This scale was developed to measure what the researchers call appraisal social support, or “the perceived availability of someone to talk to about one’s problems” (Cohen et al., 1985, pp. 75–76). One...

This scale was developed to measure what the researchers call appraisal social support, or “the perceived availability of someone to talk to about one’s problems” (Cohen et al., 1985, pp. 75–76). One of the findings was that when people were not under stress, those low in social support had no more physical symptoms than people high in social support did. When people were under stress, however, those low in social support had more physical symptoms than did people high in social support. Another finding was that women scored reliably higher on the social support scale than men did. If you scored lower than you would like, you might want to consider reaching out to others more when you are under stress.