The Social Support Appraisals (SS-A) scale measures social support, defined as a belief of feeling loved, respected, esteemed, and involved with a social support network of friends, family, and others. This scale is comprised of three factors (friends, family, and other individuals) and assesses the existence of supportive relationships and the occurrence of supportive interactions.
Measures Registry
Social Support Appraisals (SS-A)
Description
Purpose
The SS-A scale measures social support, designed to measure the extent to which the respondent believes that they are loved by, esteemed by, and involved with family, friends, and other individuals. It is based on Cobb's (1976) definition of social support.
Target Population
Source Article Population
Population listed is based on the sample measured in the source article.
College students and community members of varying race and age
Year of Publication
1986
Reference
Vaux, A., Phillips, J., Holly, L., Thomson, B., Williams, D., & Stewart, D. (1986). The Social Support Appraisals (SS-A) scale: Studies of reliability and validity. American Journal of Community Psychology, 14(2), 195-219. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00911821
Number of Items
23
Scale Types (Likert=Likert Type; MC=Multiple Choice; T/F=True/False; OR=Open Response)
Likert Type
Likert: 1 = Strongly agree, 2 = Agree, 3 = Disagree, 4 = Strongly disagree
Subscales
SS-A Family
SS-A Friends
Scoring
Three scores can be computed by summing different items. The total score consists of summing all 23 items. The SS-A family score consists of summing the 8 family items and the SS-A friends scores consists of summing the 7 friend items. The remaining 8 items refer to other individuals.
Administration
Self-Administered
Readability/ Literacy Level
N/A
Reliability
Cronbach's alpha values for the SS-A total scale, the SS-A family subscale, and the SS-A friends subscale ranged from 0.80 to 0.90, demonstrating good internal consistency of the measure. Additional information can be found in the "Internal Consistency and Subscale Intercorrelation" section of the source article.
Validity
Construct validity was assessed by comparing the SS-A, SS-A family subscale, and the SS-A friends subscale to other social support appraisal measures. Overall, this analysis demonstrated the construct validity of the SS-A and its subscales. The specific correlations between the SS-A (and its subscales) and other similar measures can be found in Tables 3 and 4 of the source article.
Limitations
The researchers note that they did not assess predictive, discriminant, and criterion validity of the SS-A and recommend that future research efforts study these performance measures to further validate the SS-A as a measure of social support.
Availability
Publicly Available
Cost
Free
Other Considerations
N/A