationships have been found. For example, satisfaction with social support and perceived number of social supports are negatively related to neurotic symptoms, depression, anxiety, and hostility and positively related to self-esteem (Henderson, 1981; Lakey & Cassidy, 1990; Raikkonen & Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 1992; Sarason et al., 1983). In addition, extraversion is positively associated with the perceived number of social support providers whereas, high neuroticism scores are negatively associated with satisfaction with social support (Lakey & Dickinson, 1994; Sarason et al., 1983). Individuals high in perceived social support are also more optimistic and tend to report more positive life experiences and greater control over their lives than their low counterparts (Sarason et al., 1983). Thus, there are predictable individual differences between those who are satisfied with their social-network and those who are not. As such, it is of interest to examine how social support relates to the personality dimensions of the Big-Five model (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness), a model that has been cross-culturally validated in a number of studies (cf. Costa & McCrae, 1985). Early studies have uncovered several relationships. Sarason et al. (1983) found a positive relationship between Extraversion and perceived number of social supports and a negative relationship between Neuroticism and satisfaction with social support. Research on coping styles supports the positive relationship between Extraversion and number of supports in showing that individuals high on Extraversion tend to cope by seeking emotional social support (Hooker, Frazier, & Monahan, 1994; Kokkonen & Pulkkinen, 2001; Watson & Hubbard, 1996). However, there are several aspects of the relationship between social support and personality that need further examination. First, although relationships between social support and Extraversion
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and Neuroticism have been found, little, if anything, is known about how social support relates to the other three NEO domains. Second, research shows that the form and source of perceived social support is more a function of the interaction of the support-recipient and support-provider than simply either alone (Lakey, Drew, & Sirl, 1999; Lakey, McCabe, Fisicaro, & Drew, 1996). Lakey and his colleagues note that individuals differ in terms of the sources from which they perceive social support and also that perceptions of supportiveness are a function of characteristics of both the perceiver and the perceived source of support. As such, a simple broad analysis of the associations between personality variables and social support without taking into consideration the source of support may miss important insights as to how these relationships may vary depending on the social in-group. Finally, another area that needs to be investigated is the cross-cultural generalization of findings pertaining to social support–NEO relationships. The studies described earlier were mainly carried out on Western samples. Little is known about such relationships among Asian or other non-Western samples. Since the self-construal of members of collectivistic cultures can be described as interdependent in nature whereas that of members of individualistic cultures is predominantly independent (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), it is of interest to ask whether there may be cross-cultural variation in the relationships between social support and personality. As such, investigation of these relationships in collectivistic societies such as Singapore seems warranted. In addition, the ethnic diversity of Singapore, with its three ethnic groups, Chinese, Indian, and Malay, allows for the examination of the extent to which relationships between personality and social support are similar or different among different collectivistic groups. Therefore, this study was conducted to address several issues. Our first objective was to examine the relationships between perceived social support, as measured by Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ: Sarason et al., 1983), and the five NEO personality domains. Based on the findings discussed earlier, we predicted positive relationships between Extraversion and perceived number of (SSN) and satisfaction with (SSS) social support whereas we expected the relationships of Neuroticism to SSN and SSS to be negative. Of particular interest is the question of how perceived social support relates to Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Previous studies have suggested that individuals who are highly agreeable (Lakey & Dickinson, 1994) and those who are open to emotional experiences (Colby & Emmons, 1997) are the ones to have greater perceived support. However, studies with Conscientiousness have produced mixed evidence. While Conscientiousness relates positively to reported number of social supports in one study (Anderson & McLean, 1997), it was inversely related to reported amount of received social support in another (Lu & Argyle, 1992). Theoretically, there are different possible predictions concerning the relationships between social support and these three domains. On one hand, it seems reasonable to expect perceived social support to be positively related to Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Individuals who are open to experience may be more likely to engage in more and diverse forms of social involvement, such that they are likely to report a higher number of people who can provide supportive exchanges. Also individuals high in Openness may be less likely to be put off by individuals with atypical attitudes or beliefs making them open to a larger number of potential support providers. On the basis of their agreeableness alone High Agreeableness individuals are likely to win more friends and support. Also the hardworking and orderly nature of a conscientious person
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may earn respect and affection from others. On the other hand, it can also be argued that being high on any of these variables offers no guarantee of high perceived social support, which argues for further examination of this issue. Our expectation is that Agreeableness, Openness, and Conscientiousness will be positively related to both perceived number of and satisfaction with social support. Another issue concerns differences in social support coming from different sources. To examine this issue, we differentiated perceived social support as provided by family (SSN-fm) from perceived social support as provided by non-family members (SSN-o), which comprises a wide range of individuals from friends to work colleagues. We find it useful to make this distinction for two reasons. First, this distinction is similar to that made by Procidano and Heller (1983), who differentiated between support provided by family (PSS-fa) and support provided by friends (PSSfr), as measured by their perceived social support questionnaire (PSS). As Heller and Swindler (1983) point out, membership in a family is not determined by the individual, but the number and types of friends chosen are. As such, one would expect perceived social support from friends to be predicted by socially relevant personality dimensions. Indeed, individuals who reported having a high degree of social support from friends scored high on social competence measures (Procidano, 1992; Procidano & Heller, 1983). Further, PSS-fa and PSS-fr have been found to relate to personality variables in different ways. PSS-fa was found to be negatively associated with Affiliation, and positively correlated with Autonomy, Dominance, Exhibition, Nurturance, and Desirability, while PSS-fr was positively related to Affiliation and Exhibition (Arsuaga, 1988; as cited in Procidano, 1992). Second, this division of perceived social support into that from family members and that from non-family members is important from the perspective of research on collectivism (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Previous findings in this area have shown that individuals adopt different degrees of collectivist attitudes towards different groups of people (Matsumoto, Weissman, Preston, Brown, & Kupperbusch, 1997; Rhee, Uleman, & Lee, 1996; Uleman, Rhee, Bardoliwalla, Semin, & Toyama, 2000) and that different types of collectivism may be related to personality. In particular, Realo, Allik, and Vadi (1997) showed that a collectivism-subtype that focuses on relationships with family was negatively related to Neuroticism and Openness, and positively related to Conscientiousness and Agreeableness. Another form of collectivism that focuses on relationships with peers correlated negatively with Openness and positively with Agreeableness. This suggests that perceived social support from family members may differ from other perceived social support in its relationship to personality dimensions. Since the definitions of SSN-fm and SSN-o used in this study are highly similar to Procidano and Heller’s social support from family members and from friends, respectively, it was expected that theoretical predictions for PSS-fa and PSS-fr would apply to SSN-fm and SSN-o. Further, based on the few empirical studies of the relationships between NEO domains and the various forms of perceived support described above, the following predictions may be made. First, SSN-o is likely to correlate positively with Openness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness (Heller & Swindler, 1983). Further, SSN-fa is likely to be strongly and negatively related to Neuroticism and Openness (Realo et al., 1997), and positively related to Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness (Arsuaga, 1988; as cited in Procidano, 1992). In general, we expect SSS to be positively related to Extraversion, Agreeableness Openness and Conscientiousness and negatively related to Neuroticism.
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2. Methods 2.1. Participants Participants were 243 male police patrol officers from the Singapore Police Force. Mean age of the officers was 27.6 years (ranging from 19 to 51). Chinese, Indians, and Malays were equally represented with 81 from each group. Demographics by group are shown in Table 1. As can be seen in this table the groups differed significantly in age, F(2, 240)=6.60, P=0.002, 2=0.052, marital status, 2 (2, N=243)=20.25, P<0.001, and religion, 2 (8, N=236)=304.84, P<0.001. 2.2. Procedures The data reported here come from a larger study examining stress among police officers. Participants were scheduled for data collection in small groups and were interviewed and also required to fill out a battery of questionnaires (all in English) that included the measures reported here. The order of the questionnaires and interview was randomized between participants. During each research session, at any point in time, one or two participants were being interviewed while the rest were engaged with the questionnaires. Instructions for the questionnaires were stated in Table 1 Demographics and means and standard deviations of social support measures and NEO domains Chinese M Age Married (%) Religion (%) None Buddhist/Taoist Christian Hindu/Sikh Muslim No answer Social Support SSS SSN SSN-fm SSN-o NEO-PI-R Agreeableness Conscientiousness Extraversion Neuroticism Openness
25.7a 19.8
Indians S.D. 5.1
17.3 54.3 13.6 0.0 1.2 2.5
M 27.6a,b 46.9a
Malays S.D. 6.1
1.2 0.0 12.3 50.6 33.3 2.5
31.2a 16.6a 6.8a 9.7a
4.0 9.4 5.3 7.3
112.4 116.0a 109.7a 84.4 104.7a,b
11.5 17.2 16.7 20.1 14.5
32.4a,b 15.4a,b 8.9 6.2b 116.5 124.9b 117.9b 79.5 108.6a
M 29.5b 51.9a
Total S.D. 8.0
1.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 95.1 3.7
M 27.6 39.5
S.D. 6.7
6.8 22.4 8.7 16.9 43.2 2.9
3.8 9.0 6.3 7.5
32.7b 12.9b 8.2a 4.6b
3.3 6.3 5.7 4.4
32.1 14.9 8.0 6.8
3.8 8.4 5.8 6.9
16.7 18.4 16.9 19.0 15.3
115.6 119.8a,b 110.4a 84.32 101.90b
14.2 18.3 14.9 18.2 13.3
114.8 120.3 112.6 82.7 105.1
14.3 18.3 16.6 19.2 14.6
SSS: perceived satisfaction with social support; SSN: perceived number of social support; SSN-fm: perceived number of social support from family: SSN-o: perceived numbers of social support from individuals outside the family. Means with a common letter are not different at P< 0.05.
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the questionnaires themselves. In addition, participants were instructed individually by researchers concerning the completion of the questionnaires. No time limit was set for completion of the questionnaires. All participation was voluntary with the understanding that participants could withdraw without prejudice at any time and could refuse to answer any question. For their participation participants were given a token of appreciation worth about S$6 (US$3.30). 2.3. Measures 2.3.1. Social support The short version of the Social Support Questionnaire was used. This version consists of six items derived from the original 27-item Social Support Questionaire (Sarason et al., 1983). A study of the short version of the SSQ showed strong psychometric properties that are comparable to the original version (Sarason, Sarason, Shearin, & Pierce, 1987). On this questionnaire respondents are requested to list up to nine individuals, using initials and putting the relationship in parentheses, on whom the respondent could call in various situations. In addition for each item respondents are asked to indicate their degree of satisfaction with support available on a six point scale with higher numbers indicating greater satisfaction. Two scores are obtained from the SSQ. SSN refers to the number of individuals listed by the person as being available for various types of support and is obtained by counting the number of persons listed as potential supports on each item and then taking the sum across items. SSS refers to satisfaction with support and is obtained by summing across the six satisfaction items. The six items in the short form were chosen mainly because of their strong loadings, compared to the other items, on both the Number and Satisfaction factors as derived from a factor analysis by Sarason et al. (1987). These researchers demonstrated high internal reliabilities for both Number and Satisfaction, ranging from 0.90 to 0.93. In addition, the relationships of the short version of the SSQ and several personality variables—such as shyness, social anxiety, and depression—were highly similar to the relationships between the original version and the same personality variables. In this study the internal reliabilities for SSS and SSN were 0.85 and 0.86, respectively. In addition to the usual number and satisfaction scores, in this study the SSQ was also scored for the number of supports listed who were family members (SSN-fm) versus non-family members (SSN-o). This was determined by examining the relationships indicated for the persons listed in each item. As with SSN the final score was the sum for the respective variables across items. The alpha values for SSN-fm and SSN-o were high as well at 0.85 and 0.89, respectively. 2.3.2. Personality traits The NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1985) was employed to measure personality based on the Five-Factor model. The NEO PI-R consists of 240 items measuring the 30 facets that make up the five domains of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Previous studies have demonstrated strong internal consistencies and test–retest reliability for the NEO PI-R (cf. Costa & McCrae, 1985; Costa, McCrae, & Dye, 1991). Its convergent and divergent validity with other self-report measures has also been amply documented (Costa & McCrae, 1985). Furthermore, cross-cultural studies point to the universal applicability of the five factor structure. Studies in China, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and the Philippines have demonstrated the similarity of the five personality domains and their respective facets in these
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countries (Costa et al., 1991; Huang, Church, & Katigbak, 1997; Leung, Cheung, Zhang, Song, & Xie, 1997; McCrae, Costa, & Yik, 1996). Therefore, in general, the psychometric properties and cross-cultural applicability of the NEO PI-R are well substantiated (Costa & McCrae, 1989). For this study, the internal consistencies were high for Neuroticism (0.84), Extraversion (0.73), and Conscientiousness (0.87), although the alpha values for Openness (0.68) and Agreeableness (0.66) were more moderate. The means and standard deviations for the domains are presented in Table 1.
3. Results 3.1. Descriptive data Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations of SSS, SSN, SSN-fm, and SSN-o categorized by ethnicity. One-way ANOVA with ethnicity as the between factor revealed significant differences in SSS, F(2, 240)=3.72, P=0.026, 2=0.030, and SSN, F(2, 240)=4.11, P=0.018, 2=0.033. Post-hoc Bonferroni tests showed that for SSS the main difference was between Chinese who reported the lowest satisfaction and Malays who showed the highest, while Indians did not differ significantly from either group. For SSN the main difference arose between Chinese with the highest score and Malays with the lowest. These two groups did not differ significantly from Indians. To examine differences in sources of support a repeated measures ANOVA was done with ethnicity as a between factor and source of support (SSN-fm and SSN-o) as a repeated measure. This analysis showed that in addition to the significant overall effect for ethnicity in total number of supports there was a significant interaction between ethnicity and source of support with Chinese reporting more support from outside the family whereas Malays and Indians reported more supports from family members. Paired t-tests by ethnic group showed that the differences in source of support were significant for all three groups; Chinese, t(79)=3.03, P=0.003, Malay, t(79)=4.03, P< 0.001, Indian, t(79)=2.31, P=0.024. Paired comparisons between ethnic groups for SSN-fm and SSN-o showed that while differences between groups for number of supports from family members were not statistically significant, Chinese reported having a significantly larger number of supports outside the family than did either Indians or Malays, with these two latter groups not differing significantly from each other. It can also be noted from Table 1 that the groups differed in mean scores on three of the NEO domains. One-way ANOVAs showed significant differences for Conscientiousness, F(2, 240)=4.61, P=0.011, 2=0.037, Extraversion, F(2, 240)=6.04, P=0.003, 2=0.048, and Openness, F(2, 240)=4.20, P=0.016, 2=0.034. Paired comparisons using the Bonferroni correction showed that Chinese had the lowest scores on Conscientiousness whereas Indians had the highest scores and Malays did not differ significantly from either group. For Extraversion, Indians had significantly higher scores than either Chinese or Malays who did not differ from each other. With Openness Indians also had the highest scores but differed significantly only from Malays while Chinese and Malays did not differ from each other. To test whether ethnic differences in social support measures could be accounted for by differences in demographics and scores on NEO domains, analyses of covariance were done of the social support variables using age, marital status (coded as 0 for single, 1 for married) and NEO
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domain scores as the covariates. Given the difficulties of using multiple religion categories as a covariate and the very close relationship between religion and ethnicity, religion was not used as a covariate. The results of these ANCOVAs indicated that the differences for SSS were reduced to non-significance when age, marital status, and NEO domain scores were controlled, F(2, 233)=1.58, P=0.21, 2=0.013. Examinations of the regression weights for the covariates indicated that only the weight for marital status was significant, b=1.61, t(233)=3.16, P=0.002, indicating that differences in marital status played a significant role in group differences in satisfaction with support. For number of social supports, however, controlling for NEO domain scores, age and marital status appeared to make no difference. The significant main effect for ethnicity in overall number of supports remained statistically significant as did the interaction between ethnicity and source of support. Examination of the adjusted means showed that the pattern reported above remained after control for these covariates. 3.2. Correlations between SSQ and NEO PI-R domains Correlations among the four SSQ measures and five NEO domains are presented in Table 2. Inspection of this table shows that, as expected, SSS correlated positively with SSN and SSN-fm. However, the correlation between SSS and SSN-o was essentially zero. The NEO domains were also highly correlated. The pattern of these correlations shows a negative association of Neuroticism with all of the other domains, except for Openness with which it correlated positively. All other domains were positively correlated with each other. More importantly, several correlations emerged between the SSQ dimensions and NEO domains. SSS, SSN, and SSN-fm were all significantly and positively correlated with Agreeableness and Extraversion. In addition SSS and SSN-fm were significantly and positively correlated with Conscientiousness and negatively correlated with Neuroticism. SSN was also correlated positively with Openness. Finally, SSN-o correlated positively with Extraversion and Openness and negatively with Conscientiousness. Table 2 Intercorrelations between social support indexes and NEO domains 1 1: SSS 2: SSN 3: SSN-fm 4: SSN-o 5: Agreeableness 6: Conscientiousness 7: Extraversion 8: Neuroticism 9: Openness
2 1.00 0.17** 0.28** 0.03 0.14* 0.21** 0.18** 0.20** 0.09
3 1.00 0.60** 0.73** 0.15* 0.04 0.23** 0.11 0.23**
4
5
6
7
8
9
1.00 0.28**
1.00
1.00 0.23** 0.27** 0.18** 0.18** 0.08
0.12 0.01 0.18** 0.14** 0.01 0.23**
1.00 1.00 0.38** 0.24** 0.37** 0.14*
1.00 0.51** 0.59** 0.24**
1.00 0.51** 0.54**
SSS: perceived satisfaction with social support; SSN: perceived number of social support; SSN-fm: perceived number of social support from family: SSN-o: perceived numbers of social support from others (that is, non-family individuals). All tests are two tailed. * P< 0.05. ** P< 0.01.
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3.3. NEO domains as predictors of SSQ dimensions To examine the simultaneous relationship of the five NEO domains to the SSQ measures, a series of regression analyses was conducted for the four SSQ dimensions. Specifically, each SSQ dimension served as the criterion with the five NEO domains entered simultaneously as predictors. In addition, we also examined the extent to which the regressions differed between the three ethnic groups for each DV by using LISREL 8 (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993) with the multisamples option that tests for equality of regression equations across independent groups. The results showed the regression coefficients to be the same across groups for all dependent variables. The five NEO dimensions together accounted for 6% of the variance in SSS, F(5, 237)=2.95, P=0.013. However, as can be seen in Table 3, none of the coefficients for individual NEO domains reached statistical significance. Together the five NEO domains accounted for 9% of the variance in SSN, F(5, 237)=4.76, P<0.001. Examination of the regression coefficients for individual NEO domains reveals that Extraversion made an independent contribution to SSN, =.20, t(237)=2.27, P=0.024. In addition, near significant coefficients were obtained for Agreeableness =0.13, t(237)=1.95, P=0.052, and Openness, =0.13, t(237)=1.81, P=0.072 which predicted SSN positively. Conscientiousness was found to be a near significant negative predictor, = 0.15, t(237)= 1.84, P=0.067. However, since the bivariate correlation between Conscientiousness and SSN was near zero, Conscientiousness appears to be functioning as a suppressor variable in this case and thus this result should not be interpreted substantively. With regard to SSN-fm, the five NEO domains together explained 9% of the variance, F(5, 234)=4.74, P<0.001. Agreeableness and Conscientiousness made significant independent contributions to SSN-fm, =0.15, t(234)=2.15, P=0.017, and =0.19, t(234)=2.27, P=0.013 respectively. Finally, the NEO domains explained 13% of the variance in SSN-o, F(5, 234)=7.02, P<0.001. Three NEO domains made independent contributions to SSN-o, Conscientiousness, = 0.35, t(234)= 4.33, P<0.001, Extraversion, =0.19, t(234)=2.17, P=0.016, and Openness, =0.19, t(234)=2.67, P=0.004.
Table 3 Simultaneous regression analysis four SSQ dimensions onto five NEO domains Predictors
SSS
Agreeableness Conscientiousness Extraversion Neuroticism Openness All tests are two tailed. * P< 0.05. ** P< 0.01. *** P< 0.05.
SSN t
0.05 0.09 0.08 0.09 0.01
0.77 1.11 0.90 1.12 0.17
SSN-fm t
0.13 0.15 0.20 0.02 0.13
1.95 1.84 2.27* 0.19 1.81
SSN-o t
0.15 0.19 0.07 0.01 0.02
2.15* 2.27* 0.76 0.15 0.25
t 0.04 0.35 0.19 0.04 0.19
0.53 4.33*** 2.17* 0.43 2.67**
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4. Discussion In summary, our results showed a number of significant relationships between personality and social support measures. First, consistent with past findings satisfaction with support correlated negatively with Neuroticism and positively with Extraversion. Further, individuals who are satisfied with their social support network were also found to be more agreeable and conscientious. Regression analysis showed the five NEO domains as a group to be significantly related to SSS but none of the regression coefficients reached statistical significance, likely the result of a high level of shared variance among the predictors. By comparison, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Openness were significantly and positively correlated with SSN. Regression analysis, however, showed that only Extraversion made an independent and statistically significant contribution to SSN with the regression coefficients for Agreeableness and Openness approaching statistical significance. Separating perceived supports by their source indicated that Agreeableness and Conscientiousness made unique and positive contributions to the prediction of number of perceived social supports among family members whereas perceived social supports outside of the family were positively related to Extraversion and Openness and negatively related to Conscientiousness. These regression results were identical across ethnic groups despite the fact that Malays reported the smallest number of social supports overall but the greatest satisfaction with that social support whereas Chinese reported the largest number of supports but the least satisfaction. Differences in satisfaction, however, were reduced to non-significance when group differences in marital status were controlled. Interestingly, social support for Chinese respondents tended to come from outside the family whereas for Malay and Indian respondents the largest number of perceived supports came from within the family. Previous research has provided strong reasons for conceptualizing social support as being, at least in part, a dispositional variable. Perceived social support has been shown to be temporally stable (e.g. Sarason et al., 1986) and to be associated with several personality variables (e.g. Sarason et al., 1983). The present study expands on this literature by examining how social support relates to the Big Five personality domains in an Asian population. Additionally, dividing SSN into Perceived Number of Social Supports from Family (SSN-fm), and Perceived Number of Social Supports from Others (SSN-o), allowed investigation of how personality relates to perceived social support from specific in-groups. In sum, this study produced data addressing the relationships between social support and the five NEO domains, the extent to which these relationships agree with previous findings from Western samples, the specificity of the social support-personality relationships in reference to specific support groups and ethnic differences and similarities in social support. The obtained positive relationship between perceived social support and Extraversion along with the negative relationship with Neuroticism converges with Western findings, suggesting the universality of these relationships. Universality is further, suggested by the fact that the regression coefficients for prediction of SSS and SSN by the NEO domains were found not to differ across the three ethnic groups, although the sample size may have been too small to detect any but relatively large differences. This equivalence across ethnic groups needs to be further examined using a larger sample. Further, our data provides one of the few direct demonstrations of the relationship between perceived social support and Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness. Consistent with
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previous findings (Lakey & Dickinson, 1994), Agreeableness was positively related to both SSS and SSN. This finding together with the positive associations of Extraversion with SSN and SSNo further testify to the importance of social-related traits to perceived social support. It is also interesting that Openness was positively related to SSN, which is plausibly explained by the idea that those who are more open to new experiences are more likely to form more friendships and thus are able to list a greater number of support-providers. Further studies are needed to explore this relationship especially since it is not clear at this point which type of Openness (such as being open to emotions, open to new friendships, or simply being open to any new experience) it is that correlates positively with SSN as demonstrated here. Finally, that Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Openness each predicted SSN independently after other predictors were controlled holds potential implications. This finding suggests that possessing any of these traits is likely to increase one’s perception of supportiveness in more people. This, in turn, leads to questions on the social-cognitive mechanisms that may explain such a positive perception among those high in any of these three traits. Future research is needed to provide clarification on this issue. One of the most interesting aspects of our data concerns social support from family members (SSN-fm) as compared to support from non-family members (SSN-o). As noted earlier, studies of social support would benefit from consideration of the match between support-provider and support-recipient since it may well be this interaction that appears to be crucial in determining the effects of social support (Lakey et al., 1996). Further, research on social support, or for that matter on any relationship-based construct, should not lose sight of the fact that different ingroups are likely to be assigned differential importance (Uleman et al., 2000) and thus the effect on the variables of interest or the validity of the proposed relationships may vary depending on the in-group studied. Thus, it is necessary to examine the reasons why some individuals perceive their family to be the most supportive whereas others see their non-family contacts as more supportive. Our study provides part of the answer in terms of personality makeup. It is interesting to note that Chinese participants indicated a higher number of social supports from non-family than family members whereas the opposite was true for Indians and Malays, a finding that remained significant when group differences in age, marital status and NEO domain scores were controlled. This finding is interesting as it is among the first to document ethnic differences in support from different sources. While at this point it is not clear how this finding should be interpreted and it is in need of replication, it appears to suggest that collectivistic attitudes are a function not only of in-group types as described earlier, but also of ethnicity (Uleman et al., 2000). Also SSN-fm and SSN-o correlated with different personality traits. Consistent with predictions, SSN-fm correlated positively with Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, and negatively with Neuroticism. Regression analysis showed that Agreeableness and Conscientiousness made independent contributions to SSN-fm. By contrast, SSN-o was positively correlated with Extraversion and Openness as predicted. However, contrary to expectations, it did not relate to Agreeableness but was negatively correlated with Conscientiousness. Regression analysis showed that all three correlates made significant independent contributions to SSN-o. These findings hold several important theoretical and practical implications. First, they strongly suggest that research that fails to distinguish between social support coming from family members and that coming from outside the family may lead to misleading conclusions about the
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relationship between the size of one’s support network and other psychosocial constructs. Second, they corroborate the argument of Lakey and his colleagues that it is not the characteristic of the support receiver nor that of the giver that is important but the interaction of the two that is critical (Lakey et al., 1996, 1999). In other words, different individuals perceive certain types of individuals to be particularly supportive. Third, consistent with studies demonstrating different interpretative processes for social information between individuals differing in perceived social support (Lakey & Cassidy, 1990; Lakey, Moineau, & Drew, 1992), our findings raise the question of whether supportive actions from different providers are interpreted in the same way. Our study, for instance, showed that individuals high in Openness and Extraversion are more likely to perceive more assistance from outside the family (friends or even strangers) than those who are low on these traits. Finally, these observations imply that clinical efforts in advising clients on the type of support suitable to them need to take into consideration this support giver-recipient match. For example, clients high in Openness and needing assistance may show the most benefit from recommendations to seek out friends whereas those who are high in Conscientiousness may benefit most from recommendations to seek support from family members. These findings provide insights that are both predicted and novel and which are in need of further examination First, Openness independently predicted SSN-o as expected. However, more research is needed to identify the specific form of Openness that is associated with higher SSN-o as found here. Second, it is not clear why Conscientiousness independently and positively predicted SSN-fm and negatively predicted SS-o. One possibility is that there may be a stronger emphasis for family than for non-family in-groups among our Asian participants. As such conscientious individuals may be more likely to be committed to the preservation of strong family ties than to ties outside the family, which in turn leads to them seeking and perceiving more support from the former. Also, the idea that socially-related traits (such as Agreeableness and Extraversion) should be stronger predictors of SSN-o than of SSN-fm (Heller & Swindler, 1983; Procidano, 1992) was, in general, supported since both Extraversion and Openness were independent predictors of SSN-o but not SSN-fm. However, one would be hard-pressed to explain why Agreeableness was not correlated with SSN-o at all as expected. Third, SSS did not correlated with SSN-o, but correlated positively with SSN-fm. This raises the interesting possibility that in collectivistic societies evaluative judgment of social support is more dependent on whether the social support is perceived as coming from the family than as coming from non-family in-groups. It is important to keep in mind that the participants in this study were police officers. Thus the question of the generalizability of our findings arises since the daily experience of police officers, which includes threats of violent criminals and unreasonable complaints from public and media (Evans & Coman, 1992), is very different from the ordinary citizen. At this point we have no reason to believe that these relationships are unique to police officers, particularly since several of the findings are congruent with previous findings in the literature. In addition, a recent study comparing a structural equation model of the relationships between anger, stress, social support, coping and health outcomes with this sample and a sample from the Singapore general population found that the models describing these relationships in these two populations were very similar (Diong et al., submitted for publication). However, it is important to replicate this study with other sample types before the validity of the above relationships can be considered as established.
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To conclude, several relationships were found between the NEO domains, and perceived satisfaction with social support (SSS), perceived number of social supports (SSN), perceived number of social supports from family (SSN-fm), and perceived number of social supports from nonfamily members (SSN-o), all of which applied equally to the three ethnic groups investigated here. The data collected in this study revealed that not only does perceived social support relate to Extraversion and Neuroticism as commonly found, but also to Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness. Of particular interest is the distinction made between different in-groups individuals may perceive social support from. That SSN-fm and SSN-o have different sets of personality predictors supports the importance of specifying the different in-groups social support is perceived from. Such differentiation of social support into its components provokes several theoretical questions and clinical implications that require more investigation. Whether one tends to perceive supportive acts as coming from one’s family or from others have different antecedent predictors and different implications for social-cognitive processes, coping and even psychological well-being. Thus, we conclude by re-emphasizing the view of Procidano and her colleagues, that the complexity of social support can be further understood by more precise specification of social support into its components, so as to demonstrate the unique psychological character that each of its components can actually take.
Acknowledgements This research was funded by grant No. R-107-000-007-012 from the National University of Singapore with supplemental funds from the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore Police Force. References Anderson, K. W., & McLean, P. D. (1997). Conscientiousness in depression: tendencies, predictive utility, and longitudinal stability. Cognitive Therapy & Research, 21, 223–238. Arsuaga, E. N. (1988). The relationship of perceived social support and socially supportive behaviours to individual personality characteristics. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Fordham University. Colby, P. M., & Emmons, R. A. (1997). Openness to emotion as predictor of perceived, requested, and observer reports of social support. In G. R. Pierce, B. Lakey, I. G. Sarason, & B. R. Sarason (Eds.), Sourcebook of social support and personality. The Plenum series in social/clinical psychology (pp. 3–18). New York: Plenum Press. Collins, N. L., Dunkel-Schetter, C., Lobel, M., & Scrimshaw, S. C. (1993). Social support in pregnancy: psychosocial correlates of birth outcomes and postpartum depression. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 65, 1243–1258. Costa, P. T. J., & McCrae, R. R. (1985). The NEO Personality Inventory manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Costa, P. T. J., & McCrae, R. R. (1989). The NEO-PI/NEO-FFI manual supplement. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Costa, P. T., McCrae, R. R., & Dye, D. A. (1991). Facet scales for agreeableness and conscientiousness: a revision of the NEOPersonality Inventory. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 887–898. Diong, S.-M., Bishop, G. D., Enkelmann, H. C., Tong, E. M. W., Why, Y. P., Ang, J. C. H., & Khader, M. Anger, stress, coping, social support and health: modelling the relationships (submitted for publication). Dunkel-Schetter, C., & Bennett, T. L. (1990). Differentiating the cognitive and behavioral aspects of social support. In B. R. Sarason, & I. G. Sarason (Eds.), Social support: an interactional view (pp. 267–296). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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Social support and personality among male police officers in Singapore Eddie M.W. Tonga, George D. Bishopa,*, Siew Maan Dionga, Hwee Chong Enkelmanna, Yong Peng Whya, Jansen Angb, Majeed Khaderb a
Department of Social Work and Psychology, National University of Singapore, 11 Law Link, 117570, Singapore b Police Psychological Unit, Singapore Police Force, Singapore Received 20 May 2002; received in revised form 13 December 2002; accepted 27 January 2003
Abstract This study examines the relationship between perceived social support and personality among police officers from Singapore’s three main ethnic groups, Chinese, Indians, and Malays. Perceived social support was measured by the short version of the Social Support Questionnaire [SSQ: Sarason, Sarason, Shearin, & Pierce (1987) and personality was assessed by the NEO PI-R. Of the three ethnic groups Chinese participants reported the largest number of social supports but the lowest satisfaction with that support. Regression analyses revealed that none of the NEO PI-R domains stood out as independent predictors of Satisfaction with Social Support (SSS) whereas Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Openness contributed independently to Number of Social Supports (SSN). In addition, SSN was divided into two components: Number of Social Supports from Family (SSN-fm) and Number of Social Supports from Others (SSN-o). Regression analyses showed Agreeableness and Conscientiousness to be independent predictors of SSN-fm and Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Openness to be independent predictors of SSN-o. In addition, the relationships were found to be equally descriptive of the three ethnic groups. These results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications. # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Social support; Personality; NEO PI-R; Ethnic differences; Singapore
1. Introduction The literature on social support grew out of epidemiological studies that focused on the social and environmental factors contributing to the well-being of individuals (Pierce, Lakey, Sarason, * Corresponding author. Tel.: +65-6874-6415; fax: +65-6778-1213. E-mail address: [email protected] (G.D. Bishop). 0191-8869/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(03)00072-2
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Sarason, & Joseph, 1997). While early studies conceptualized social support as a transaction of supportive provisions that comes from one’s social environment, later studies make the important distinction between the actual supportive transaction in the environment (sometimes referred to as received support) and the recipient’s subjective evaluation of that exchange (also known as perceived support). This distinction proves to be of substantial theoretical and practical importance, as several studies have shown that it is perceived support, rather than received support, that is related to various health outcomes (Collins, Dunkel-Schetter, Lobel, & Scrimshaw, 1993; Dunkel-Schetter & Bennett, 1990; Hobfoll, Nadler, & Leiberman, 1986; Lakey & Heller, 1988; Procidano, 1992; Wethington & Kessler, 1986). Findings to date suggest that perceived social support may actually be, at least in part, an individual difference variable (Pierce et al., 1997). Indeed, several studies hint at the trait-like status of perceived support. For instance, Sarason, Sarason, and Shearin (1986) found perceived availability of and satisfaction with social support to be stable for up to 3 years (Sarason, Levine, Basham, & Sarason, 1983; Solomon, Mikulincer, & Avitzur, 1988). Other studies show that perceive support is positively associated with reported parental care and family support during childhood (Lakey & Dickinson, 1994; Sarason, Pierce, Bannerman, & Sarason, 1993; Sarason et al., 1986). Cognitive models of social support have also pointed to a personality-like conception. Several researchers have suggested that perceived social support can be conceptualized as being a cognitive framework that guides one’s attention to and interpretation of social information (Lakey & Cassidy, 1990; Lakey & Drew, 1997; Sarason, Pierce, Shearin, Sarason, Waltz, & Poope, 1991). If perceived social support can be conceptualized as a dispositional variable, it seems likely that perceived social support would be related to other personality variables. Indeed, several such relationships have been found. For example, satisfaction with social support and perceived number of social supports are negatively related to neurotic symptoms, depression, anxiety, and hostility and positively related to self-esteem (Henderson, 1981; Lakey & Cassidy, 1990; Raikkonen & Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 1992; Sarason et al., 1983). In addition, extraversion is positively associated with the perceived number of social support providers whereas, high neuroticism scores are negatively associated with satisfaction with social support (Lakey & Dickinson, 1994; Sarason et al., 1983). Individuals high in perceived social support are also more optimistic and tend to report more positive life experiences and greater control over their lives than their low counterparts (Sarason et al., 1983). Thus, there are predictable individual differences between those who are satisfied with their social-network and those who are not. As such, it is of interest to examine how social support relates to the personality dimensions of the Big-Five model (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness), a model that has been cross-culturally validated in a number of studies (cf. Costa & McCrae, 1985). Early studies have uncovered several relationships. Sarason et al. (1983) found a positive relationship between Extraversion and perceived number of social supports and a negative relationship between Neuroticism and satisfaction with social support. Research on coping styles supports the positive relationship between Extraversion and number of supports in showing that individuals high on Extraversion tend to cope by seeking emotional social support (Hooker, Frazier, & Monahan, 1994; Kokkonen & Pulkkinen, 2001; Watson & Hubbard, 1996). However, there are several aspects of the relationship between social support and personality that need further examination. First, although relationships between social support and Extraversion
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and Neuroticism have been found, little, if anything, is known about how social support relates to the other three NEO domains. Second, research shows that the form and source of perceived social support is more a function of the interaction of the support-recipient and support-provider than simply either alone (Lakey, Drew, & Sirl, 1999; Lakey, McCabe, Fisicaro, & Drew, 1996). Lakey and his colleagues note that individuals differ in terms of the sources from which they perceive social support and also that perceptions of supportiveness are a function of characteristics of both the perceiver and the perceived source of support. As such, a simple broad analysis of the associations between personality variables and social support without taking into consideration the source of support may miss important insights as to how these relationships may vary depending on the social in-group. Finally, another area that needs to be investigated is the cross-cultural generalization of findings pertaining to social support–NEO relationships. The studies described earlier were mainly carried out on Western samples. Little is known about such relationships among Asian or other non-Western samples. Since the self-construal of members of collectivistic cultures can be described as interdependent in nature whereas that of members of individualistic cultures is predominantly independent (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), it is of interest to ask whether there may be cross-cultural variation in the relationships between social support and personality. As such, investigation of these relationships in collectivistic societies such as Singapore seems warranted. In addition, the ethnic diversity of Singapore, with its three ethnic groups, Chinese, Indian, and Malay, allows for the examination of the extent to which relationships between personality and social support are similar or different among different collectivistic groups. Therefore, this study was conducted to address several issues. Our first objective was to examine the relationships between perceived social support, as measured by Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ: Sarason et al., 1983), and the five NEO personality domains. Based on the findings discussed earlier, we predicted positive relationships between Extraversion and perceived number of (SSN) and satisfaction with (SSS) social support whereas we expected the relationships of Neuroticism to SSN and SSS to be negative. Of particular interest is the question of how perceived social support relates to Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Previous studies have suggested that individuals who are highly agreeable (Lakey & Dickinson, 1994) and those who are open to emotional experiences (Colby & Emmons, 1997) are the ones to have greater perceived support. However, studies with Conscientiousness have produced mixed evidence. While Conscientiousness relates positively to reported number of social supports in one study (Anderson & McLean, 1997), it was inversely related to reported amount of received social support in another (Lu & Argyle, 1992). Theoretically, there are different possible predictions concerning the relationships between social support and these three domains. On one hand, it seems reasonable to expect perceived social support to be positively related to Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Individuals who are open to experience may be more likely to engage in more and diverse forms of social involvement, such that they are likely to report a higher number of people who can provide supportive exchanges. Also individuals high in Openness may be less likely to be put off by individuals with atypical attitudes or beliefs making them open to a larger number of potential support providers. On the basis of their agreeableness alone High Agreeableness individuals are likely to win more friends and support. Also the hardworking and orderly nature of a conscientious person
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may earn respect and affection from others. On the other hand, it can also be argued that being high on any of these variables offers no guarantee of high perceived social support, which argues for further examination of this issue. Our expectation is that Agreeableness, Openness, and Conscientiousness will be positively related to both perceived number of and satisfaction with social support. Another issue concerns differences in social support coming from different sources. To examine this issue, we differentiated perceived social support as provided by family (SSN-fm) from perceived social support as provided by non-family members (SSN-o), which comprises a wide range of individuals from friends to work colleagues. We find it useful to make this distinction for two reasons. First, this distinction is similar to that made by Procidano and Heller (1983), who differentiated between support provided by family (PSS-fa) and support provided by friends (PSSfr), as measured by their perceived social support questionnaire (PSS). As Heller and Swindler (1983) point out, membership in a family is not determined by the individual, but the number and types of friends chosen are. As such, one would expect perceived social support from friends to be predicted by socially relevant personality dimensions. Indeed, individuals who reported having a high degree of social support from friends scored high on social competence measures (Procidano, 1992; Procidano & Heller, 1983). Further, PSS-fa and PSS-fr have been found to relate to personality variables in different ways. PSS-fa was found to be negatively associated with Affiliation, and positively correlated with Autonomy, Dominance, Exhibition, Nurturance, and Desirability, while PSS-fr was positively related to Affiliation and Exhibition (Arsuaga, 1988; as cited in Procidano, 1992). Second, this division of perceived social support into that from family members and that from non-family members is important from the perspective of research on collectivism (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Previous findings in this area have shown that individuals adopt different degrees of collectivist attitudes towards different groups of people (Matsumoto, Weissman, Preston, Brown, & Kupperbusch, 1997; Rhee, Uleman, & Lee, 1996; Uleman, Rhee, Bardoliwalla, Semin, & Toyama, 2000) and that different types of collectivism may be related to personality. In particular, Realo, Allik, and Vadi (1997) showed that a collectivism-subtype that focuses on relationships with family was negatively related to Neuroticism and Openness, and positively related to Conscientiousness and Agreeableness. Another form of collectivism that focuses on relationships with peers correlated negatively with Openness and positively with Agreeableness. This suggests that perceived social support from family members may differ from other perceived social support in its relationship to personality dimensions. Since the definitions of SSN-fm and SSN-o used in this study are highly similar to Procidano and Heller’s social support from family members and from friends, respectively, it was expected that theoretical predictions for PSS-fa and PSS-fr would apply to SSN-fm and SSN-o. Further, based on the few empirical studies of the relationships between NEO domains and the various forms of perceived support described above, the following predictions may be made. First, SSN-o is likely to correlate positively with Openness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness (Heller & Swindler, 1983). Further, SSN-fa is likely to be strongly and negatively related to Neuroticism and Openness (Realo et al., 1997), and positively related to Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness (Arsuaga, 1988; as cited in Procidano, 1992). In general, we expect SSS to be positively related to Extraversion, Agreeableness Openness and Conscientiousness and negatively related to Neuroticism.
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2. Methods 2.1. Participants Participants were 243 male police patrol officers from the Singapore Police Force. Mean age of the officers was 27.6 years (ranging from 19 to 51). Chinese, Indians, and Malays were equally represented with 81 from each group. Demographics by group are shown in Table 1. As can be seen in this table the groups differed significantly in age, F(2, 240)=6.60, P=0.002, 2=0.052, marital status, 2 (2, N=243)=20.25, P<0.001, and religion, 2 (8, N=236)=304.84, P<0.001. 2.2. Procedures The data reported here come from a larger study examining stress among police officers. Participants were scheduled for data collection in small groups and were interviewed and also required to fill out a battery of questionnaires (all in English) that included the measures reported here. The order of the questionnaires and interview was randomized between participants. During each research session, at any point in time, one or two participants were being interviewed while the rest were engaged with the questionnaires. Instructions for the questionnaires were stated in Table 1 Demographics and means and standard deviations of social support measures and NEO domains Chinese M Age Married (%) Religion (%) None Buddhist/Taoist Christian Hindu/Sikh Muslim No answer Social Support SSS SSN SSN-fm SSN-o NEO-PI-R Agreeableness Conscientiousness Extraversion Neuroticism Openness
25.7a 19.8
Indians S.D. 5.1
17.3 54.3 13.6 0.0 1.2 2.5
M 27.6a,b 46.9a
Malays S.D. 6.1
1.2 0.0 12.3 50.6 33.3 2.5
31.2a 16.6a 6.8a 9.7a
4.0 9.4 5.3 7.3
112.4 116.0a 109.7a 84.4 104.7a,b
11.5 17.2 16.7 20.1 14.5
32.4a,b 15.4a,b 8.9 6.2b 116.5 124.9b 117.9b 79.5 108.6a
M 29.5b 51.9a
Total S.D. 8.0
1.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 95.1 3.7
M 27.6 39.5
S.D. 6.7
6.8 22.4 8.7 16.9 43.2 2.9
3.8 9.0 6.3 7.5
32.7b 12.9b 8.2a 4.6b
3.3 6.3 5.7 4.4
32.1 14.9 8.0 6.8
3.8 8.4 5.8 6.9
16.7 18.4 16.9 19.0 15.3
115.6 119.8a,b 110.4a 84.32 101.90b
14.2 18.3 14.9 18.2 13.3
114.8 120.3 112.6 82.7 105.1
14.3 18.3 16.6 19.2 14.6
SSS: perceived satisfaction with social support; SSN: perceived number of social support; SSN-fm: perceived number of social support from family: SSN-o: perceived numbers of social support from individuals outside the family. Means with a common letter are not different at P< 0.05.
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the questionnaires themselves. In addition, participants were instructed individually by researchers concerning the completion of the questionnaires. No time limit was set for completion of the questionnaires. All participation was voluntary with the understanding that participants could withdraw without prejudice at any time and could refuse to answer any question. For their participation participants were given a token of appreciation worth about S$6 (US$3.30). 2.3. Measures 2.3.1. Social support The short version of the Social Support Questionnaire was used. This version consists of six items derived from the original 27-item Social Support Questionaire (Sarason et al., 1983). A study of the short version of the SSQ showed strong psychometric properties that are comparable to the original version (Sarason, Sarason, Shearin, & Pierce, 1987). On this questionnaire respondents are requested to list up to nine individuals, using initials and putting the relationship in parentheses, on whom the respondent could call in various situations. In addition for each item respondents are asked to indicate their degree of satisfaction with support available on a six point scale with higher numbers indicating greater satisfaction. Two scores are obtained from the SSQ. SSN refers to the number of individuals listed by the person as being available for various types of support and is obtained by counting the number of persons listed as potential supports on each item and then taking the sum across items. SSS refers to satisfaction with support and is obtained by summing across the six satisfaction items. The six items in the short form were chosen mainly because of their strong loadings, compared to the other items, on both the Number and Satisfaction factors as derived from a factor analysis by Sarason et al. (1987). These researchers demonstrated high internal reliabilities for both Number and Satisfaction, ranging from 0.90 to 0.93. In addition, the relationships of the short version of the SSQ and several personality variables—such as shyness, social anxiety, and depression—were highly similar to the relationships between the original version and the same personality variables. In this study the internal reliabilities for SSS and SSN were 0.85 and 0.86, respectively. In addition to the usual number and satisfaction scores, in this study the SSQ was also scored for the number of supports listed who were family members (SSN-fm) versus non-family members (SSN-o). This was determined by examining the relationships indicated for the persons listed in each item. As with SSN the final score was the sum for the respective variables across items. The alpha values for SSN-fm and SSN-o were high as well at 0.85 and 0.89, respectively. 2.3.2. Personality traits The NEO PI-R (Costa & McCrae, 1985) was employed to measure personality based on the Five-Factor model. The NEO PI-R consists of 240 items measuring the 30 facets that make up the five domains of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Previous studies have demonstrated strong internal consistencies and test–retest reliability for the NEO PI-R (cf. Costa & McCrae, 1985; Costa, McCrae, & Dye, 1991). Its convergent and divergent validity with other self-report measures has also been amply documented (Costa & McCrae, 1985). Furthermore, cross-cultural studies point to the universal applicability of the five factor structure. Studies in China, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and the Philippines have demonstrated the similarity of the five personality domains and their respective facets in these
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countries (Costa et al., 1991; Huang, Church, & Katigbak, 1997; Leung, Cheung, Zhang, Song, & Xie, 1997; McCrae, Costa, & Yik, 1996). Therefore, in general, the psychometric properties and cross-cultural applicability of the NEO PI-R are well substantiated (Costa & McCrae, 1989). For this study, the internal consistencies were high for Neuroticism (0.84), Extraversion (0.73), and Conscientiousness (0.87), although the alpha values for Openness (0.68) and Agreeableness (0.66) were more moderate. The means and standard deviations for the domains are presented in Table 1.
3. Results 3.1. Descriptive data Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations of SSS, SSN, SSN-fm, and SSN-o categorized by ethnicity. One-way ANOVA with ethnicity as the between factor revealed significant differences in SSS, F(2, 240)=3.72, P=0.026, 2=0.030, and SSN, F(2, 240)=4.11, P=0.018, 2=0.033. Post-hoc Bonferroni tests showed that for SSS the main difference was between Chinese who reported the lowest satisfaction and Malays who showed the highest, while Indians did not differ significantly from either group. For SSN the main difference arose between Chinese with the highest score and Malays with the lowest. These two groups did not differ significantly from Indians. To examine differences in sources of support a repeated measures ANOVA was done with ethnicity as a between factor and source of support (SSN-fm and SSN-o) as a repeated measure. This analysis showed that in addition to the significant overall effect for ethnicity in total number of supports there was a significant interaction between ethnicity and source of support with Chinese reporting more support from outside the family whereas Malays and Indians reported more supports from family members. Paired t-tests by ethnic group showed that the differences in source of support were significant for all three groups; Chinese, t(79)=3.03, P=0.003, Malay, t(79)=4.03, P< 0.001, Indian, t(79)=2.31, P=0.024. Paired comparisons between ethnic groups for SSN-fm and SSN-o showed that while differences between groups for number of supports from family members were not statistically significant, Chinese reported having a significantly larger number of supports outside the family than did either Indians or Malays, with these two latter groups not differing significantly from each other. It can also be noted from Table 1 that the groups differed in mean scores on three of the NEO domains. One-way ANOVAs showed significant differences for Conscientiousness, F(2, 240)=4.61, P=0.011, 2=0.037, Extraversion, F(2, 240)=6.04, P=0.003, 2=0.048, and Openness, F(2, 240)=4.20, P=0.016, 2=0.034. Paired comparisons using the Bonferroni correction showed that Chinese had the lowest scores on Conscientiousness whereas Indians had the highest scores and Malays did not differ significantly from either group. For Extraversion, Indians had significantly higher scores than either Chinese or Malays who did not differ from each other. With Openness Indians also had the highest scores but differed significantly only from Malays while Chinese and Malays did not differ from each other. To test whether ethnic differences in social support measures could be accounted for by differences in demographics and scores on NEO domains, analyses of covariance were done of the social support variables using age, marital status (coded as 0 for single, 1 for married) and NEO
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domain scores as the covariates. Given the difficulties of using multiple religion categories as a covariate and the very close relationship between religion and ethnicity, religion was not used as a covariate. The results of these ANCOVAs indicated that the differences for SSS were reduced to non-significance when age, marital status, and NEO domain scores were controlled, F(2, 233)=1.58, P=0.21, 2=0.013. Examinations of the regression weights for the covariates indicated that only the weight for marital status was significant, b=1.61, t(233)=3.16, P=0.002, indicating that differences in marital status played a significant role in group differences in satisfaction with support. For number of social supports, however, controlling for NEO domain scores, age and marital status appeared to make no difference. The significant main effect for ethnicity in overall number of supports remained statistically significant as did the interaction between ethnicity and source of support. Examination of the adjusted means showed that the pattern reported above remained after control for these covariates. 3.2. Correlations between SSQ and NEO PI-R domains Correlations among the four SSQ measures and five NEO domains are presented in Table 2. Inspection of this table shows that, as expected, SSS correlated positively with SSN and SSN-fm. However, the correlation between SSS and SSN-o was essentially zero. The NEO domains were also highly correlated. The pattern of these correlations shows a negative association of Neuroticism with all of the other domains, except for Openness with which it correlated positively. All other domains were positively correlated with each other. More importantly, several correlations emerged between the SSQ dimensions and NEO domains. SSS, SSN, and SSN-fm were all significantly and positively correlated with Agreeableness and Extraversion. In addition SSS and SSN-fm were significantly and positively correlated with Conscientiousness and negatively correlated with Neuroticism. SSN was also correlated positively with Openness. Finally, SSN-o correlated positively with Extraversion and Openness and negatively with Conscientiousness. Table 2 Intercorrelations between social support indexes and NEO domains 1 1: SSS 2: SSN 3: SSN-fm 4: SSN-o 5: Agreeableness 6: Conscientiousness 7: Extraversion 8: Neuroticism 9: Openness
2 1.00 0.17** 0.28** 0.03 0.14* 0.21** 0.18** 0.20** 0.09
3 1.00 0.60** 0.73** 0.15* 0.04 0.23** 0.11 0.23**
4
5
6
7
8
9
1.00 0.28**
1.00
1.00 0.23** 0.27** 0.18** 0.18** 0.08
0.12 0.01 0.18** 0.14** 0.01 0.23**
1.00 1.00 0.38** 0.24** 0.37** 0.14*
1.00 0.51** 0.59** 0.24**
1.00 0.51** 0.54**
SSS: perceived satisfaction with social support; SSN: perceived number of social support; SSN-fm: perceived number of social support from family: SSN-o: perceived numbers of social support from others (that is, non-family individuals). All tests are two tailed. * P< 0.05. ** P< 0.01.
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3.3. NEO domains as predictors of SSQ dimensions To examine the simultaneous relationship of the five NEO domains to the SSQ measures, a series of regression analyses was conducted for the four SSQ dimensions. Specifically, each SSQ dimension served as the criterion with the five NEO domains entered simultaneously as predictors. In addition, we also examined the extent to which the regressions differed between the three ethnic groups for each DV by using LISREL 8 (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1993) with the multisamples option that tests for equality of regression equations across independent groups. The results showed the regression coefficients to be the same across groups for all dependent variables. The five NEO dimensions together accounted for 6% of the variance in SSS, F(5, 237)=2.95, P=0.013. However, as can be seen in Table 3, none of the coefficients for individual NEO domains reached statistical significance. Together the five NEO domains accounted for 9% of the variance in SSN, F(5, 237)=4.76, P<0.001. Examination of the regression coefficients for individual NEO domains reveals that Extraversion made an independent contribution to SSN, =.20, t(237)=2.27, P=0.024. In addition, near significant coefficients were obtained for Agreeableness =0.13, t(237)=1.95, P=0.052, and Openness, =0.13, t(237)=1.81, P=0.072 which predicted SSN positively. Conscientiousness was found to be a near significant negative predictor, = 0.15, t(237)= 1.84, P=0.067. However, since the bivariate correlation between Conscientiousness and SSN was near zero, Conscientiousness appears to be functioning as a suppressor variable in this case and thus this result should not be interpreted substantively. With regard to SSN-fm, the five NEO domains together explained 9% of the variance, F(5, 234)=4.74, P<0.001. Agreeableness and Conscientiousness made significant independent contributions to SSN-fm, =0.15, t(234)=2.15, P=0.017, and =0.19, t(234)=2.27, P=0.013 respectively. Finally, the NEO domains explained 13% of the variance in SSN-o, F(5, 234)=7.02, P<0.001. Three NEO domains made independent contributions to SSN-o, Conscientiousness, = 0.35, t(234)= 4.33, P<0.001, Extraversion, =0.19, t(234)=2.17, P=0.016, and Openness, =0.19, t(234)=2.67, P=0.004.
Table 3 Simultaneous regression analysis four SSQ dimensions onto five NEO domains Predictors
SSS
Agreeableness Conscientiousness Extraversion Neuroticism Openness All tests are two tailed. * P< 0.05. ** P< 0.01. *** P< 0.05.
SSN t
0.05 0.09 0.08 0.09 0.01
0.77 1.11 0.90 1.12 0.17
SSN-fm t
0.13 0.15 0.20 0.02 0.13
1.95 1.84 2.27* 0.19 1.81
SSN-o t
0.15 0.19 0.07 0.01 0.02
2.15* 2.27* 0.76 0.15 0.25
t 0.04 0.35 0.19 0.04 0.19
0.53 4.33*** 2.17* 0.43 2.67**
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4. Discussion In summary, our results showed a number of significant relationships between personality and social support measures. First, consistent with past findings satisfaction with support correlated negatively with Neuroticism and positively with Extraversion. Further, individuals who are satisfied with their social support network were also found to be more agreeable and conscientious. Regression analysis showed the five NEO domains as a group to be significantly related to SSS but none of the regression coefficients reached statistical significance, likely the result of a high level of shared variance among the predictors. By comparison, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Openness were significantly and positively correlated with SSN. Regression analysis, however, showed that only Extraversion made an independent and statistically significant contribution to SSN with the regression coefficients for Agreeableness and Openness approaching statistical significance. Separating perceived supports by their source indicated that Agreeableness and Conscientiousness made unique and positive contributions to the prediction of number of perceived social supports among family members whereas perceived social supports outside of the family were positively related to Extraversion and Openness and negatively related to Conscientiousness. These regression results were identical across ethnic groups despite the fact that Malays reported the smallest number of social supports overall but the greatest satisfaction with that social support whereas Chinese reported the largest number of supports but the least satisfaction. Differences in satisfaction, however, were reduced to non-significance when group differences in marital status were controlled. Interestingly, social support for Chinese respondents tended to come from outside the family whereas for Malay and Indian respondents the largest number of perceived supports came from within the family. Previous research has provided strong reasons for conceptualizing social support as being, at least in part, a dispositional variable. Perceived social support has been shown to be temporally stable (e.g. Sarason et al., 1986) and to be associated with several personality variables (e.g. Sarason et al., 1983). The present study expands on this literature by examining how social support relates to the Big Five personality domains in an Asian population. Additionally, dividing SSN into Perceived Number of Social Supports from Family (SSN-fm), and Perceived Number of Social Supports from Others (SSN-o), allowed investigation of how personality relates to perceived social support from specific in-groups. In sum, this study produced data addressing the relationships between social support and the five NEO domains, the extent to which these relationships agree with previous findings from Western samples, the specificity of the social support-personality relationships in reference to specific support groups and ethnic differences and similarities in social support. The obtained positive relationship between perceived social support and Extraversion along with the negative relationship with Neuroticism converges with Western findings, suggesting the universality of these relationships. Universality is further, suggested by the fact that the regression coefficients for prediction of SSS and SSN by the NEO domains were found not to differ across the three ethnic groups, although the sample size may have been too small to detect any but relatively large differences. This equivalence across ethnic groups needs to be further examined using a larger sample. Further, our data provides one of the few direct demonstrations of the relationship between perceived social support and Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness. Consistent with
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previous findings (Lakey & Dickinson, 1994), Agreeableness was positively related to both SSS and SSN. This finding together with the positive associations of Extraversion with SSN and SSNo further testify to the importance of social-related traits to perceived social support. It is also interesting that Openness was positively related to SSN, which is plausibly explained by the idea that those who are more open to new experiences are more likely to form more friendships and thus are able to list a greater number of support-providers. Further studies are needed to explore this relationship especially since it is not clear at this point which type of Openness (such as being open to emotions, open to new friendships, or simply being open to any new experience) it is that correlates positively with SSN as demonstrated here. Finally, that Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Openness each predicted SSN independently after other predictors were controlled holds potential implications. This finding suggests that possessing any of these traits is likely to increase one’s perception of supportiveness in more people. This, in turn, leads to questions on the social-cognitive mechanisms that may explain such a positive perception among those high in any of these three traits. Future research is needed to provide clarification on this issue. One of the most interesting aspects of our data concerns social support from family members (SSN-fm) as compared to support from non-family members (SSN-o). As noted earlier, studies of social support would benefit from consideration of the match between support-provider and support-recipient since it may well be this interaction that appears to be crucial in determining the effects of social support (Lakey et al., 1996). Further, research on social support, or for that matter on any relationship-based construct, should not lose sight of the fact that different ingroups are likely to be assigned differential importance (Uleman et al., 2000) and thus the effect on the variables of interest or the validity of the proposed relationships may vary depending on the in-group studied. Thus, it is necessary to examine the reasons why some individuals perceive their family to be the most supportive whereas others see their non-family contacts as more supportive. Our study provides part of the answer in terms of personality makeup. It is interesting to note that Chinese participants indicated a higher number of social supports from non-family than family members whereas the opposite was true for Indians and Malays, a finding that remained significant when group differences in age, marital status and NEO domain scores were controlled. This finding is interesting as it is among the first to document ethnic differences in support from different sources. While at this point it is not clear how this finding should be interpreted and it is in need of replication, it appears to suggest that collectivistic attitudes are a function not only of in-group types as described earlier, but also of ethnicity (Uleman et al., 2000). Also SSN-fm and SSN-o correlated with different personality traits. Consistent with predictions, SSN-fm correlated positively with Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, and negatively with Neuroticism. Regression analysis showed that Agreeableness and Conscientiousness made independent contributions to SSN-fm. By contrast, SSN-o was positively correlated with Extraversion and Openness as predicted. However, contrary to expectations, it did not relate to Agreeableness but was negatively correlated with Conscientiousness. Regression analysis showed that all three correlates made significant independent contributions to SSN-o. These findings hold several important theoretical and practical implications. First, they strongly suggest that research that fails to distinguish between social support coming from family members and that coming from outside the family may lead to misleading conclusions about the
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relationship between the size of one’s support network and other psychosocial constructs. Second, they corroborate the argument of Lakey and his colleagues that it is not the characteristic of the support receiver nor that of the giver that is important but the interaction of the two that is critical (Lakey et al., 1996, 1999). In other words, different individuals perceive certain types of individuals to be particularly supportive. Third, consistent with studies demonstrating different interpretative processes for social information between individuals differing in perceived social support (Lakey & Cassidy, 1990; Lakey, Moineau, & Drew, 1992), our findings raise the question of whether supportive actions from different providers are interpreted in the same way. Our study, for instance, showed that individuals high in Openness and Extraversion are more likely to perceive more assistance from outside the family (friends or even strangers) than those who are low on these traits. Finally, these observations imply that clinical efforts in advising clients on the type of support suitable to them need to take into consideration this support giver-recipient match. For example, clients high in Openness and needing assistance may show the most benefit from recommendations to seek out friends whereas those who are high in Conscientiousness may benefit most from recommendations to seek support from family members. These findings provide insights that are both predicted and novel and which are in need of further examination First, Openness independently predicted SSN-o as expected. However, more research is needed to identify the specific form of Openness that is associated with higher SSN-o as found here. Second, it is not clear why Conscientiousness independently and positively predicted SSN-fm and negatively predicted SS-o. One possibility is that there may be a stronger emphasis for family than for non-family in-groups among our Asian participants. As such conscientious individuals may be more likely to be committed to the preservation of strong family ties than to ties outside the family, which in turn leads to them seeking and perceiving more support from the former. Also, the idea that socially-related traits (such as Agreeableness and Extraversion) should be stronger predictors of SSN-o than of SSN-fm (Heller & Swindler, 1983; Procidano, 1992) was, in general, supported since both Extraversion and Openness were independent predictors of SSN-o but not SSN-fm. However, one would be hard-pressed to explain why Agreeableness was not correlated with SSN-o at all as expected. Third, SSS did not correlated with SSN-o, but correlated positively with SSN-fm. This raises the interesting possibility that in collectivistic societies evaluative judgment of social support is more dependent on whether the social support is perceived as coming from the family than as coming from non-family in-groups. It is important to keep in mind that the participants in this study were police officers. Thus the question of the generalizability of our findings arises since the daily experience of police officers, which includes threats of violent criminals and unreasonable complaints from public and media (Evans & Coman, 1992), is very different from the ordinary citizen. At this point we have no reason to believe that these relationships are unique to police officers, particularly since several of the findings are congruent with previous findings in the literature. In addition, a recent study comparing a structural equation model of the relationships between anger, stress, social support, coping and health outcomes with this sample and a sample from the Singapore general population found that the models describing these relationships in these two populations were very similar (Diong et al., submitted for publication). However, it is important to replicate this study with other sample types before the validity of the above relationships can be considered as established.
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To conclude, several relationships were found between the NEO domains, and perceived satisfaction with social support (SSS), perceived number of social supports (SSN), perceived number of social supports from family (SSN-fm), and perceived number of social supports from nonfamily members (SSN-o), all of which applied equally to the three ethnic groups investigated here. The data collected in this study revealed that not only does perceived social support relate to Extraversion and Neuroticism as commonly found, but also to Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness. Of particular interest is the distinction made between different in-groups individuals may perceive social support from. That SSN-fm and SSN-o have different sets of personality predictors supports the importance of specifying the different in-groups social support is perceived from. Such differentiation of social support into its components provokes several theoretical questions and clinical implications that require more investigation. Whether one tends to perceive supportive acts as coming from one’s family or from others have different antecedent predictors and different implications for social-cognitive processes, coping and even psychological well-being. Thus, we conclude by re-emphasizing the view of Procidano and her colleagues, that the complexity of social support can be further understood by more precise specification of social support into its components, so as to demonstrate the unique psychological character that each of its components can actually take.
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