Social Support
Overview
Social support refers to the tangible and intangible resources that individuals access through their relationships with others. Both perceived and received support can help reduce stress and promote health. The ways in which people perceive, seek, and provide support vary across societies and cultures.
Background
Social support is one of the most effective resources for coping with stress (Cohen & Wills, 1985; Taylor, 2011; Thoits, 1995). It can be defined as the tangible and intangible resources that individuals access through their relationships with others (Cohen & Wills, 1985; Taylor, 2011). Social support commonly includes instrumental support (practical help or material resources), informational support (advice and guidance), and emotional support (empathy, care, and understanding).
Social support can be obtained from various relationships, including romantic partners, family members, friends, coworkers, and community members (Taylor, 2011). It can be assessed as perceived support (the belief that help is available when needed) or received support (actual assistance from others). Social support can also be measured at the structural level, such as the number or diversity of social connections available to provide support (Kawachi & Berkman, 2001; Siette et al., 2021).
Research has proposed two main pathways through which social support influences stress and health. The buffering effect reduces the impact of stressful events by enhancing coping processes, while the direct effect improves health regardless of stress level (Cohen & Wills, 1985). The beneficial effects of social support have been demonstrated across multiple indicators of physical and mental health (Cohen & Wills, 1985; Uchino et al., 1996).
Studies also show that culture shapes how social support is provided, sought, and received (Kim et al., 2006; Kim et al., 2008; Taylor et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2010). For example, Kim et al. (2006) found that Asian and Latino American college students were less willing to seek social support compared to European American students, and concerns about interpersonal consequences in different cultures may explain these differences. These cross-cultural findings highlight the importance of understanding social support within its cultural context.
Measurement
Researchers have developed many scales to measure social support, capturing perceived support, received and provided support, support-seeking tendencies, and structural indicators of support.
Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS)
The MSPSS (Zimet et al., 1988) is a 12-item scale measuring perceived support from family, friends, and significant others. Items are rated on a 7-point scale from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly agree). It yields subscale and total scores and has demonstrated good reliability and validity across multiple populations and age ranges (Canty-Mitchell & Zimet, 2000; Hann et al., 1995; Zimet et al., 1988). The MSPSS has been adapted into multiple languages (Dambi et al., 2018; Tonsing et al., 2012).
Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey (MOS-SSS)
The MOS-SSS (Sherbourne & Stewart, 1991) is a 19-item measure assessing functional aspects of support across four domains: emotional/informational, tangible, affectionate, and positive social interaction. Items are rated on a 5-point scale from 1 (none of the time) to 5 (all of the time). It is widely used in health and public health research and shows good reliability and construct validity (Sherbourne & Stewart, 1991). It has also been translated and validated into various languages (Dao-Tran, 2023). A validated 8-item version of the MOS-SSS is also available (Moser et al., 2012).
Six-Item Perceived Social Support Questionnaire (F-SozU K-6)
The F-SozU was originally developed as a 54-item scale in German-speaking countries to assess various aspects of social support (Fydrich et al., 2019). Among several short versions, the six-item short form (F-SozU K-6) provides a brief yet comprehensive measure of perceived social support across different relationships and support types with good reliability and validity (Kliem et al., 2015). Items are rated on a 5-point scale from 1 (not true at all) to 5 (very true). Cross-country studies have confirmed its measurement invariance across samples from the USA, Germany, Russia, and China, supporting its use in meaningful cross-cultural comparisons (Lin et al., 2019).
Two-Way Social Support Scale (2-Way SSS)
The 2-Way SSS measures both received and provided support across four subscales, Receiving Emotional, Receiving Instrumental, Giving Emotional, and Giving Instrumental, with a total of 20 items (Shakespeare-Finch & Obst, 2011) or 12 items in the brief version (Obst et al., 2019). This scale allows examination of both the direction (giving vs. receiving) and type (emotional vs. instrumental) of support. Items are rated on a 6-point scale from 0 (not at all) to 5 (always). It has demonstrated good internal consistency and construct validity and is useful for assessing the bidirectional and reciprocal nature of social support (Shakespeare-Finch & Obst, 2011; Obst et al., 2019).
The Support-Seeking Subscales of the COPE Scale
The COPE Inventory (Carver et al., 1989) includes two subscales measuring the tendency to seek emotional and instrumental support (4 items each). The Brief COPE (Carver, 1997) is a short form with two-item versions of each subscale. Both versions show good reliability (Carver, 1997; Craver et al., 1989) and are frequently used to assess support-seeking tendencies (Taylor et al., 2004; Kim et al., 2006).
Duke Social Support Index (DSSI)
The DSSI measures both perceived and structural aspects of social support (Landerman et al., 1989). The 11-item version (Koenig et al., 1993) comprises two subscales: (1) Social Interaction, which captures the number and frequency of contact with close others who can provide support, and (2) Subjective Support, which measures perceived social support. The 23-item version includes an additional factor assessing instrumental social support (Koenig et al., 1993). The DSSI has demonstrated good reliability and validity among older populations (Goodger et al., 2008; Koenig et al., 1993). If the researcher’s aim is to assess only the structural aspects of social support, the Lubben Social Network Scale (Lubben, 1998; Lubben et al., 2006) is another widely used instrument that measures social networks and interactions, which is available in both 12-item and 6-item versions.
Strengths and Limitations
Social support is one of the most-studied constructs in stress research. Its measures show strong reliability and predictive validity for stress and health outcomes. Many of the scales are short, psychometrically sound, and easy to administer. The growing number of translated versions has supported research across diverse cultural and linguistic contexts.
As social support is a multidimensional construct, researchers should select measures that best fit their research questions. Notably, some studies show that measures of perceived, enacted, and structural support are only weakly correlated (Barrera, 1986; Lakey & Cohen, 2000) and have different implications for coping and health (Uchino, 2009). Integrating multiple approaches can provide a more comprehensive understanding of how social support affects stress.
Existing Gaps in the Field
Cross-cultural validation studies of social support measures remain limited (e.g., Lin et al., 2019). The same behaviors or items may carry different meanings across cultures, posing challenges for measurement equivalence (Dambi et al., 2018; Dao-Tran, 2023; Dutta et al., 2025). More studies are needed to test measurement invariance across populations and to develop culturally responsive measures of social support.
Author(s) and Reviewer(s): Prepared by Kuan-Ju Huang. Reviewed by Gregory Zimet, PhD., and Yoobin Park, PhD. Please direct suggestions and feedback to Kuan-Ju Huang (kuanjuhuang2@gmail.com).
Version date: November 2025.
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