social support and psychological well-being among...

Social Support and Psychological Well-beingamong University Male Teachers

Monika Srivastava* and P.C. Mishra**

ABSTRACTAn attempt has been made to find out the relationship between socialsupport and psychological well-being of male teachers of higher educationalinstitution. The study was conducted on a sample of 200 male teachers ofLucknow University, Lucknow (U.P.) The social support has been measuredin three areas appraisal support, belonging support and tangible support.The result suggests that social support (overall and area-wise) has positiverelationship with psychological well-being.

Key Words : Social Support, Psychological Well-being.

The essence of our human existence is expressed in our relations with othersand the support we get from them. Looking at the encompassing role thatsocial support plays, researchers have drawn considerable attention to it.Social support has been generally characterised as a degree of support providedto an individual particularly in times of need by persons involved with him likespouse, family, friends, neighbours, coworkers and members of the communityetc.

Thoits (1982) argues that support is the degree to which an individual’sneeds for affection, approval, belonging and security and guidance are met byhis significant others. It reassures the individual about his or her worth orcompetence and gives him a sense of reliable alliance. This approach assumesthat social interaction is essential for normal personality development and toappropriate social conduct.

* Sahara Arts & Management Academy, Lucknow.** Department of Psychology, University of Lucknow, Lucknow.

ISSN: 0973-5755Vol. 2, No. 1, September, 2007

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Vol. 2, No. 1, September, 2007

In this context comes the concept of psychological well-being which is ofgreat significance to the individual as well as to the organisation. Psychologicalwell-being gives a sense of completeness and happiness. A person high onpsychological well-being keeps himself open to experience and is alwaysready to learn. He is self motivated and a source of others’ motivation aswell. Psychological health/well-being facilitates the achievement of manyorganisationally relevant goals and therefore should be nurtured. Moreover, inthe wake of growing awareness and interest in individual’s psychologicalhealth, the corporations are designing programs to this purpose for theiremployees.

In the present investigation an attempt has been made to find out therelation between social support (overall and its areas) and psychological well-being. The objectives of the present study are as follows:

1. To study the relationship between social support (overall) andpsychological well-being of the male teachers.

2. To study the relationship among three areas of social support viz.appraisal support, belonging support and tangible support andpsychological well-being of the male teachers.

The following hypotheses have been formulated in the present study

1. There will be positive relationship between social support (overall)and psychological well-being of the male teachers.

2. There will be positive relationship among three areas of social supportviz. appraisal support, belonging support and tangible support andpsychological well-being of the male teachers.

METHODSample

The sample consisted of 200 male teachers of Lucknow University, whowere incidentally selected. Their mean age was 46 years, mean income hasRs. 16000 per month and mean length of service was 20 years.

ToolsThe following two psychometric devices were used to study the variables.

1. Social Support Scales: To measure the level of-social support, ascale developed by Cohen et al., (1985) has been used. There are three areas

Monika Srivastava and P.C. Mishra

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in which social support is measured i.e. Appraisal support, Belonging supportand Tangible support. The Tangible subscale measures perceived availabilityof material aid; the appraisal subscale measures the perceived availability of aconfident and trusted advisor. The belonging subscale measures perceivedavailability of someone with whom the respondent could socialise or relax.The scale has fifteen items, five in each area. The three subscales of socialsupport are reasonably independent of each other as indicated by their moderateinter correlations which are in the .30 to .50 range. Complete independence ofthese subscales is neither desirable nor possible since people often receivedifferent kinds of support from the same person in their network. Adequateinternal and test-retest reliabilities of the three subscale range from .77 to .90,respectively.

2. Psychological Well-being Scale: The level of psychological well-being is assessed with the help of psychological well-being Scale developedby Warr (1978). Items were selected from those previously employed byAndrew and Withey (1974).

Respondents were asked to think about their life in general and describeit in terms of eleven bipolar adjectives. The responses were taken on a 7 pointscale with an anchor ‘extremely’ at the positive pole and at the negative poleof the continuum, ‘7’ always referred to the negative pole, although thedirection of the scale was varied. The index of reliability was ascertained bycomputing Cronbach’s alpha coefficient which was found to be 0.82.

ProcedurePrior to the administration of the test the teachers were told about the

utility of the study. One teacher was contacted at a time. Social support scaleand psychological well-being scale were administered to them one after theother. They were asked to fill the questionnaires by themselves according tothe instructions on the questionnaire. Respondents were requested not toleave any item unanswered and to give each and every response honestly.The statistics of coefficient of correlation was applied on the scores thusderived.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table-1 shows that social support pertaining to the three areas viz. tangible,appraisal, and belonging and on totality are positively related to psychologicalwell-being being significant at .01 level of probability.

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TABLE 1Inter-correlation matrix for teacher’s social support (overall and area-wise) and

Psychological Well-being

X1 X2 X3 X4 X5

Xl — .59** .44 ** .80** .54**

X2 — .59** .86** .54**

X3 — .83** .45**

X4 — .61**

X5 —

**= Significant at .01 levelX1=Tangible Support, X2=Appraisal Support, X3=Belonging Support, X4=OverallSocial Support, X5= Psychological Well-being.

The results suggest that social support is directly related to psychologicalwell-being i.e. when social support increases psychological well-being alsoincreases and vice versa.

Social support most commonly refers to helpful functions performed foran individual by significant others such as family members, friends, co-workers,relatives and neighbours. These functions typically include social-emotionalaid (belonging support), instrumental aid (instrumental support) and informationalaid (appraisal support). Thoits (1985) in his conceptual paper has elaboratedupon the possible mechanisms through which support may have impact uponpsychological well-being. In our social network we are bound to each otherthrough role relationship. Thoits (1985) proposes that role relationships can bepsychologically beneficial in three major ways: (i) by providing a set of identities,(ii) as source of positive self-evaluation, and (iii) giving a sense of control ormastery.

The results of the present study also show that the relationship betweensocial support (overall and its areas) with psychological well-being as seenfrom Intercorrelation matrix in Table-1 is positive and highly significant (.01level). As the social support for teachers improves their psychological well-being also improves. Conversely if their well-being is enhanced their socialsupport also enhances. Social support gathered by teachers was measured inthree areas namely tangible support, appraisal support and belonging support.


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The relationship between tangible support and psychological well-beingwas found to be positive and highly significant. Cohen and Wills (1985)suggest that tangible support might be the most likely dimension of socialsupport to buffer the effects of economic problems. Thus when individualgets tangible support in the organisation it solves many of his economicproblems, thus he becomes more comfortable and mentally free from economicups and downs of life.

Appraisal support and psychological well-being are shown to besignificantly and positively related by this study. Appraisal support depicts theindividual’s perception of trustworthy people around him with whom he cantalk about his problems. Psychologists have always said that having few closepeople to share and seek information is necessary as itself sorts out many ofour problems. Appraisal support helps one to flush his frustration and grudgesand feel emotionally relieved.

Moreover, appraisal/evaluation from others is a source of reflected self-esteem. Our overall worth, lovability, importance and competence depend onhow others evaluate us. When we get positive evaluation we form a positiveconcept of ourselves and hus self-esteem and psychological well-being.

Belonging support depicts an individual’s belief that he is an importantpart of the social network and his interests and concerns are shared. Caplan(1974) and Mechanic (1974) have observed that social network serves multiplefunctions in helping one adjust to the demands of his environment. Involvementin a network helps individual by providing him information about expectationsfrom him feedback on his behaviour and assistance with task rewards forappropriate behaviour. These conditions also lead to psychological well-beingtherefore it is natural that when social support increases psychological well-being also increases. This has also been confirmed by the present study associal support and psychological well-being are positively and significantly(.01 level) correlated with each other.

The composite effect of social support emerging from tangible, appraisaland belonging support show that overall social support has a very high positivecorrelation with psychological well-being. Thus both the hypotheses areconfirmed. Therefore, it can be concluded that if more social support isextended to the teachers their psychological well-being will also improve. Inhigher education the psychological health of teachers is even more importanceas they not only impart knowledge but also each the way of life to students.

Limitations and Further Research

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The correlational technique employed in the present research delimits thescope of interpretation of findings to associations between the variables. Nodefinite statements about the causal relationship between the variables couldbe made from the results. An attempt to analyse relationship among thesevariables is called for. Further research may be directed to find the impact ofother situational, attitudinal, and personality variables on psychological well-being and on psychological well-being-social support relationship

REFERENCES

Andrews, F.M. and Withey, S.B. (1974). Development measures of perceived life,quality results from several national survey. Social Indication Research, 1-12.

Caplan, G. (1974). Support Systems And Community Mental Health, BehavioralPublication, New York.

Cohen, S. and Wills, T.H. (1985). Stress, social support and the buffering hypothesis.Psychological Bulletin, 98, 31-357.

Cohen, S., Mermslstein, R. Kamarek, T. and Hoberman, H. N. (1985), Measuring thefunctional components of social support, In: I.G. Sarason and B.R. Sarason (Eds.)Social Support: Theory, Rsearch and applications, Doodrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.

Eisenberger, R., Hutington, R., Hutchsion, S. and Sowa, B. (1986). Perceivedorganisational support. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 500-507.

Mechanic, D. (1974). Social structure and personal adaptation. Some neglecteddimensions. In: G.Y. Coelho, D.A. Hamburg and I.E. Adams (Eds.) Coping andAdaptation, Basic Books, New York.

Thoits, P.A. (1982). Conceptual, methodological and theoretical problems. In studyingsocial support as a buffer against the life stress, Journal of Health and SocialBehaviour, 23, 145-155.

Thoits, P.A. (1985). Social Support and psychological well-being: Theoreticalpossibilities. In: I.G. Sarason and B.R. Sarason (Eds.) Social Support: Theory,Rsearch and applications (pp. 51-72) Doodrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.

Warr, P. (1978). A study of psychological well-being. British Journal of Psychology,69, 111-121.


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