Social Support and Occupational Stress: Effects of Talking to Others

Author(s): Kristofer J. Fenlason and Terry A. Beehr

Source: Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Mar., 1994), pp. 157-175
Published by: Wiley
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 JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, Vol. 15, 157-175 (1994)

Social supportandoccupationalstress:
Effectsof talkingto others
KRISTOFER J. FENLASON
NSC

AND
TERRY A. BEEHR
233 Sloan Hall, Central Michigan University,Mt. Pleasant, MI 48858, U.S.A.

Summary Employees'social supportwas examinedusing both the traditionalglobal measures

of emotional/instrumental supportand more focusedmeasuresbased on the contents
(positive,negative,and non-job)of verballytransmittedsupport.Contentsweremore
closely relatedto global emotionalsupportthan to global instrumentalsupport,with
non-jobandpositivecommunicationsespeciallystronglyassociatedwithemotionalsup-
port,andtheyaccountedfor morevariancein strainsthandid the globalmeasures.

Introduction
Over the last 20 years, various methods have been suggested for reducing job stress. One such
method is to provide social support to a stressed individual in the workplace. In order to
use social support effectively, however, its operation and conceptualization need to be more
fully understood. The purpose of this study is to provide more information about how social
support affectsjob stress. It compares a fairly well-established conceptualization of social support
(the dichotomy of emotional and instrumental types of support) with a more focused conceptuali-
zation of social support (contents of communication). This more focused conceptualization
can augment understanding of how social support affects worker stress by emphasizing the
importance of contents of the supportive communications between a stressed individual and
others.
Different authors, researchers, theorists and practitioners disagree about the definition of
stress (Beehr and Franz, 1986). Therefore, two key terms need defining. In this discussion,
stressors are the work-related causes of, or inputs to job stress, and strains are individual out-
comes or results of stress.
Many psychological stressors have been enumerated in past research, including those in this
study: underutilization of skills, role overload and role conflict (e.g. Ganster, Fusilier and Mayes,
1986; Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek and Rosenthal, 1964; Kaufmann and Beehr, 1986; Jayaratne
and Chess, 1984). Several psychological strains have also been studied as effects of job stress,
including job dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety, irritability, somatic complaints, emotional
exhaustion, depersonalization, workload dissatisfaction, and job boredom (e.g. Blau, 1981;
Ganster et al., 1986; House and Wells, 1978; Jayaratne and Chess, 1984; Kaufmann and Beehr,
1986).

CCC0894-3796/94/020157-19 Received24 August1992

( 1994by JohnWiley& Sons, Ltd. Accepted19July1993

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158 K. J. FENLASON AND T. A. BEEHR

Social support also has been defined in various ways (Beehr, 1985; House, 1981; LaRocco,
House and French, 1980; McIntosh, 1991). There appear to be two key aspects of social support
in job stress studies, the types and sources of support (Beehr, 1985; Caplan, Cobb, French,
Harrison and Pinneau, 1975). Investigators in the job stress domain (apparently following Caplan
et al. 1975) divide social support into two global types: emotional and instrumental support
(e.g. Blau, 1981; Ganster et al., 1986; Kaufmann and Beehr, 1986; Thoits, 1982). Emotional
social support is characterized by the actions of caring or listening sympathetically to another
person. Instrumental support is characterized by rendering tangible assistance, such as physical
assistance or aid in the form of advice or knowledge needed to complete a task. Some researchers
have concentrated on the emotional type of support, apparently assuming that it is the most
important type (Chisholm, Kasl and Mueller, 1986; Jayaratne and Chess, 1984; LaRocco et
al., 1980).
In contrast, other researcherssuch as Pinneau (1976) and LaRocco et al. (1980) have combined
separate measures of emotional and instrumental social support into a single index. In addition,
Caplan et al. (1975) and Kaufmann and Beehr (1986) reported that these two types of support
(emotional and instrumental) were strongly intercorrelated when they were provided from the
same source (such as from a coworker). Several other studies have employed social support
measures that were undifferentiated as to subtype of support (Beehr and Drexler, 1986;Chisholm
et al., 1986; Fusilier, Ganster and Mayes, 1986; Ganster et al., 1986; Latack, 1986), such that
no empirical test of the independence of emotional and instrumental social support was reported.
In short, the types of social support have not always been clearly distinguished from each
other.
Regarding sources of providers of social support, it has been common to divide them into
three groups when studied in the context of work-related stress: the employee's supervisor,
the employee's coworkers, and the employee's family and friends (e.g. Caplan et al., 1975;
Kaufmann and Beehr, 1986). It has been speculated that work-related stress is most effectively
dealt with by the work-related sources of support (supervisor and coworkers), because the
stress treatment occurs in the context of the stressful situation (Beehr, 1985).
The notion that social support can help alleviate job stress is intuitively appealing, and there
is some evidence that people employ it as a form of coping with stress (e.g. Burke, Weir and
DuWors, 1979; Dewe and Guest, 1990). Although the particular effects of social support may
vary across studies, it appears that social support is generally helpful in reducing job-related
stress (Cohen and Wills, 1985). A number of authors have proposed that social support reduces
job stress in one or more of three ways (e.g. Beehr, 1985; House, 1981): (a) by acting directly
on strains (a main effect), (b) by acting directly on stressors (a main effect) and (c) by interacting
with stressors so that 'the relation between stress and strain is stronger for persons with low
levels of support than for those with high levels of support' (i.e. an interaction or 'buffering'
effect as noted by Ganster et al. (1986, p. 102).
Cohen and Wills (1985) theorized that social support has direct effects on strains because
social acceptance influences self-esteem, which has a positive effect on health. The idea that
social support can directly reduce strains is consistent with most of the empirical literature
on job stress. For example, LaRocco and Jones (1978) found main effects for social support,
from supervisor and coworker sources, on strains but found no buffering effect; Blau (1981)
found main effects for supervisor and coworker support on job dissatisfaction; Ganster et al.
(1986) found evidence that suggests social support may have a 'modest direct effect' on reducing
strains (p. 102); and Leiter (1991) showed, in a causal model, that coworker support could
affect some types of burnout. Most research has found negative relationships between social
support and strains.

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 SOCIAL SUPPORT 159

In addition to social support having a main effect on strains, social support might also have
a main effect on stressors. If social support affects the appraisal of the situation, the situation
may be perceived as less threatening, and perceived stressors will be fewer or weaker (Cohen
and Wills, 1985). There have been mixed findings on the effect of social support on stressors,
although the research on this issue is quite sparse. Some studies have found little or no relation-
ship between social support and stressors (House and Wells, 1978; LaRocco and Jones, 1978),
while other studies found negative relationships between social support and stressors (e.g. Beehr,
1976; Blau, 1981; Caplan et al., 1975). Beehr (1985) posits that while there appears to be mixed
evidence for the effect of support on stressors, the effect might be more pronounced in support
provided by supervisors.
The buffering effect has been controversial over the past decade of job stress research and
has been the subject of a number of investigations (e.g. Blau, 1981; Cohen and Wills, 1985;
Kaufmann and Beehr, 1986; LaRocco et al., 1980; LaRocco and Jones, 1978). Buffering effects
of social support on the relationship between stressors and strains occur when social support
interacts with stressors in predicting strains. Several studies found a buffering effect by one
or more social support sources (e.g. Kobasa and Puccetti, 1983; LaRocco et al., 1980), and
the buffering hypothesis has been the dominant hypothesis regarding the effects of social support
on occupational stress (Ganster et al., 1986). In spite of this, research has been mixed at best
regarding the buffering effect (Beehr and McGrath, 1992).
It should be noted that not all buffering may occur in the expected direction (to reduce
strains). It is possible for social support to make things worse for the stressed individual. A
'reverse buffering' effect has occasionally been reported, such that as the level of social support
is increased, the relationship between stressors and strains actually becomes stronger. Beehr
(1985) hypothesized that this might occur when a stressed individual receives an appraisal of
a situation from the supportive other that indicates things were actually worse than the stressed
individual thought. While there is empirical evidence that reverse buffering effect may occur
(e.g. Chisholm et al., 1986; Kaufmann and Beehr, 1986; Kobasa and Puccetti, 1983), the debate
over buffering is far from settled. Although no hypotheses were proposed regarding buffering,
it seems essential to examine this dominant theme, especially in a study that uses relatively
new and conceptually different measures of social support.
While this study examines the effects of social support in the form of emotional and instrumen-
tal support, it also examines a conceptualization of socially supportive behavior suggested over
a decade ago (Beehr, 1976) but introduced empirically only recently (Beehr, King and King,
1990). Emotional and instrumental support are the types of social support studied most often
in relation to occupational stress. They have been dubbed global support measures by Cohen
and Wills (1985), because their measurement is usually not specific regarding the activities
constituting the support. There have been calls, however, for measures of support that operatio-
nalize more specifically (McIntosh, 1991). Classifying and measuring the specific contents of
communication between supportive sources and the stressed individual has the potential to
do a betterjob of explaining the effects of social support than simply using the global dichotomy
of emotional and instrumental types of support. Beehr et al. (1990) noted that employees can
talk with supportive others in the workplace (coworkers or supervisor) with several content
orientations. These different contents of communication may influence the stressors and strains
differentially. Contents of communication can be considered a description of how social support
is delivered to the stressed individual. This contrasts with the global operationalization of social
support as emotional and instrumental.
Workers may talk, for example, about the positive aspects of work (e.g. pride that a complex
project was finished on time), and they may talk about the negative aspects of work (e.g. how

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160 K. J. FENLASON AND T. A. BEEHR

difficult the customers are). It is intuitive that saying pleasant things can be therapeutic. Negative
conversations, on the other hand, could trigger a cathartic emotional release, thereby also
having therapeutic qualities. A third content classification, talking about non-work related mat-
ters, is also possible. This last classification is possibly a form of escapism. The only study
of these three contents to date presented empirical evidence for such support only from one
source, the supervisor, on the grounds that this was the single most influential person in the
employee's immediate work environment. While Beehr et al. (1990) found evidence for the
existence of these three content categories (positive, negative, and non-work) they also found
that the three types were intercorrelated (median intercorrelations of r = 0.55). The authors
posited that this intercorrelation could indicate that employees and supervisors communicate
in more than one of the three content classifications at any given time, or over time. One
needed direction for future research is to study the contents of communications in different
sources of support, not just the supervisor.

Research issues and hypotheses

This study focuses on three sets of research issues and proposes specific hypotheses designed
to explore these issues. The first set of issues examines findings about different sources of support
and how they affect employees' strains in general. The second group of research issues examines
parts of Beehr's (1985) theoretical integration of social support into Beehr and Bhagat's (Beehr,
1985) cognitive model of job stress. The third set of research issues compares the emotional/
instrumental conceptualization of stress with the contents of communications conceptualization
offered recently by Beehr et al. (1990).

Effects of differentsources of social support

As previously noted, the supervisor might be expected to have a greater effect on job stress
than other sources. Consequently, supervisor support (global and contents of communication)
was expected to have the strongest effect on psychological strains;coworker support was expected
to have the next strongest effect. Coworkers are able to render support to stressed fellow
employees, but because they are less influential at work, they are expected to influence strains
less than the supervisor. Finally, because friends and family are often not present in the workplace
and cannot render the same sort of immediate support to stressed employees during the workday,
these sources are expected to have the weakest effect.
Based on this reasoning, hypothesis 1 states that there will be an order of magnitude of
effect of sources of social support on strains such that: (a) supervisor support will be most
strongly negatively related to strains, (b) coworker support will have the second strongest nega-
tive relationship to strains, and (c) extra-organizational sources of support (i.e. friends, family)
will have the weakest negative relationship with strains.

Social supportand a cognitive model ofjob stress

The second set of research issues provide an empirical test of an hypothesis derived from Beehr's
(1985) integration of global social support with a cognitive model of job stress. In this model,
instrumental support affects stressors directly and strains indirectly - through its effects on
stressors. Emotional support affects strains both directly and indirectly and has little effect
on stressors. Hypothesis 2 therefore states that emotional and instrumental support exerts prim-
ary effects on different parts of the stress process, such that (a) emotional social support more

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 SOCIAL SUPPORT 161

strongly relates to job strains than to stressors, and that (b) instrumental support more strongly
relates to stressors than to strains.

Comparisonof two conceptualizationsof social support

The final issue addresses whether the global conceptualization and measurement of social support
(emotional and instrumental) or the contents of communication version of social support pro-
vides more information about how social support operates to reduce job stress. As previously
noted, it has been proposed that the contents of supportive communications offer a more effective
explanation of the operation of social support on stressors and strains (including the explanation
of buffering).
The three contents of communication operationalized in previous research seem to be more
closely related conceptually to emotional than to instrumental support. Hypothesis 3 therefore
states that the correlation between communications and global support measures would be
stronger for emotional than for instrumental global support. The very idea of positive and
negative communications suggests that some emotion is involved in at least these two types.
If this hypothesis were supported, the contents of communication concept would help to empiri-
cally define emotional support.
One possible explanation for the conflicting findings regarding buffering is related to the
particular contents of communication between the party rendering the support and the party
receiving the support (Beehr, 1985). If the buffering effects depend, in part, on the frequency
of a specific content of communication between a source of support and the supported individual,
then measures of global types of social support (instrumental or emotional support) may not
be appropriate to explain the buffering effect of social support on strains. If this is correct
then, at least in the case of a buffering effect, the content of communication conceptualization
will provide better explanation than the traditional global support measures.
Consequently, hypothesis 3 states that the contents of communication would account for
more variance in predicting strain than the traditional global measures of support when both
types are regressed separately on strains, and that this greater variance accounted for would
occur for all three sources of support. These regressions were conducted testing for both main
effects and interactions for all three sources.

Method
The sample was comprised of 351 individuals from the 1116-memberroster of a state Division
of the Professional Secretaries Association International (PSI). Because the PSI mailing lists
are proprietary, the mailing addresses of members were obtained by soliciting participation
of the members in each of the 28 local chapters through a PSI representative and the chapters'
presidents. The procedure followed was aimed at protecting both the anonymity of respondents
and the privacy of the PSI's membership address roster. Eighteen chapter presidents sent their
entire membership rosters to a PSI representative. Three hundred fifty-one of these (about
34 per cent) were chosen randomly for the sample.
To maintain the proprietary nature of the membership, the PSI representative labeled the
survey envelopes and reminder cards using the list of members to be sampled. Labels were
placed on the survey packets (each included a stamped self-addressed return envelope and
a survey), and they were mailed to respondents. The survey mailing was followed by mailing
reminder cards to all members surveyed seven days after the surveys were mailed. Of the 351
surveys mailed, 195 (56 per cent) were returned. Of these 195 respondents, 22 respondents

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162 K. J. FENLASON AND T. A. BEEHR

indicated that they were currently retired or were no longer currently working in a secretarial
position, and they were excluded from further analysis as ineligible (only currently working
secretarieswere to be included), resulting in a return of 173 useful surveys.

Description of the sample

About two-thirds of the sample reported working under one of four job titles: 26 per cent
were 'executive secretaries' (n = 45), 17 per cent were 'secretaries' (n = 30), 14 per cent reported
working as 'administrative assistants' (n = 24), and 11 per cent were working as 'administrative
secretaries' (n = 18).
The respondents had been employed with their present employer an average of 11 years
and had been in their present position for an average of 5.4 years. The average number of
hours worked per week was 40.85. The respondents were supervised by an average of 1.9 people.
The respondents supervised an average of 1.2 subordinates on their job.
The majority of respondents' organizations were located exclusively in the same midwestern
state (n = 79), followed by organizations with offices in the U.S. and other countries (n =
42), and organizations located throughout the U.S. (n = 38), and finally eight (n = 8) organiza-
tions classed as located mainly in the Midwest. Of the 173 respondents, the majority (101
organizations) were described as for-profit, with 60 described as non-profit organizations (e.g.
charities, governmental agencies, schools).
All respondents were female, and 66 per cent were married. Virtually all the respondents
reported their highest educational level as at, or above, high school graduate. About two in
five respondents were the primary wage earners in their household (43 per cent, n = 74). The
majority of the sample reported having children (68 per cent, n = 117).

Measures
Stressors
Four stressors were measured: role conflict, underutilization of skills, quantitative workload
(role overload) and qualitative role underload (Table 1 contains means, standard deviations,
and alpha coefficients). The underutilization measure was a three-item scale taken from Caplan
et al. (1975). Role conflict was assessed using a composite measure that consisted of three
items taken from Caplan et al. (1975), two items directly from Rizzo, House and Lirtzman
(1970), one item adapted from Rizzo et al., and one item written specifically for the survey.
Qualitative role underload was measured by a three-item scale adapted from Newton and Keenan
(1987). Role overload was assessed with a six-item scale employed by Kaufmann and Beehr
(1986) that was adapted from Caplan et al.'s (1975) seven-item scale.

Strains
Four strains were measured: job dissatisfaction, job boredom, depression, and anxiety. All
four strains were measured using scales from Caplan et al. (1975). The first two measures
of strain are related to problems that develop exclusively in the work sphere of an employee,
and the last two are related to problems that may occur in the individual as a result of the
job but are not confined to the worklife sphere. Overall, the strains' means are somewhat
low (usually less than 2 on five-point scales), indicating that this group of secretaries were
probably psychologically normal and healthy, on the average. The job dissatisfaction measure
was formed after transforming the scores on the four component items into Z-scores, as in
Caplan et al., because the items did not have equal scale lengths. The Z's were computed

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 SOCIAL SUPPORT 163

Table 1. Number of items, alpha reliabilities, means and standard deviations of all indices
Number Alpha
Index of items reliabilities Mean S. D.
Stressors
Role conflict 7 0.88 2.06 0.91
Underutilization of skills 3 0.81 1.74 0.74
Role overload 6 0.82 3.77 0.64
Qualitative role underload 3 0.72 2.80 0.81
Strains
Job dissatisfaction 4 0.84 -0.01 0.83
Job boredom 3 0.88 1.85 0.90
Depression 5 0.89 1.90 0.69
Anxiety 4 0.84 1.99 0.73
Emotional and instrumental support
Supervisor emotional support 2 0.78 3.54 1.04
Supervisor instrument support 2 0.82 3.64 1.04
Coworker emotional support 2 0.68 3.39 0.83
Coworker instrumental support 2 0.71 3.11 0.87
Friends and family emotional support 2 0.84 4.14 0.94
Friends and family instrumental support 2 0.83 3.64 1.06
Contents of communication
Supervisor non-job communication 4 0.93 2.44 1.01
Supervisor negative communication 4 0.81 1.54 0.63
Supervisor positive communication 4 0.87 2.71 0.96
Coworker non-job communication 4 0.91 3.11 0.97
Coworker negative communication 4 0.87 2.23 0.90
Coworker positive communication 4 0.83 3.12 0.87
Friends and family non-job communication 4 0.93 3.98 0.95
Friends and family negative communication 4 0.89 2.29 0.97
Friends and family positive communication 4 0.87 2.97 0.99

on the overall sample, while the data in Table 1 exclude the people with some incomplete
data on their questionnaires. Therefore, the mean and standard deviation of job dissatisfaction
deviate from 0 and 1.

Social support
Social support was measured by two sets of items in the survey. The first set measured social
support used by many previous investigators and originated by Caplan et al. (1975). Six scales
measuring emotional and instrumental support were employed in this study (emotional and
instrumental support were both measured for the sources of supervisor, coworkers, and family/
friends).
The second set of social support measures assessed the content of communication between
supportive and supported individuals. This measure was adapted from the Beehr et al. (1990)
scales that were used to assess the three contents of communication in a sample of nurses.
Scale development used a rational approach (Jackson, 1971). Domains were defined for the
three contents of communication (positive, negative, and non-job related), and items were con-
structed for the intended meanings of the domain. After reviewing and refining the items, a
three-person research team reached consensus on the four best items in each domain (Beehr
et al., 1990). The wording of five items was modified in the present study, but only to make
the scales more specifically applicable to secretarial workers rather than nurses (see Table 2).

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164 K. J. FENLASON AND T. A. BEEHR

Whereas the original items referred to doctors, hospitals, nursing care, and being a nurse,
the altered items refer to bosses, a place to work, our jobs, and being a secretary. The specific
adaptations were suggested by some local secretaries, and a draft of the adapted scales was
pilot-tested on a sample of 15 members of the secretaries' association.
Three contents of communications were measured for each of the three sources (non-job
communication, negative communication, and positive communication). Secretaries were asked
to respond on a five-point, Likert-type scale regarding how often they talked about each particu-
lar subject with each of the three potential sources of social support: supervisor; coworkers;
and family and friends. Alpha coefficients for all the contents of communication scales were
between 0.81 and 0.93. The reliabilities for the supervisor source of support all exceed those
reported by Beehr et al. (1990). Because that investigation only used the source of supervisor,
similar comparisons cannot be made for the other two sources.
Because the contents of communications items had been used in only one previous study,
they were examined more closely in the pilot test and in a factor analysis. A factor analysis
was computed on all the items measuring contents of communications for each source using
the same procedure employed by Beehr et al. (1990). All three factor analyses (principal compo-
nents with oblique rotation) yielded the same three factors of non-job negative and positive
communication. The results of the factor analyses are shown in Table 2. The same three factors
emerge very clearly for each source, supporting the use of these three indices for each source
of communication.

Preliminaryanalyses
In some previous studies (e.g. Kaufmann and Beehr, 1986), perceived stressors have tended
to intercorrelate strongly. In addition, some stressors are conceptually very similar. Therefore
the stressor indices were factor analyzed in order to determine their likely empirical independence
in the present data. The same reasoning and procedure was followed regarding the study's
psychological strains. These factor analyses were of composite scores rather than individual
item scores. These factor analyses had the additional benefit of reducing the overall number
of comparisons and statistical tests which could have led to an inflation of Type I error rate.
A principal components extraction, with varimax rotation of the stressor indices, yielded
two stressor factors. Underutilization of skills and qualitative underload had their highest load-
ings on the first factor, while role conflict and quantitative overload loaded most strongly
on the second factor (Table 3). The two factors together accounted for 74.60 per cent of the
variance of the indices. Underutilization of skills/qualitative underload appears to represent
stressors which arise due to a lack of challenge or interesting tasks in the work role. Underutiliza-
tion of skills and qualitative underload are similar conceptually, with underutilization of skills
measuring a lack of challenge or skill use from the perspective of the employee having more
skill than what is required by the job. Similarly, qualitative underload may tap much of the
same information but from the perspective of thejob not providing the opportunityfor a person
to exercise her skills. Role conflict/quantitative overload appears to represent a factor that
deals with issues related to role pressure and demand that is either imposed by other role
senders or is a consequence of the work role itself. This grouping of role conflict and overload
is also theoretically appropriate, because Kahn et al. (1964) presented role overload as a subtype
of role conflict and posited that role overload represents a hybrid type of role conflict with
elements of 'inter-sender and person-role conflict' (p. 20). In addition, Rizzo et al. (1970) nomi-
nated role overload as an instance of role conflict for an individual as she struggles to fulfil
the duties of multiple roles in an organization.

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 SOCIAL SUPPORT 165

*
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40.20 0.29 0.21

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62.60 0.07
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74.60 0.80 0.78

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37.00 0.28
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-0.03
2.69
59.50 0.11
-0.06 0.27 0.92
0.76 0.88 0.85 0.19 0.13
0.17 0.22 for
of
contents
Negative

friends
0.28 support
2.08
76.80 0.86 0.81
0.84 -0.08 0.15
0.89 0.05 0.23
0.18 0.25 0.29 and
Positive
contents

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166 K. J. FENLASONAND T. A. BEEHR

When the strain indices were factor analyzed (principal components with varimax rotation),

Table3. Factoranalysisof stressorindices

Factorloadings
Stressorindices Factor1 Factor2
Underload/lowskilluse Role conflict/overload
(Underutilization
of skills + (Role conflict+ overload)
Qualitativeunderload)
Underutilizationof skills 0.79 -0.29
Qualitativeunderload 0.83 0.18
Role conflict 0.53 0.69
Quantitativeroleoverload -0.20 0.87
Eigenvalue 1.68 1.31
Cumulativepercentageof variance 41.90 74.60

only one factor was extracted (see Table 4). This psychological strain factor accounted for
66.50 per cent of the variance in this group of strain indices.

Table4. Factoranalysisof strainindices

Factorloadings
Strainindices Psychologicalstrains
Anxiety 0.69
Job dissatisfaction 0.80
Boredom 0.85
Depression 0.89
Eigenvalue 2.66
Percentageof variance 66.50

Results
The correlations among the social support variables provide some insight into the similarities
and differences between the more traditional global measures of emotional and instrumental
support and the newer, more specific, measures of contents of communications (Table 5). The
median correlation among the emotional and instrumental support measures was 0.27 and
among the contents of communications measures was 0.205. In general, these are low enough
to provide confidence that there is at least some independence among measures within these
two types of social support measures. It had been previously noted that nearly all studies using
the emotional and instrumental support measures found extremely strong correlations between
emotional and instrumental support from the same source, for example from the supervisor
(e.g. Beehr, in press). This was again true in the present study, as the median of the correlations
between these two different types of social support (emotional and instrumental) within the
same sources (i.e. within supervisor, coworkers, and family and friends) was 0.74. This is consis-
tent with past research and means that, although in general the correlations among emotional
and instrumental support were not overly strong, there were specific strong exceptions to this.
It is unknown whether or not this correlation occurs because the provision of one of these
types of global social support (e.g. emotional) from someone is in fact usually accompanied
by the provision of the other type from that same person. A problematic alternative is that

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 SOCIAL SUPPORT 167

9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
15.14.13.12.11.10. Table
*p<0.0l.
tp<0.05. Contents 5.
Family Emotional
Family
Family
Family of Family
Coworker
Supervisor
Coworker Supervisor and Coworker
Supervisor
and and
Supervisor
Supervisor
and Coworker
andand Coworker

positive
friends positive
negative
non-job friends
non-jobfriends Correlations
friends
friends
negative emotional
emotional
instrumental
instrumental
emot. instrumental
communications
instr.
comm. comm.
comm.
comm. comm.
comm. supp.supp. among
positive
non-job
negative supp.
supp. supp.support all
supp.

comm.
comm.
comm.
social

1
-0.05 -0.09 0.55* 0.25* 0.23*
0.27*
0.34*0.15* 0.55* 0.25*
0.28*0.23*0.20* 0.78** support

0. 2
0.1 -0.13 0.1
-0.12 0.52*
0.33*8t 0.26*0.17t 5t 0.45* 0.26* 0.35*
0.22* 16t
variables

0.05 0.21
0.41 3 (n's
0.25*
0.18t 0.48*
0.32* 0.33* 0.23*
0.53* 0.21* * * 0.65*
vary
0.10 0.11 4
0.27* 0.35* 0.14t
0.45* 0.31*0.23* 0.38*
0.31* 0.35* from
160
5 to
0.21*
0.33* 0.55* 0.14t
0.33* 0.29*
0.26* 0.18*
0.26* 0.74*
172
0.13
0.04 0.11 6 due
0.39* 0.30*
0.47*
0.14t 0.29*0.29*
to

0.04 7
0.23* 0.35*
0.14t 0.19* 0.44*
0.47* 0.26*
missing

0.06 0.09 8
0.40*
0.15t 0.24* 0.36* 0.23* data)

9
-0.08 0.21*
0.62*0.28*
0.54*
-0.15t

0.41 10
0.20*
0.19* 0.39*
* 0.39*

11
-0.08
0.53* 0.04
0.17t

12
-0.04
0.60* 0.32*

13
0.32*
0.27*

0.1 14
3t

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168 K. J. FENLASON AND T. A. BEEHR

the respondents simply cannot distinguish clearly between the two when they answer the ques-
tions. In other words, the measures may be contaminated in some ways that make them correlate
with each other artificially strongly.
By comparison, the more specific types of measures of social support in the present study,
contents of communication, do not show high intra-source correlations. The median correlation
of the three different types of communications within the same source is 0.27, much lower
than the 0.74 obtained with the commonly used global measures.
The correlations between the global social support measures and contents of communications
are also interesting and provide information about the meaning of either one vis-ad-vis the other.
Three clear trends are evident. First, the contents of communications are more closely related
to emotional support than to instrumental support, especially within a given source. This con-
firms hypothesis 3A that these types of communications are likely to be specific forms of emotion-
al support. Second, emotional support is more closely related to non-job communications than
to the other types of communication, and this is not the case for instrumental support. Third,
negative communication is the type of communication that is least closely associated with either
of the two global types of social support.

Hypothesis 1
The first hypothesis proposes an order of magnitude effect of relationships between social support
sources and individual strain. Specifically, supervisor support was expected to be most strongly
related to strain, coworker support second most strongly, and extra-organizational sources
(family and friends) least strongly. The left side of Table 6 shows that this exact order was
obtained for both global types of support, although only three of the possible six differences
between correlations were significant. This order was not obtained for the contents of communi-
cation support measures, however.

Hypothesis 2
Hypothesis 2 proposes that (a) emotional social support would be more strongly related to
job strain than to stressors and (b) instrumental support would be more strongly related to
stressors than to strain. Since the contents of communications were conceived primarily as
specific forms of emotional support, it was predicted that they would be more strongly related
to strain than to stressors. Table 6 also contains these comparisons.
The results are reported in the right side of Table 6 for a combination of the two stressors
in order to reduce the number of analyses and save space. For instrumental support, two of
the three differences between correlations were in the predicted direction, but the differences
were not significant. For emotional support, two of the three differences between correlations
were also in the predicted direction, including the significant one of supervisor emotional support.
Regarding the contents of communications support variables, there was generally support
for the hypothesis. Six of the nine differences were in the predicted direction, and five were
significant. Overall, emotional types of social support tended to be more strongly related to
strain than to stressors.

Hypothesis 3
Hypothesis 3 states that the contents of communication form of social support would account
for more variance in strains than global social support measured as emotional and instrumental

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 SOCIALSUPPORT 169

Table 6. Differences in strengths of correlations between (1) strains and social support from three sources
and (2) social support with stressors and strains (N = 151)
Hypothesis 1 Hypothesis 2
Correlations with Significance Average* Significance
Types and sources of psychological of difference correlations with of differences
social support strain between r's stressors between r's
Global social support
Instrumental
Supervisor (rl)-0.41t r1-r2t (ria)-0.30t r, -nra
Coworkers (r2)-0.25t r1-r3t (r2a)-0. 30 r2- r2a
Family/friends (r3)-0.1 1 r2- r3 (r3a)-O.18* r3- r3a
Emotional
Supervisor (rl)-0.45t r, -r2 (ria)-0.32t r -riat
Coworkers (r2)-0.31t r1-r3t (r2a)-0.28t r2-r2a
Family/friends (r3)-0.2 1t r2-r3 (r3a)-0.24t r3-r3a
Contents of communication
Non-job
Supervisor (ri)-0.13 r -r2 (ria)-OI5 rn-ria
Coworkers (r2)-0.16t r, -r3 (r2a)-0.16t r2- r2a
Family/friends (r3)-0.07 r2-r3 (r3a)-0. 11 r3-r3a
Negative job-related
Supervisor (rl) 0.20t r -r2 (rla)0.10 r-rla
Coworkers (r2)0.30t r, -r3 (r2a) 0.09 r2-r2at
Family/friends (r3)0.38t r2-r3 (r3a)0.23t r3-r3at
Positive job-related
Supervisor (rl)-0.45t rn-r2 (ria)-0.28t rn-rlat
Coworkers (r2)-0.5 1t r -r3 (r2a)-0.32t r2-r2at
Family/friends (r3) -0.38t r2 -r3t (r3a) -0-1 7t r3-r3at
* An r-to-ztransformation
procedurewasusedto averagecorrelations.
t p <0.01 (one-tailed)
t p < 0.05(one-tailed).

types. This hypothesis was first tested by comparing the final R2 from two omnibus moderated
multiple regression equations (Table 7). Because both omnibus moderated multiple regression
equationsin the tablesharethe samedependentvariable(strainsindex),the amountsof variance
accountedfor (finalR's squared)by each of the separateequationscan be directlycompared.
The final R2 (from step 3) for the contents of communicationmeasureof social support(R2
= 0.72) was largerthan the R2 for emotional/instrumental support(R2 = 0.63), accounting
for about9 percentmorevariancein the strainsindexthantheemotional/instrumental equation.
This greatervarianceaccountedfor was also found at the level of the entryof the main effect
termsinto the equation.That is, the contents of communicationconceptualizationaccounted
for a greaterpercentageof variancein strainsin termsof maineffects(emotional/instrumental
R2 = 0.56 andcontentsof communicationR2 = 0.62 at step2).
In orderto examinethis hypothesiswithinthe sourceof socialsupport,morespecificomnibus
regressionswere calculatedfor each of the three sources of social support (Table 8). In all
threepairsof moderatedmultipleregressionequations,thecontentsof communicationaccounted
for a greateramount of variancein the dependentvariablethan did emotional/instrumental
support (comparingthe squares of the final R's). Supervisorcontents of communication
accountedfor about8 percentmorevariancein strainsthandid supervisoremotional/instrumen-
tal support,coworkers'contentsof communicationaccountedfor about 11 percent morevari-
ance in the strain that the coworker'semotional/instrumental equation, and the contents of

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170 K. J. FENLASON AND T. A. BEEHR

Table 7. Omnibus moderated multiple regression equations for emotional/

instrumental supports and contents of communication predicting strain
Step Terms entered R Change in R2
Omnibus equation for emotional instrumental support
I RC/O and US/Q 0.7211 0.5211
2 All support terms* 0.7511 0.04
3 All interaction termst 0.8011 0.08?
Omnibus equation for contents of communication support
1 RC/O and US/Q 0.7111 0.5011
2 All support termst 0.7911 0.1211
3 All interaction terms? 0.8511 0.1011
* Emotional and instrumental support for supervisor, coworkers and friends and family
(six main effect terms).
t All six main effects terms (in 1) in interaction with role conflict/overload and underutili-
zation of skills/qualitative underload (12 interaction terms).
t Non-job, negative and positive contents of communication for supervisor, coworkers,
and friends and family (nine main effect terms).
? All nine main effects term (in 3) in interaction with role conflict/overload and underutili-
zation of skills/qualitative underload (18 interaction terms).
IIp<O.Ol.
?p<0.05.
communication equation for friends and family support accounted for about 10 per cent more
variance than did the emotional/instrumental support equation.
Regarding the buffering effect, the omnibus regressions in Table 7 indicate that there were

Table 8. Omnibus moderated multiple regression equations for comparing emotional/instrumental support
with contents of communication within source
Supervisor support Coworker support Family/friends support
Change in Change in Change in
Step Terms entered R R R R R2
Omnibus equations for emotional/
instrumental support
1 RC/O and US/Q 0.7111 0.5111 0.7111 0.5111 0.7111 0.5111
2 All supports* 0.7311 0.02? 0.7211 0.01 0.7211 0.01
3 All interaction termst 0.7411 0.01 0.7411 0.041 0.73 0.02
Omnibus equations for contents of
communication supports
1 RC/O and US/Q 0.711l 0.5111 0.7111 0.511l 0.711l 0.5111
2 All supportst 0.7511 0.0611 0.7811 0.1011 0.7611 0.0711
3 All interaction terms? 0.7811 0.0511 0.8111 0.0511 0.7911 0.05?
* Emotional and instrumental support (two main effect terms).
t Both main effects terms (in 1) in interaction with role conflict/overload and underutilization of skills/qualitative
underload (four interaction terms).
t Non-job, negative and positive contents of communication for supervisor, (three main effects terms).
? All three main effects terms (in 3) in interaction with role conflict/overload and underutilization of skills/qualitative
underload (six interaction terms).
P< 0.01.
11
IIp<O.Ol.
Tp<0.05.

interaction effects for both overall types of support (global and contents of communications)
interacting with the two stressors to predict the strains (change in R2 at step 3). Table 8 provides
more specific omnibus regressions regarding interaction effects, breaking the analyses down by

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 SOCIAL SUPPORT 171

sources of support as well as by the two overall types (emotional/instrumental and communica-
tions). The omnibus interaction term is significant for only one of the three sources of global
support (change in R2 at step 3). That is, coworkers were involved in significant interactions
for the global types of support. All three sources of support were involved in significant interac-
tions for contents of communications support. Not only did the contents of communications
predict the strains better overall, but they showed more pronounced moderating effects than
did the more traditional global support indices.
Inspection of the significant B's of the four analyses with significant interactions in Table
8 revealed two things: the specific stressor-social support combinations that were most respon-
sible for the significance of the set of interaction terms in these omnibus moderated regressions,
and the 'shape' of these significant interactions (i.e. buffering versus reverse buffering). The
'shapes' of the interactions were determined by using Cohen and Cohen's (1983) suggestion
for examining criterion (strain) scores at combinations of the mean + 1 S.D. for both the
stressor and the social support measure.
Coworker instrumental support interacting with role conflict/overload was the only significant
interaction involving a global support index that predicted strains (F = 5.89, p <0.05). This
was a reverse buffering interaction. That is, the slope of the relationship between role conflict
and strains was more positive under conditions of higher than lower support.
Supervisors' positive job-related communications interacting with underutilization of skills/
qualitative underload accounted for the significant omnibus interaction regarding supervisory
communications (F = 6.09, p <0.05). Further analyses indicated that this was a buffering
rather than a reverse buffering effect. That is, the slope of the relationship between underutiliza-
tion and strain was more positive under conditions of lower than higher support.
Coworkers' negative job-related communications interacted with underutilization of skills
to account for the significant omnibus interaction regarding coworker communications (F =
6.12, p < 0.05), and this was a reverse buffering effect.
-Finally, regarding Table 8's significant omnibus interaction of family and friends' communica-
tions, both positive job-related communication with family and friends and non-job related
communications with family and friends interacted with underutilization of skills to predict
strains (F = 8.15, p < 0.01; and F = 4.78, p < 0.05; respectively). The interaction with positive
job-related communication was a instance of buffering, while the interaction involving non-job
related communication with family and friends was an instance of reverse buffering.

Discussion
This study, investigating social support in the context of occupational stress, emphasized the
contribution of a new and more specific method of conceptualizing and operationalizing social
support. Overall, the relationships of the various types of social support measures with job
stressors and with employee strains tended to be negative, as expected. Whereas most previous
studies of social support and occupational stress emphasized broad-based, global measures
of support (Cohen and Wills, 1985), the present study builds on previous research and suggestion
(e.g. Beehr et al., 1990; McIntosh, 1991) to advance a more specific, narrowly defined social
support concept and compares it with the more global forms of social support. Specifically,
some aspects of the nature of the contents of communication between stressed employees and
potentially supportive others were used as indicators of social support.
This was the first study in which the three forms of contents of communication, non-work
related, negative work-related, and positive work-related, were examined as potential forms

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172 K. J. FENLASON AND T. A. BEEHR

of support when they came from sources other than the immediate supervisor (i.e. from coworkers
and non-organizational sources such as family and friends). Based on the three factor analyses
and the reliabilities, it appears that such communication variables can be measured adequately
among these two additional sources of support as well as among supervisors. Furthermore,
compared to the global support measures (emotional and instrumental), the contents of commu-
nication measures appear to have the advantage of better discriminant validity than the global
measures usually have had. That is, the different forms of support did not correlate with each
other extraordinarily strongly within any single source of support. Usage of the contents of
communication measures seems to have escaped this problem. Respondents appear able to
report on the separate types of communication from each person, while being unable to separate
the global types of support. This is promising for future research efforts using such measures.
As hypothesized, the contents of communication measured in the present study are more
likely to be a part of the emotional than of the instrumental global support concept. This
is especially true for positive and non-work contents of communication, and much less true
for negative communications. It should be noted, however, that this is not to say that communica-
tion cannot be instrumental support. Cobb (1976) proposed that all social support is basically
information, and the contents of communication seem to be complementary to that idea. Commu-
nicating obviously can consist of information. This suggests two things for future research.
First, future research on job stress and social support should continue to examine communica-
tions, because they have long been part of the conceptual definition of the topic. In retrospect,
it seems an obvious direction for such research, given the prominence of Cobb's definition.
For example, Vaux (1988) noted that Cobb was one of three scholars to lay the groundwork
for discussion and research on social support, and Cobb is the only one of the three to focus
very much on the combination of work-related stress and social support. Second, the investi-
gation of the substance of communications between stressed people and supportive people
might be a key to understanding instrumental as well as emotional support. One avenue would
be for researchers to try to detect supportive information in such communications that are
instrumental to helping the stressed employee deal with the stressful problem situation. This
would mesh very nicely with the concept of coping, and it seems to be a fruitful direction
for future research.
Although hypothesized, it is not entirely clear that the supervisor is the most effective person
in terms of relieving the employees' strains with social support. The supervisor is formally
the most powerful person in the organization whom this study examined as a potential source
of support. In spite of this, social support from coworkers and family or friends might also
be effective as a stress treatment when the stress emanates from the workplace.
Although a complete test of the uncertainty model of social support (Beehr, 1985) was not
attempted in the present study, the results regarding the parts of the model that were tested
provided only mixed support. The support came primarily from the contents of communication
indices, which behaved as the model predicated emotional support would. This model needs
further empirical examination, but a more complete test of the model would require measures
of the specific types of uncertainty that the model focuses on. It is not clear that good measures
of such uncertainty exist, and it was beyond the scope of the present study of social support
to develop them. This is another obvious need for future research.
As predicted, the contents of communications between stressed employees and their source
of support accounted for more strain reduction than the more frequently studied global measures
of social support, regardless of the source of supportive communications. This is yet another
indication that the use of the contents of communications as a specific conceptualization and
operationalization of social support for future research appears promising. In the work context,

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 SOCIAL SUPPORT 173

at least, these communications appear to be an active ingredient of social support in the job
stress process.
The investigations of the possible buffering effect, the dominant social support hypothesis
in past research (even though past research has not been strongly supportive of it), provided
interesting results. The omnibus regressions indicated that such interactions between social
support and job stressors were primarily occurring with the contents of communication measures
of social support. Omnibus regressions for all three sources of contents of communication
(i.e. supervisor, coworkers, and family and friends) found significant interaction effects. There
were both buffering and reverse buffering effects among the four significant interactions found
among these three sources, all involving the same job stressor, underutilization of skills/qualita-
tive underload.
Reverse buffering research results have thus far eluded a generally-accepted explanation.
Nevertheless the present results involving the newer, more specific measures of social support
(i.e. contents of communication) bear a striking correspondence to an explanation offered in
one of the earliest studies finding reverse buffering. LaRocco et al. (1980) noted that supervisors,
coworkers, and family and friends can try either to 'convince us that job conditions are not
as bad as they seem ... (or) that they are as bad as or even worse than, we thought' (p. 214).
The former social support characterization in the quote is similar to positive communications
in the present study, and LaRocco et al. suggested that this might result in a buffering effect
due to the positive tone of the relationship. This is consistent with the results of the present
study, because both instances of positive communications interacting with a job stressor were
instances of buffering. On the other hand, the second type of communication in the quote
from LaRocco et al. appears to be similar to the present study's negative job-related communica-
tion. LaRocco et al. suggested that this type of communication might lead to reverse buffering,
because this type of support might make people feel even worse. The instance of negative
communication interacting with ajob stressor in this study was indeed reverse buffering. LaRocco
et al. could not examine their own suggestion, because they had used only the global support
measures. The development of more specific types of social support measures, such as the
contents of communications indices in the present study, seems promising for future research
on occupational stress and the buffering hypothesis.
This study provides some information about what can be done to offer helpful social support
to those in one's workplace experiencing job stress. First, regarding who should provide such
support, the best answer would appear to be people in the workplace, and especially the super-
visor. Second, regarding what kind of support is the most effective, the results regardingcontents
of communications provide more clear answers than the global measures, because they are
more clear regarding what specific activities constitute them. The study suggests that positive
job-related communications have the most beneficial effect, and that non-work related communi-
cations have the second best effect. Talking negatively about the 'bad' situation at work does
not appear to be very helpful to the stressed employee. The zero-order correlations (Table
6) indicate negative main effects of negative communications on strains. In addition, the only
instance of reverse buffering uncovered in the study also concerned negative communications.
Commiserating with a stressed employee by engaging him or her in gripe sessions does not
appear to help the employee reduce his or her strains through an emotional release mechanism.
More research is needed on this intriguing area.
While obtaining interesting results, the study did have some limitations. The sample consisted
of all females in one occupation in one midwestern state, although they were from a variety
of organizations. They might be characterized as somewhat experienced (they had been with
their current employer for an average of about 11 years) and more professionally committed

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174 K. J. FENLASON AND T. A. BEEHR

than the average secretary (their membership in the professional secretaries' organization sug-
gests this). Whether or not the study's results would generalize to other occupations, to males,
and to other geographic areas is presently unknown.
A second limitation was the use of all self-reported data for the study, which might have
the effect of artificially inflating relationships among variables. Many of the statistical tests,
in the present study, however, are virtually immune to this problem. Examples include factor
analyses in search of three factors rather than one, analyses of significance of differences between
correlations, and examination of interaction effects. Nevertheless, future research on social
support and job stress using measurement techniques other than self-reports is warranted. The
fact that this study examined a new conceptualization of social support, one in which questions
were somewhat more objective (asking what people talked about rather than how supported
the respondents felt) also provides some tentative confidence in the results. If correlated method
variance were a problem, it would be expected to inflate relationships of stress and strain variables
with the more vague, general measures of social support such as the global measures more
than it would with the specific contents of communications measures. The predictions and
results do not support this interpretation.
The measures of contents of communications used frequency response scales rather than
some other format, such as intensity of communications exchanged. It seems likely that the
emotional intensity of the communications would also have effects on strains. This is reminiscent
of the frequency and intensity response formats for a well-known burnout measure (Maslach
Burnout Inventory; Maslach and Jackson, 1981). It appears that the use of the frequency scales
alone is sufficientin burnout research, however (Gaines and Jermier, 1983;Iwanicki and Schwab,
1981; Jackson, Schwab and Schuler, 1986). Whether or not this is true also for social support
requires new research.

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