Orientation toward utilization of support resources

Abstract

A construct in social support that has received relatively little attention is network orientation: the individual's willingness to utilize his or her social support resources. This construct and a 20-item self-report measure of it are presented. Data from five samples, including four samples of somewhat heterogeneous students and one sample of community adults, were used to assess the reliability and validity of the instrument. The instrument showed good internal consistency and showed excellent stability in the community sample, but not in the student samples. The measure showed good validity with respect to a range of social support criterion measures, somewhat good validity with respect to personal characteristics, and somewhat poor validity with respect to coping and self-disclosure criteria. It was proposed that individuals who have social support resources but do not use them may be an important focus for interventions.