Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Angela Forbes and Derek RogerDepartment of Psychology University of York UK

Purpose This study was aimed at developing a measure of the capacity to use socialsupport effectively

Methods The responses of 329 participants to a preliminary 130-item scale derivedfrom a lsquoscenariorsquo study were subjected to principal axis factoring This resulted in a 48-item Interpersonal Trust Questionnaire (ITQ) comprising three factors labelled fear ofdisclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) A second sample of 380participants then completed the nal form of the ITQ together with the rehearsal(rumination) and emotional inhibition scales from the Emotion Control Questionnaire(ECQ Roger amp Najarian 1989) the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ SarasonLevine Basham amp Sarason 1983) and the Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviours(ISSB Barrera 1981) Data on deterioration in health status over a period of adaptationwere also available for a subsample of these participantsAn additional sample providedscores on the ITQ and the Network Orientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart1986)

Results The scales were found to correlate in predictable ways with measures of bothsocial support and emotion control However there were gender differences conrmingthe preference amongst women for emotional rather than informational supportRegression analyses using deterioration in health status as the dependent variableshowed an effect for FOD but this was signicant only amongst women

Conclusions The ndings indicate the importance of taking both individualdifferences and availability of support into account and it is hoped that the new ITQscale will offer the means for including relevant individual differences in future studiesof the role of social support in moderating stress responses

The deleterious effects of stress on health and well-being have been widely reported in theliterature but assuming that stress causes illness raises questions about the mechanismswhich might be involved in linking cognitive processes such as perceived threat withphysical symptomatology Psychoimmunological research has suggested that the mostplausible candidate mechanism involves the sustained activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (Jemmott amp Locke 1984) and there is certainly evidence for therole of corticosteroids in compromising immune function (Asterita 1985) However inview of the wide individual differences in cognitive and physiological responses to stressphysiological mechanisms alone provide only a partial answer

One explanation is that moderator variables such as personality may be involved For

165British Journal of Health Psychology (1999) 4 165ndash179 Printed in Great Britain

copy 1999 The British Psychological Society

Requests for reprints should be addressed to Derek Roger Department of Psychology University of York HeslingtonYork YO1 5DD UK

example Kobasarsquos (1979) research on lsquohardinessrsquo had suggested that having an internallocus of control may buffer individuals against the impact of stressful life eventsUnfortunately Denney amp Frisch (1981) failed to support the hypothesized moderatingeffect of locus of control on stress and when situational control is taken into accounthaving an internal locus of control has been shown to be associated with a greatersusceptibility to stress amongst individuals who experienced high levels of uncon-trollable life events (Meadows 1989) Extraversion and neuroticism have also beeninvestigated in the context of stress but the ndings have similarly been equivocal whileTotman Kiff Reed amp Craig (1980) and Broadbent Broadbent Phillpotts amp Wallace(1984) reported higher levels of susceptibility to experimentally induced colds amongstintroverts as compared to extraverts the effect was not replicated in a more carefullycontrolled study by Cohen Tyrrell amp Smith (1993) The latter authors also included ameasure of locus of control in their study and again they found no moderating effects forperceived control on outcomes

Reviewing these inconclusive ndings Roger (1995) has argued that the personalityconstructs used in earlier studies were inappropriate because they had not been developedspecically in the context of stress research Roger and his colleagues suggested thatinhibiting emotion or ruminating over emotional distress might contribute to delayedrecovery and the Emotion Control Questionnaire (ECQ Roger amp Najarian 1989 Rogeramp Nesshoever 1987) was developed to assess these tendencies The ECQ comprisessubscales for rehearsal (or emotional rumination) as well as emotional inhibition andvalidation studies of the ECQ have shown that rumination is particularly strongly relatedto impaired physiological and psychological adaptation following stress (Nieland ampRoger 1993 Roger amp Jamieson 1988 Roger amp Najarian 1998) Scores on the emotionalinhibition subscale were also implicated in these studies and Kaiser Hinton KrohneStewart amp Burton (1995) have shown independently that emotional inhibition issignicantly related to delayed muscle tension recovery following stress

In addition to personality social support has frequently been investigated as apotential moderator of the impact of stress and the benecial effects of social supporthave been reported for general health and well-being (Cobb 1976 Cohen amp Wills 1985Thoits 1985) and for facilitating adaptation and adjustment to change (Cobb 1976Sarason 1981) However it has also been suggested that high levels of social support mayhave negative consequences in mental health settings (Sandler amp Barrera 1984) and in acomparison of the effects of positive and negative interactions on health negativeinteractions were found to outweigh the benecial effects of social support (Fiore Beckeramp Coppel 1983) These conicting ndings stem in part from a lack of consensus over thedenition of social support which is often referred to as a unitary construct when in factit appears to be multidimensional broad in scope and highly heterogeneous More precisedenitions of social support based on functional categories such as emotionalsupport information support and instrumental support have been proposed (House ampKahn 1985 Turner 1981) but the different functions have been found to be highlycorrelated

In an attempt to resolve some of these issues Barrera (1981 1986) and others (forexample Gottlieb 1985 Sarason Sarason amp Pierce 1990) have proposed placingresearch on social support into three categories labelled social integration enacted orreceived support and perceived support Social integration refers to the objective

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger166

assessment of the number or density of people in an individualrsquos social network(Berkman 1985) while enacted support assesses the amount of supportive behaviourreceived over a specied period of time (Tardy 1985) However neither of these measuresprovides an assessment of the quality of the support received and it has frequently beenargued that satisfaction with supports is far more important than the number available(Barrera 1981) Measures of perceived support provide a subjective assessment ofsatisfaction as well as availability (Cohen amp Hoberman 1983 Procidano amp Heller1983 Sarason Levine Basham amp Sarason 1983) and have been found to exhibit a farstronger relationship with health than either of the other two measures (Cohen ampHoberman 1983)

Gottlieb (1985) has concluded that individuals who have a strong sense of perceivedsupport are likely to make less threat-focused appraisals of potentially stressful situationswhich results in their ability to cope more independently The emphasis on cognitiveevaluation ts well with the current literature on the relationship between stress andillness in that the appraisal of a potential stressor and of the coping resources availablewill inuence whether or not the situation is dened as stressful (Folkman Schaefer ampLazarus 1979) However the appraisal process is strongly inuenced by individualdifferences which may act as moderator variables and one question which arises iswhether perceived support is a function of objective evaluations of the quality ofsupports or whether it has more to do with personality As early as 1984 LefcourtMartin amp Saleh (1984) had shown that people with an internal locus of control derivedgreater benets from social support than externals and Sarason Sarason amp Shearin (1986)have taken the further step of suggesting that support might be regarded as a personalityvariable in its own right

A number of studies have suggested that the expression of emotion serves to reduce orattenuate physiological arousal associated with stress (Mendolia amp Kleck 1993) and thatit represents a stable individual difference (Kring Smith amp Neale 1994) These ndingshave direct implications for social support since it is in the context of support thatemotion is expressedmdashindeed one might argue that the function of social supports isto provide the opportunity for the expression of emotion As early as 1976 Tolsdorfdened what he called lsquonetwork orientationrsquo as an individualrsquos attitudes about theusefulness of others in helping to cope with problems and Vaux Burda amp Stewart (1986)used Tolsdorfrsquos ideas to develop the Network Orientation Scale (NOS) which wasdesigned specically to assess individual differences in the propensity to draw upon socialsupports

Unfortunately item selection for the NOS was based on item total correlations ratherthan factor analysis and the selection criteria were not consistent across the sampleswhich were used Internal consistency for the scale was also modest and retest reliabilitywas low (18 over a 3-week inter-test interval) The network orientation model hasrecently been adapted by Gruen Schuldberg Nelson Epstein Weiss amp Quinlan (1994)to form the Network Utilization Scale (NUS) These authors reported a signicantrelationship between scores on the new scale and depressive symptomatology but theyacknowledge that further work is needed on the scale particularly with respect to retestreliability and validation against observational data and other forms of psychopathology

The reduction in stress-related physiological arousal through the expression ofemotion implies that social support is used as a coping strategy Coping processes are

167Stress social support and fear of disclosure

typically classied as either rational or emotional but within this broad classication avariety of different strategies have been identied Folkman amp Lazarus (1985) forexample describe eight factors in their Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) but halfof them comprised fewer than ve items each In response to these and other psycho-metric shortcomings in the WCQ Endler amp Parker (1990) devised the MultidimensionalCoping Inventory (MCI) which comprises three factors task (or rational) emotional andavoidance Roger Jarvis amp Najarian (1993) expanded this model with the inclusion of anadditional lsquodetachmentrsquo factor and subsequent research by Roger Najarian amp Nash(1996) demonstrated that the detached and emotional factors combine into a singlebipolar factor which signicantly predicts worsening health status during stress

The aim of the present study was to shed further light on individual differences in thecapacity to self-disclose and express emotion in an adaptive manner in the context ofsocial support The study reports on the development of a new instrument theInterpersonal Trust Questionnaire (ITQ) The relationship of the ITQ to existing indicesof social support coping and other relevant measures of individual differences isexamined including the NOS as well as the extent to which inhibiting emotionalexpression inuences health during periods of adaptation

Method

ParticipantsTwo samples of participants were included in the study The rst sample was used for the construction andfactorial validation of the new scale and comprised 329 participants of which 242 were females (mean age2052 years SD 401) and 75 were males (mean age 2219 years SD 678) They were all undergraduatestudents drawn from a wide range of academic disciplines excluding psychology at the University of Yorkthe University of Ripon and York St John in York and the University of Humberside in Hull

The second sample of 380 was used for the validation studies and comprised 149 males (mean age 2038years SD 578) and 231 females (mean age 1965 years SD 422) All were undergraduatesat the Universityof York

Test constructionIn order to generate items for the preliminary item pool a scenario-basedquestionnairewas completed by anindependent sample of 43 undergraduates from the University of York 19 males and 24 females (mean age1898 years SD 160) The questionnaireconsisted of 10 scenarios describing potentially stressful situationsthat were intended to be of relevance to the populationin questionbased on a methodologydeveloped by thesecond author (Roger Jarvis amp Najarian 1993 Roger amp Nesshoever 1987) The participants were asked togive as much information as possible about the way in which they would respond to the situations describedTheir responses were used to generate the items for the initial pool and the scenario technique has theadvantage of providing questionnaire items which are more contemporaneous and less biased thanconventional trawls through literature and existing scales

The responses generated by the scenarios were combined with those from a review of the literature togenerate a 130-item pilot questionnaire The response format was a 4-point Likert scale ranging fromlsquostrongly agreersquo to lsquostrongly disagreersquo The questionnairewas sent out to the 329 students comprising the rstsample and their returns were subjected to principal axis factor analysisA scree test (Cattell 1966) indicateda three-factor terminal solution which was produced by Varimax orthogonal rotation Only three itemswhich loaded on more than one factor were omitted and using a criterion of 04 the three-factor solutionincluded 48 items 27 on the rst factor 12 on the second factor and 9 on the third factor The loadings areshown in Table 1 (the items in the scale appear in the Appendix)

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger168

169Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 1 Factor loadings for the three-factor solution

LoadingItem Factor 1 (FOD) Factor 2 (SC) Factor 3 (SI)

16 + 69210 + 68523 + 6839 + 623

40 + 62029 + 59812 + 58336 + 57927 + 56425 + 55519 + 55047 + 5432 + 540

43 + 5397 + 506

45 + 47734 + 47114 + 45638 + 4526 + 440

17 + 44541 2 4394 2 434

32 + 42431 + 41321 + 40628 + 40426 + 67422 + 65237 + 62211 2 59518 + 5711 + 556

15 + 54939 + 5483 + 522

46 + 4618 + 411

48 + 40733 + 62613 + 6005 + 557

42 + 54524 + 46030 + 44820 + 43935 + 42444 + 419

Note FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacy

The two highest loading items on the rst factor were 16 (lsquoI worry too much about what others think of meto conde in themrsquo) and 10 (lsquoTo discuss my problems with somebody feels good at the time but afterwards Iworry about what I have saidrsquo) and this factor was labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) The two highest loadingitems on the second factor were 26 (lsquoI like to talk problems over to get them off my chestrsquo) and 22 (lsquoWhen Ifeel upset about something I feel the need to talk to somebody about itrsquo) and this factor was labelled socialcoping (SC) Items 33 (lsquoA good friend is somebody you can be honest withrsquo) and 13 (lsquoTo be able to give andtake in a friendship is importantrsquo) loaded highest on the third factor which was labelled social intimacy (SI)

Four-factor and two-factor solutions were also examined The items on the rst three factors of the four-factor solution were virtually identical to those for the three-factor solution Only six items loaded on thefourth factor all of which referred explicitly to the familymdashfor example the highest loading was for item 55in the initial pool lsquoI feel that I can turn to my family for help whenever I need torsquo In fact this item and theitem lsquoI can conde in at least one family member of my familyrsquo both loaded below criterion on the thirdfactor of the three-factor solution (380 and 372 respectively) These items may well be salient to thestudent population used but in view of a low coefcient alpha for the fourth factor and the small number ofitems the four-factor solution was rejected in favour of three factors The second factor on the two-factorsolution was very similar to FOD while the rst factor appeared to combine some elements of the second andthird factors from the three-factor solution In fact rotating only the items on the rst factor solution to atwo-factor solution yielded factors very similar to SC and SI but with fewer items that either factor from thethree-factor solution

Separate factor analyses for the male and female samples produced almost identical three-factor structuresThe analysis was also repeated using an oblique rotation but this did not signicantly alter the orthogonalstructure There was no increase in double loads over the three which occurred in the orthogonal rotationthus conrming that the three factors were indeed independent Responses to the full item pool weresubsequently collected from an additional sample of undergraduatestudents and these were used to increasethe original sample to a total of 543 participants176 males (mean age 2096 years SD 633) and 367 females(mean age 2019 years SD 447) A scree test again indicated a three-factor structure and a maximumlikelihood conrmatory factor analysis of these data yielded a structure indistinguishable from the earliersolution Testing the t of the three-factor model yielded a chi-square value of 229915 (p lt 0001)

One of the shortcomings of the initial factor analysis was the low participantvariable ratio but therobustness of the factor structure is conrmed by the replication of the ndings with the substantially largersample The fact that the analyses extracted only approximately one third of items from the initial pool wasnot surprising in view of the scenario technique used to generate items which tends to be exhaustive anduncontaminated by experimenter bias in item selection

All three of the factors had good face validity and were internally consistent and in view of the convergentstructure across analyses and samples a three-factor solution was accepted as representing the best tCorrelations were computed between the factors for the original sample and SC was found to correlatesignicantly inversely with FOD (r(327) = 2 338 p lt 001) and signicantly positively with SI(r(327) = 416 p lt 001) The FOD and SI factors did not correlate signicantly (r(327) = 2 104)Separate correlation matrices for equal samples of 75 males and females yielded broadly similar resultsThe FOD and SI factors did correlate signicantly for males (r(73) = 2 297 p lt 01) but not for females(r(74) = 2 111) but the correlation was modest accounting for less than 10 of the common variance

The mean scores for the male and female samples were compared using independent t tests (in all casesdf = N1 + N2 2 2) There was no signicant difference in the means for males and females for FOD(t(315) = 52 ns) but the means for both SC and SI did differ signicantly between groups with femalesscoring higher than males on SC (t(315) = 306 p lt 05) and on SI (t(315) = 354 p lt 001) The meanscores for the samples and the relevant t ratios are displayed in Table 2

Results

Reliability

Internal consistency The internal consistency for all of the factors was highly satisfactorywith alpha coefcients of 879 for FOD 771 for SC and 778 for SI

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger170

Testndashretest reliability Following an inter-test interval of 10 weeks the questionnaire wassent out to 156 of the students from the University of York who could be contacted45 males and 111 females Returns were received from 134 subjects (40 males and94 females) representing 86 of the total The retest coefcients for FOD (846) and SC(732) were highly satisfactory although the coefcient for SI was somewhat more modest(609) Separate sets of retest coefcients for males and females were comparable to thoseobtained for the overall sample

Interpersonal trust emotion control coping and social support

To investigate the relationship of the ITQ to relevant measures of personality coping andsocial support the participantsrsquo scores were correlated with the following indices

(a) The rehearsal (rumination) and emotional inhibition scales from the Emotion ControlQuestionnaire (ECQ Roger amp Najarian 1989) each of which comprises 14 items ECQrehearsal measures the tendency to ruminate about emotional upset and as the nameimplies ECQ emotional inhibition assesses the tendency to inhibit the expression ofemotion(b) The detachment scale derived from the Coping Styles Questionnaire (CSQ RogerJarvis amp Najarian 1993) The 22-item scale is bipolar comprising detached andemotional coping and is keyed for higher scores to reect a more detached coping style(c) The Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ Sarason et al 1983) which is primarily ameasure of perceived emotional support comprising 27 items For each item theparticipant is asked to state the number of people (up to a maximum of nine) whoprovide them with the type of support specied and to give a summary rating of overallsatisfaction with the support perceived to be available There are thus two scores for eachsubject SSQN (the sum of the number of people listed divided by the number of items)and SSQS (the mean satisfaction score)(d) The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviours (ISSB Barrera 1981) The ISSBconsists of 40 items It provides a measure of enacted or received support and assesses theamount of support received over the past month

The overall sample of 380 included in the validation studies were divided into twogroups The rst group of 150 comprising 42 males (mean age 2069 years SD 588) and

171Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 2 Comparison of mean scores for males (N = 75) and females (N = 242) on the three-factor solution

Gender Means SD df t ratio

FactorFear of disclosure Male 3388 839 315 52 ns

Female 3468 1170

Social coping Male 2368 476 315 306Female 2561 475

Social intimacy Male 2108 302 315 354Female 2248 287

p lt 05 p lt 001

108 females (mean age 1974 years SD 302) completed the ITQ the ECQ and the CSQdetachment scale The second group of 230 participants included 107 males (mean age2006 years SD 571) and 123 females (mean age 1956 years SD 542) and theseparticipants all completed the ITQ and the ISSB A subsample of this group comprising126 participants 55 males (mean age 1987 years SD 420) and 71 females (mean age1983 years SD 626) also completed the SSQ in addition to the ITQ and ISSB

The mean scores for the ITQ scales were almost identical to those obtained for thequestionnaire construction sample reported in Table 2 with females again scoring higheron SC and SI than males The means for the remaining scales were consistent withpreviously reported data and as expected there was a trend for females to obtain lowerscores on emotional inhibition and lower scores on detached coping The correlationsbetween the three ITQ scales and the ECQ CSQ SSQ and ISSB scales are shown inTable 3 below for the total samples and for males and females separately

As had been anticipated the correlations between the ITQ factors and the emotionalinhibition scale from the ECQ were all signicant and consistent with FOD correlatingpositively and both SC and SI correlating negatively The pattern of correlations for the

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger172

Table 3 Correlations between the three ITQ factors and the ECQ CSQ detachment SSQ andISSB scales

ITQ factorsFOD SC SI

ECQ and CSQECQ E-I Males (N = 42) 277 2 434 2 190

Females (N = 108) 375 2 421 2 188Total (N = 150) 345 2 441 2 222

ECQ R Males (N = 42) 351 2 081 2 091Females (N = 108) 161 068 029Total (N = 150) 206 046 029

CSQ Det Males (N = 42) 2 557 054 2 113Females (N = 108) 2 459 068 029Total (N = 150) 2 436 048 2 124

SSQ and ISSBSSQ N Males (N = 55) 2 483 462 314

Females (N = 71) 2 200 074 095Total (N = 126) 2 345 345 255

SSQ S Males (N = 55) 2 527 326 280Females (N = 71) 2 332 014 054Total (N = 126) 2 468 328 262

ISSB Males (N = 107) 2 222 342 225Females (N = 123) 2 268 317 189Total (N = 230) 253 369 231

Note ITQ FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacyECQCSQ E-I = emotional inhibition R = rehearsal Det = detachment

overall sample was broadly similar for males and females separately although thecorrelation between FOD and ECQ rehearsal (r(148) = 206 p lt 05) for the totalsample was clearly carried by the correlation for males ECQ emotional inhibitioncorrelated higher with FOD for females (r(106) = 375 p lt 01) than for males(r(40) = 277 p lt 05) although the difference between the coefcients was notsignicant (z = 059 ns) The correlations between the ITQ and ISSB showed similarconsistencies but the correlations between the ITQ factors and the SSQ were stronger formales than for females Indeed only SSQS and FOD correlated signicantly for females(r(69) = 2 332 p lt 05) whereas all of the ITQ factors correlated signicantly withSSQN and SSQS for males

Interpersonal trust and network orientation

In addition to the emotion control and social support scales data were obtained from anindependent sample of undergraduate students who completed only the ITQ and VauxBurda amp Stewartrsquos (1986) Network Orientation Scale (NOS) a 20-item questionnairebased on a 4-point Likert scale As has been noted the network orientation construct hasbeen used to devise the more recent Network Utilization Scale (NUS Gruen et al 1994)but in view of the preliminary nature of the scale the NOS was chosen in preference forthe present study

The sample compromised 178 participants 102 females (mean age 1936 yearsSD 44) and 76 males (mean age 278 years SD 67) The NOS and ITQ were includedwith a package of unrelated scales which were sent out by mail to members of a volunteerundergraduate participant panel at the University of York Vaux (1985a) reported athree-factor structure for the NOS but the analysis was based on a small sample of 80The responses to the NOS in the present study were therefore initially subjected to factoranalysis and the scree plot suggested a unifactor or perhaps a two-factor solution ratherthan the three factors extracted by Vaux A one-factor extraction included 18 of the 20items with only items 16 and 17 failing to load above the 30 criterion and the factoraccounted for 277 of the variance However the internal consistency was extremelylow (coefcient alpha = 10) and the items were therefore rotated to a two-factorVarimax orthogonal terminal solution This yielded factors with 10 and 9 itemsrespectively with the previously omitted item 17 entering the second factor

The highest-loading items on the rst factor were 2 (lsquoFriends often have good advice togiversquo) and 14 (lsquoIt really helps when you are angry to tell a friend what has happenedrsquo) andthe two highest loadings on the second factor were 15 (lsquoSome things are too personal totalk to anyone aboutrsquo) and 18 (lsquoIf you conde in other people they take advantage ofyoursquo) The two factors clearly reect a distinction between positive (factor 1) and negativeor defensive attitudes (factor 2) about disclosure and conding but there were fourdouble-loading items of factor 1 and ve on factor 2 The number of double loadsincreased with an oblique rotation and the internal consistency remained very modest forboth factor 1 (coefcient alpha =468) and factor 2 (coefcient alpha =360)

Despite these unsatisfactory ndings the scores from the 18-item unifactor solutionwere correlated with scores from the three ITQ factors The NOS correlated signicantlywith FOD (r(176) = 398 p lt 01) and with SC (r(176) = 2 180 p lt 05) but notwith SI Slightly higher correlations between the rst factor from the NOS and FOD and

173Stress social support and fear of disclosure

between the second factor and SC conrmed the apparent correspondence between thembut in view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS this was not explored further

Interpersonal trust and health status during adaptation

As part of the larger programme of research to which this study is related additional datawere available for the sample of 126 participants who completed the ITQ the SSQ andthe ISSB The additional data for this sample included measures of health status andreturns from repeated administrations were obtained from a subsample of 102 compris-ing 44 males (mean age 1995 years SD 438) and 52 females (mean age 1919 SD 498)Health status was assessed over a period of adaptation which was dened as the 4 monthsbetween entering university as rst-year undergraduates and the middle of the secondterm of their rst academic year Previous studies have shown that this is a period ofsignicant demand for adaptation to a new social environment and that deterioration inhealth status during this time is inuenced by a variety of individual difference variables(Roger 1996) The students were contacted for the rst time immediately after entry tothe University of York and were asked to complete a health inventory entitled the HealthStatus Checklist (HSC Meadows 1989) The HSC is based on an extensive GP surveycovering 30 common illnesses and yields overall scores based on stability deteriorationor improvement across repeated administrations thus allowing for the partialling out ofinitial health status

The HSC was rst administered at the start of the study to provide a baseline andadministered again after an interval of ve months A difference score reecting relativedeterioration in health status was calculated using the initial administration as a baselineto take account of initial values The participantsrsquo scores on the ITQ the ISSB and bothsubscales of the SSQ (SSQN and SSQS) were then entered into stepwise multipleregression analyses as independent variables with deterioration in health status as thedependent variable

In view of the differential effects for gender in the correlations between the ITQ factorsand the independent variables used in the concurrent validation exercise the data formales and females were analysed separately Results for females showed that scores onFOD contributed signicantly with an adjusted R2 of 106 and a standardized beta of358 (t(1 41) = 2426 p lt 02) The remaining independent variables were excluded inthe analysis and none were included in the stepwise regression for males Combining thedata for males and females in the present study yielded similar effects to those obtainedfor females

Discussion and conclusions

The factor analysis of a preliminary item pool based on participantsrsquo perceptions of socialsupport produced a stable three-factor structure which included 48 items The factorswere labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) Allthree were internally consistent and apart from SI were also stable over time The retestreliability coefcient for SI fell below 70 but this factor may well be tapping attitudestowards social support or friendship rather than a stable predisposition to use support in aparticular way and may thus reect changes in friendship patterns over the inter-test

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger174

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

example Kobasarsquos (1979) research on lsquohardinessrsquo had suggested that having an internallocus of control may buffer individuals against the impact of stressful life eventsUnfortunately Denney amp Frisch (1981) failed to support the hypothesized moderatingeffect of locus of control on stress and when situational control is taken into accounthaving an internal locus of control has been shown to be associated with a greatersusceptibility to stress amongst individuals who experienced high levels of uncon-trollable life events (Meadows 1989) Extraversion and neuroticism have also beeninvestigated in the context of stress but the ndings have similarly been equivocal whileTotman Kiff Reed amp Craig (1980) and Broadbent Broadbent Phillpotts amp Wallace(1984) reported higher levels of susceptibility to experimentally induced colds amongstintroverts as compared to extraverts the effect was not replicated in a more carefullycontrolled study by Cohen Tyrrell amp Smith (1993) The latter authors also included ameasure of locus of control in their study and again they found no moderating effects forperceived control on outcomes

Reviewing these inconclusive ndings Roger (1995) has argued that the personalityconstructs used in earlier studies were inappropriate because they had not been developedspecically in the context of stress research Roger and his colleagues suggested thatinhibiting emotion or ruminating over emotional distress might contribute to delayedrecovery and the Emotion Control Questionnaire (ECQ Roger amp Najarian 1989 Rogeramp Nesshoever 1987) was developed to assess these tendencies The ECQ comprisessubscales for rehearsal (or emotional rumination) as well as emotional inhibition andvalidation studies of the ECQ have shown that rumination is particularly strongly relatedto impaired physiological and psychological adaptation following stress (Nieland ampRoger 1993 Roger amp Jamieson 1988 Roger amp Najarian 1998) Scores on the emotionalinhibition subscale were also implicated in these studies and Kaiser Hinton KrohneStewart amp Burton (1995) have shown independently that emotional inhibition issignicantly related to delayed muscle tension recovery following stress

In addition to personality social support has frequently been investigated as apotential moderator of the impact of stress and the benecial effects of social supporthave been reported for general health and well-being (Cobb 1976 Cohen amp Wills 1985Thoits 1985) and for facilitating adaptation and adjustment to change (Cobb 1976Sarason 1981) However it has also been suggested that high levels of social support mayhave negative consequences in mental health settings (Sandler amp Barrera 1984) and in acomparison of the effects of positive and negative interactions on health negativeinteractions were found to outweigh the benecial effects of social support (Fiore Beckeramp Coppel 1983) These conicting ndings stem in part from a lack of consensus over thedenition of social support which is often referred to as a unitary construct when in factit appears to be multidimensional broad in scope and highly heterogeneous More precisedenitions of social support based on functional categories such as emotionalsupport information support and instrumental support have been proposed (House ampKahn 1985 Turner 1981) but the different functions have been found to be highlycorrelated

In an attempt to resolve some of these issues Barrera (1981 1986) and others (forexample Gottlieb 1985 Sarason Sarason amp Pierce 1990) have proposed placingresearch on social support into three categories labelled social integration enacted orreceived support and perceived support Social integration refers to the objective

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger166

assessment of the number or density of people in an individualrsquos social network(Berkman 1985) while enacted support assesses the amount of supportive behaviourreceived over a specied period of time (Tardy 1985) However neither of these measuresprovides an assessment of the quality of the support received and it has frequently beenargued that satisfaction with supports is far more important than the number available(Barrera 1981) Measures of perceived support provide a subjective assessment ofsatisfaction as well as availability (Cohen amp Hoberman 1983 Procidano amp Heller1983 Sarason Levine Basham amp Sarason 1983) and have been found to exhibit a farstronger relationship with health than either of the other two measures (Cohen ampHoberman 1983)

Gottlieb (1985) has concluded that individuals who have a strong sense of perceivedsupport are likely to make less threat-focused appraisals of potentially stressful situationswhich results in their ability to cope more independently The emphasis on cognitiveevaluation ts well with the current literature on the relationship between stress andillness in that the appraisal of a potential stressor and of the coping resources availablewill inuence whether or not the situation is dened as stressful (Folkman Schaefer ampLazarus 1979) However the appraisal process is strongly inuenced by individualdifferences which may act as moderator variables and one question which arises iswhether perceived support is a function of objective evaluations of the quality ofsupports or whether it has more to do with personality As early as 1984 LefcourtMartin amp Saleh (1984) had shown that people with an internal locus of control derivedgreater benets from social support than externals and Sarason Sarason amp Shearin (1986)have taken the further step of suggesting that support might be regarded as a personalityvariable in its own right

A number of studies have suggested that the expression of emotion serves to reduce orattenuate physiological arousal associated with stress (Mendolia amp Kleck 1993) and thatit represents a stable individual difference (Kring Smith amp Neale 1994) These ndingshave direct implications for social support since it is in the context of support thatemotion is expressedmdashindeed one might argue that the function of social supports isto provide the opportunity for the expression of emotion As early as 1976 Tolsdorfdened what he called lsquonetwork orientationrsquo as an individualrsquos attitudes about theusefulness of others in helping to cope with problems and Vaux Burda amp Stewart (1986)used Tolsdorfrsquos ideas to develop the Network Orientation Scale (NOS) which wasdesigned specically to assess individual differences in the propensity to draw upon socialsupports

Unfortunately item selection for the NOS was based on item total correlations ratherthan factor analysis and the selection criteria were not consistent across the sampleswhich were used Internal consistency for the scale was also modest and retest reliabilitywas low (18 over a 3-week inter-test interval) The network orientation model hasrecently been adapted by Gruen Schuldberg Nelson Epstein Weiss amp Quinlan (1994)to form the Network Utilization Scale (NUS) These authors reported a signicantrelationship between scores on the new scale and depressive symptomatology but theyacknowledge that further work is needed on the scale particularly with respect to retestreliability and validation against observational data and other forms of psychopathology

The reduction in stress-related physiological arousal through the expression ofemotion implies that social support is used as a coping strategy Coping processes are

167Stress social support and fear of disclosure

typically classied as either rational or emotional but within this broad classication avariety of different strategies have been identied Folkman amp Lazarus (1985) forexample describe eight factors in their Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) but halfof them comprised fewer than ve items each In response to these and other psycho-metric shortcomings in the WCQ Endler amp Parker (1990) devised the MultidimensionalCoping Inventory (MCI) which comprises three factors task (or rational) emotional andavoidance Roger Jarvis amp Najarian (1993) expanded this model with the inclusion of anadditional lsquodetachmentrsquo factor and subsequent research by Roger Najarian amp Nash(1996) demonstrated that the detached and emotional factors combine into a singlebipolar factor which signicantly predicts worsening health status during stress

The aim of the present study was to shed further light on individual differences in thecapacity to self-disclose and express emotion in an adaptive manner in the context ofsocial support The study reports on the development of a new instrument theInterpersonal Trust Questionnaire (ITQ) The relationship of the ITQ to existing indicesof social support coping and other relevant measures of individual differences isexamined including the NOS as well as the extent to which inhibiting emotionalexpression inuences health during periods of adaptation

Method

ParticipantsTwo samples of participants were included in the study The rst sample was used for the construction andfactorial validation of the new scale and comprised 329 participants of which 242 were females (mean age2052 years SD 401) and 75 were males (mean age 2219 years SD 678) They were all undergraduatestudents drawn from a wide range of academic disciplines excluding psychology at the University of Yorkthe University of Ripon and York St John in York and the University of Humberside in Hull

The second sample of 380 was used for the validation studies and comprised 149 males (mean age 2038years SD 578) and 231 females (mean age 1965 years SD 422) All were undergraduatesat the Universityof York

Test constructionIn order to generate items for the preliminary item pool a scenario-basedquestionnairewas completed by anindependent sample of 43 undergraduates from the University of York 19 males and 24 females (mean age1898 years SD 160) The questionnaireconsisted of 10 scenarios describing potentially stressful situationsthat were intended to be of relevance to the populationin questionbased on a methodologydeveloped by thesecond author (Roger Jarvis amp Najarian 1993 Roger amp Nesshoever 1987) The participants were asked togive as much information as possible about the way in which they would respond to the situations describedTheir responses were used to generate the items for the initial pool and the scenario technique has theadvantage of providing questionnaire items which are more contemporaneous and less biased thanconventional trawls through literature and existing scales

The responses generated by the scenarios were combined with those from a review of the literature togenerate a 130-item pilot questionnaire The response format was a 4-point Likert scale ranging fromlsquostrongly agreersquo to lsquostrongly disagreersquo The questionnairewas sent out to the 329 students comprising the rstsample and their returns were subjected to principal axis factor analysisA scree test (Cattell 1966) indicateda three-factor terminal solution which was produced by Varimax orthogonal rotation Only three itemswhich loaded on more than one factor were omitted and using a criterion of 04 the three-factor solutionincluded 48 items 27 on the rst factor 12 on the second factor and 9 on the third factor The loadings areshown in Table 1 (the items in the scale appear in the Appendix)

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger168

169Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 1 Factor loadings for the three-factor solution

LoadingItem Factor 1 (FOD) Factor 2 (SC) Factor 3 (SI)

16 + 69210 + 68523 + 6839 + 623

40 + 62029 + 59812 + 58336 + 57927 + 56425 + 55519 + 55047 + 5432 + 540

43 + 5397 + 506

45 + 47734 + 47114 + 45638 + 4526 + 440

17 + 44541 2 4394 2 434

32 + 42431 + 41321 + 40628 + 40426 + 67422 + 65237 + 62211 2 59518 + 5711 + 556

15 + 54939 + 5483 + 522

46 + 4618 + 411

48 + 40733 + 62613 + 6005 + 557

42 + 54524 + 46030 + 44820 + 43935 + 42444 + 419

Note FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacy

The two highest loading items on the rst factor were 16 (lsquoI worry too much about what others think of meto conde in themrsquo) and 10 (lsquoTo discuss my problems with somebody feels good at the time but afterwards Iworry about what I have saidrsquo) and this factor was labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) The two highest loadingitems on the second factor were 26 (lsquoI like to talk problems over to get them off my chestrsquo) and 22 (lsquoWhen Ifeel upset about something I feel the need to talk to somebody about itrsquo) and this factor was labelled socialcoping (SC) Items 33 (lsquoA good friend is somebody you can be honest withrsquo) and 13 (lsquoTo be able to give andtake in a friendship is importantrsquo) loaded highest on the third factor which was labelled social intimacy (SI)

Four-factor and two-factor solutions were also examined The items on the rst three factors of the four-factor solution were virtually identical to those for the three-factor solution Only six items loaded on thefourth factor all of which referred explicitly to the familymdashfor example the highest loading was for item 55in the initial pool lsquoI feel that I can turn to my family for help whenever I need torsquo In fact this item and theitem lsquoI can conde in at least one family member of my familyrsquo both loaded below criterion on the thirdfactor of the three-factor solution (380 and 372 respectively) These items may well be salient to thestudent population used but in view of a low coefcient alpha for the fourth factor and the small number ofitems the four-factor solution was rejected in favour of three factors The second factor on the two-factorsolution was very similar to FOD while the rst factor appeared to combine some elements of the second andthird factors from the three-factor solution In fact rotating only the items on the rst factor solution to atwo-factor solution yielded factors very similar to SC and SI but with fewer items that either factor from thethree-factor solution

Separate factor analyses for the male and female samples produced almost identical three-factor structuresThe analysis was also repeated using an oblique rotation but this did not signicantly alter the orthogonalstructure There was no increase in double loads over the three which occurred in the orthogonal rotationthus conrming that the three factors were indeed independent Responses to the full item pool weresubsequently collected from an additional sample of undergraduatestudents and these were used to increasethe original sample to a total of 543 participants176 males (mean age 2096 years SD 633) and 367 females(mean age 2019 years SD 447) A scree test again indicated a three-factor structure and a maximumlikelihood conrmatory factor analysis of these data yielded a structure indistinguishable from the earliersolution Testing the t of the three-factor model yielded a chi-square value of 229915 (p lt 0001)

One of the shortcomings of the initial factor analysis was the low participantvariable ratio but therobustness of the factor structure is conrmed by the replication of the ndings with the substantially largersample The fact that the analyses extracted only approximately one third of items from the initial pool wasnot surprising in view of the scenario technique used to generate items which tends to be exhaustive anduncontaminated by experimenter bias in item selection

All three of the factors had good face validity and were internally consistent and in view of the convergentstructure across analyses and samples a three-factor solution was accepted as representing the best tCorrelations were computed between the factors for the original sample and SC was found to correlatesignicantly inversely with FOD (r(327) = 2 338 p lt 001) and signicantly positively with SI(r(327) = 416 p lt 001) The FOD and SI factors did not correlate signicantly (r(327) = 2 104)Separate correlation matrices for equal samples of 75 males and females yielded broadly similar resultsThe FOD and SI factors did correlate signicantly for males (r(73) = 2 297 p lt 01) but not for females(r(74) = 2 111) but the correlation was modest accounting for less than 10 of the common variance

The mean scores for the male and female samples were compared using independent t tests (in all casesdf = N1 + N2 2 2) There was no signicant difference in the means for males and females for FOD(t(315) = 52 ns) but the means for both SC and SI did differ signicantly between groups with femalesscoring higher than males on SC (t(315) = 306 p lt 05) and on SI (t(315) = 354 p lt 001) The meanscores for the samples and the relevant t ratios are displayed in Table 2

Results

Reliability

Internal consistency The internal consistency for all of the factors was highly satisfactorywith alpha coefcients of 879 for FOD 771 for SC and 778 for SI

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger170

Testndashretest reliability Following an inter-test interval of 10 weeks the questionnaire wassent out to 156 of the students from the University of York who could be contacted45 males and 111 females Returns were received from 134 subjects (40 males and94 females) representing 86 of the total The retest coefcients for FOD (846) and SC(732) were highly satisfactory although the coefcient for SI was somewhat more modest(609) Separate sets of retest coefcients for males and females were comparable to thoseobtained for the overall sample

Interpersonal trust emotion control coping and social support

To investigate the relationship of the ITQ to relevant measures of personality coping andsocial support the participantsrsquo scores were correlated with the following indices

(a) The rehearsal (rumination) and emotional inhibition scales from the Emotion ControlQuestionnaire (ECQ Roger amp Najarian 1989) each of which comprises 14 items ECQrehearsal measures the tendency to ruminate about emotional upset and as the nameimplies ECQ emotional inhibition assesses the tendency to inhibit the expression ofemotion(b) The detachment scale derived from the Coping Styles Questionnaire (CSQ RogerJarvis amp Najarian 1993) The 22-item scale is bipolar comprising detached andemotional coping and is keyed for higher scores to reect a more detached coping style(c) The Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ Sarason et al 1983) which is primarily ameasure of perceived emotional support comprising 27 items For each item theparticipant is asked to state the number of people (up to a maximum of nine) whoprovide them with the type of support specied and to give a summary rating of overallsatisfaction with the support perceived to be available There are thus two scores for eachsubject SSQN (the sum of the number of people listed divided by the number of items)and SSQS (the mean satisfaction score)(d) The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviours (ISSB Barrera 1981) The ISSBconsists of 40 items It provides a measure of enacted or received support and assesses theamount of support received over the past month

The overall sample of 380 included in the validation studies were divided into twogroups The rst group of 150 comprising 42 males (mean age 2069 years SD 588) and

171Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 2 Comparison of mean scores for males (N = 75) and females (N = 242) on the three-factor solution

Gender Means SD df t ratio

FactorFear of disclosure Male 3388 839 315 52 ns

Female 3468 1170

Social coping Male 2368 476 315 306Female 2561 475

Social intimacy Male 2108 302 315 354Female 2248 287

p lt 05 p lt 001

108 females (mean age 1974 years SD 302) completed the ITQ the ECQ and the CSQdetachment scale The second group of 230 participants included 107 males (mean age2006 years SD 571) and 123 females (mean age 1956 years SD 542) and theseparticipants all completed the ITQ and the ISSB A subsample of this group comprising126 participants 55 males (mean age 1987 years SD 420) and 71 females (mean age1983 years SD 626) also completed the SSQ in addition to the ITQ and ISSB

The mean scores for the ITQ scales were almost identical to those obtained for thequestionnaire construction sample reported in Table 2 with females again scoring higheron SC and SI than males The means for the remaining scales were consistent withpreviously reported data and as expected there was a trend for females to obtain lowerscores on emotional inhibition and lower scores on detached coping The correlationsbetween the three ITQ scales and the ECQ CSQ SSQ and ISSB scales are shown inTable 3 below for the total samples and for males and females separately

As had been anticipated the correlations between the ITQ factors and the emotionalinhibition scale from the ECQ were all signicant and consistent with FOD correlatingpositively and both SC and SI correlating negatively The pattern of correlations for the

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger172

Table 3 Correlations between the three ITQ factors and the ECQ CSQ detachment SSQ andISSB scales

ITQ factorsFOD SC SI

ECQ and CSQECQ E-I Males (N = 42) 277 2 434 2 190

Females (N = 108) 375 2 421 2 188Total (N = 150) 345 2 441 2 222

ECQ R Males (N = 42) 351 2 081 2 091Females (N = 108) 161 068 029Total (N = 150) 206 046 029

CSQ Det Males (N = 42) 2 557 054 2 113Females (N = 108) 2 459 068 029Total (N = 150) 2 436 048 2 124

SSQ and ISSBSSQ N Males (N = 55) 2 483 462 314

Females (N = 71) 2 200 074 095Total (N = 126) 2 345 345 255

SSQ S Males (N = 55) 2 527 326 280Females (N = 71) 2 332 014 054Total (N = 126) 2 468 328 262

ISSB Males (N = 107) 2 222 342 225Females (N = 123) 2 268 317 189Total (N = 230) 253 369 231

Note ITQ FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacyECQCSQ E-I = emotional inhibition R = rehearsal Det = detachment

overall sample was broadly similar for males and females separately although thecorrelation between FOD and ECQ rehearsal (r(148) = 206 p lt 05) for the totalsample was clearly carried by the correlation for males ECQ emotional inhibitioncorrelated higher with FOD for females (r(106) = 375 p lt 01) than for males(r(40) = 277 p lt 05) although the difference between the coefcients was notsignicant (z = 059 ns) The correlations between the ITQ and ISSB showed similarconsistencies but the correlations between the ITQ factors and the SSQ were stronger formales than for females Indeed only SSQS and FOD correlated signicantly for females(r(69) = 2 332 p lt 05) whereas all of the ITQ factors correlated signicantly withSSQN and SSQS for males

Interpersonal trust and network orientation

In addition to the emotion control and social support scales data were obtained from anindependent sample of undergraduate students who completed only the ITQ and VauxBurda amp Stewartrsquos (1986) Network Orientation Scale (NOS) a 20-item questionnairebased on a 4-point Likert scale As has been noted the network orientation construct hasbeen used to devise the more recent Network Utilization Scale (NUS Gruen et al 1994)but in view of the preliminary nature of the scale the NOS was chosen in preference forthe present study

The sample compromised 178 participants 102 females (mean age 1936 yearsSD 44) and 76 males (mean age 278 years SD 67) The NOS and ITQ were includedwith a package of unrelated scales which were sent out by mail to members of a volunteerundergraduate participant panel at the University of York Vaux (1985a) reported athree-factor structure for the NOS but the analysis was based on a small sample of 80The responses to the NOS in the present study were therefore initially subjected to factoranalysis and the scree plot suggested a unifactor or perhaps a two-factor solution ratherthan the three factors extracted by Vaux A one-factor extraction included 18 of the 20items with only items 16 and 17 failing to load above the 30 criterion and the factoraccounted for 277 of the variance However the internal consistency was extremelylow (coefcient alpha = 10) and the items were therefore rotated to a two-factorVarimax orthogonal terminal solution This yielded factors with 10 and 9 itemsrespectively with the previously omitted item 17 entering the second factor

The highest-loading items on the rst factor were 2 (lsquoFriends often have good advice togiversquo) and 14 (lsquoIt really helps when you are angry to tell a friend what has happenedrsquo) andthe two highest loadings on the second factor were 15 (lsquoSome things are too personal totalk to anyone aboutrsquo) and 18 (lsquoIf you conde in other people they take advantage ofyoursquo) The two factors clearly reect a distinction between positive (factor 1) and negativeor defensive attitudes (factor 2) about disclosure and conding but there were fourdouble-loading items of factor 1 and ve on factor 2 The number of double loadsincreased with an oblique rotation and the internal consistency remained very modest forboth factor 1 (coefcient alpha =468) and factor 2 (coefcient alpha =360)

Despite these unsatisfactory ndings the scores from the 18-item unifactor solutionwere correlated with scores from the three ITQ factors The NOS correlated signicantlywith FOD (r(176) = 398 p lt 01) and with SC (r(176) = 2 180 p lt 05) but notwith SI Slightly higher correlations between the rst factor from the NOS and FOD and

173Stress social support and fear of disclosure

between the second factor and SC conrmed the apparent correspondence between thembut in view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS this was not explored further

Interpersonal trust and health status during adaptation

As part of the larger programme of research to which this study is related additional datawere available for the sample of 126 participants who completed the ITQ the SSQ andthe ISSB The additional data for this sample included measures of health status andreturns from repeated administrations were obtained from a subsample of 102 compris-ing 44 males (mean age 1995 years SD 438) and 52 females (mean age 1919 SD 498)Health status was assessed over a period of adaptation which was dened as the 4 monthsbetween entering university as rst-year undergraduates and the middle of the secondterm of their rst academic year Previous studies have shown that this is a period ofsignicant demand for adaptation to a new social environment and that deterioration inhealth status during this time is inuenced by a variety of individual difference variables(Roger 1996) The students were contacted for the rst time immediately after entry tothe University of York and were asked to complete a health inventory entitled the HealthStatus Checklist (HSC Meadows 1989) The HSC is based on an extensive GP surveycovering 30 common illnesses and yields overall scores based on stability deteriorationor improvement across repeated administrations thus allowing for the partialling out ofinitial health status

The HSC was rst administered at the start of the study to provide a baseline andadministered again after an interval of ve months A difference score reecting relativedeterioration in health status was calculated using the initial administration as a baselineto take account of initial values The participantsrsquo scores on the ITQ the ISSB and bothsubscales of the SSQ (SSQN and SSQS) were then entered into stepwise multipleregression analyses as independent variables with deterioration in health status as thedependent variable

In view of the differential effects for gender in the correlations between the ITQ factorsand the independent variables used in the concurrent validation exercise the data formales and females were analysed separately Results for females showed that scores onFOD contributed signicantly with an adjusted R2 of 106 and a standardized beta of358 (t(1 41) = 2426 p lt 02) The remaining independent variables were excluded inthe analysis and none were included in the stepwise regression for males Combining thedata for males and females in the present study yielded similar effects to those obtainedfor females

Discussion and conclusions

The factor analysis of a preliminary item pool based on participantsrsquo perceptions of socialsupport produced a stable three-factor structure which included 48 items The factorswere labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) Allthree were internally consistent and apart from SI were also stable over time The retestreliability coefcient for SI fell below 70 but this factor may well be tapping attitudestowards social support or friendship rather than a stable predisposition to use support in aparticular way and may thus reect changes in friendship patterns over the inter-test

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger174

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

assessment of the number or density of people in an individualrsquos social network(Berkman 1985) while enacted support assesses the amount of supportive behaviourreceived over a specied period of time (Tardy 1985) However neither of these measuresprovides an assessment of the quality of the support received and it has frequently beenargued that satisfaction with supports is far more important than the number available(Barrera 1981) Measures of perceived support provide a subjective assessment ofsatisfaction as well as availability (Cohen amp Hoberman 1983 Procidano amp Heller1983 Sarason Levine Basham amp Sarason 1983) and have been found to exhibit a farstronger relationship with health than either of the other two measures (Cohen ampHoberman 1983)

Gottlieb (1985) has concluded that individuals who have a strong sense of perceivedsupport are likely to make less threat-focused appraisals of potentially stressful situationswhich results in their ability to cope more independently The emphasis on cognitiveevaluation ts well with the current literature on the relationship between stress andillness in that the appraisal of a potential stressor and of the coping resources availablewill inuence whether or not the situation is dened as stressful (Folkman Schaefer ampLazarus 1979) However the appraisal process is strongly inuenced by individualdifferences which may act as moderator variables and one question which arises iswhether perceived support is a function of objective evaluations of the quality ofsupports or whether it has more to do with personality As early as 1984 LefcourtMartin amp Saleh (1984) had shown that people with an internal locus of control derivedgreater benets from social support than externals and Sarason Sarason amp Shearin (1986)have taken the further step of suggesting that support might be regarded as a personalityvariable in its own right

A number of studies have suggested that the expression of emotion serves to reduce orattenuate physiological arousal associated with stress (Mendolia amp Kleck 1993) and thatit represents a stable individual difference (Kring Smith amp Neale 1994) These ndingshave direct implications for social support since it is in the context of support thatemotion is expressedmdashindeed one might argue that the function of social supports isto provide the opportunity for the expression of emotion As early as 1976 Tolsdorfdened what he called lsquonetwork orientationrsquo as an individualrsquos attitudes about theusefulness of others in helping to cope with problems and Vaux Burda amp Stewart (1986)used Tolsdorfrsquos ideas to develop the Network Orientation Scale (NOS) which wasdesigned specically to assess individual differences in the propensity to draw upon socialsupports

Unfortunately item selection for the NOS was based on item total correlations ratherthan factor analysis and the selection criteria were not consistent across the sampleswhich were used Internal consistency for the scale was also modest and retest reliabilitywas low (18 over a 3-week inter-test interval) The network orientation model hasrecently been adapted by Gruen Schuldberg Nelson Epstein Weiss amp Quinlan (1994)to form the Network Utilization Scale (NUS) These authors reported a signicantrelationship between scores on the new scale and depressive symptomatology but theyacknowledge that further work is needed on the scale particularly with respect to retestreliability and validation against observational data and other forms of psychopathology

The reduction in stress-related physiological arousal through the expression ofemotion implies that social support is used as a coping strategy Coping processes are

167Stress social support and fear of disclosure

typically classied as either rational or emotional but within this broad classication avariety of different strategies have been identied Folkman amp Lazarus (1985) forexample describe eight factors in their Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) but halfof them comprised fewer than ve items each In response to these and other psycho-metric shortcomings in the WCQ Endler amp Parker (1990) devised the MultidimensionalCoping Inventory (MCI) which comprises three factors task (or rational) emotional andavoidance Roger Jarvis amp Najarian (1993) expanded this model with the inclusion of anadditional lsquodetachmentrsquo factor and subsequent research by Roger Najarian amp Nash(1996) demonstrated that the detached and emotional factors combine into a singlebipolar factor which signicantly predicts worsening health status during stress

The aim of the present study was to shed further light on individual differences in thecapacity to self-disclose and express emotion in an adaptive manner in the context ofsocial support The study reports on the development of a new instrument theInterpersonal Trust Questionnaire (ITQ) The relationship of the ITQ to existing indicesof social support coping and other relevant measures of individual differences isexamined including the NOS as well as the extent to which inhibiting emotionalexpression inuences health during periods of adaptation

Method

ParticipantsTwo samples of participants were included in the study The rst sample was used for the construction andfactorial validation of the new scale and comprised 329 participants of which 242 were females (mean age2052 years SD 401) and 75 were males (mean age 2219 years SD 678) They were all undergraduatestudents drawn from a wide range of academic disciplines excluding psychology at the University of Yorkthe University of Ripon and York St John in York and the University of Humberside in Hull

The second sample of 380 was used for the validation studies and comprised 149 males (mean age 2038years SD 578) and 231 females (mean age 1965 years SD 422) All were undergraduatesat the Universityof York

Test constructionIn order to generate items for the preliminary item pool a scenario-basedquestionnairewas completed by anindependent sample of 43 undergraduates from the University of York 19 males and 24 females (mean age1898 years SD 160) The questionnaireconsisted of 10 scenarios describing potentially stressful situationsthat were intended to be of relevance to the populationin questionbased on a methodologydeveloped by thesecond author (Roger Jarvis amp Najarian 1993 Roger amp Nesshoever 1987) The participants were asked togive as much information as possible about the way in which they would respond to the situations describedTheir responses were used to generate the items for the initial pool and the scenario technique has theadvantage of providing questionnaire items which are more contemporaneous and less biased thanconventional trawls through literature and existing scales

The responses generated by the scenarios were combined with those from a review of the literature togenerate a 130-item pilot questionnaire The response format was a 4-point Likert scale ranging fromlsquostrongly agreersquo to lsquostrongly disagreersquo The questionnairewas sent out to the 329 students comprising the rstsample and their returns were subjected to principal axis factor analysisA scree test (Cattell 1966) indicateda three-factor terminal solution which was produced by Varimax orthogonal rotation Only three itemswhich loaded on more than one factor were omitted and using a criterion of 04 the three-factor solutionincluded 48 items 27 on the rst factor 12 on the second factor and 9 on the third factor The loadings areshown in Table 1 (the items in the scale appear in the Appendix)

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger168

169Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 1 Factor loadings for the three-factor solution

LoadingItem Factor 1 (FOD) Factor 2 (SC) Factor 3 (SI)

16 + 69210 + 68523 + 6839 + 623

40 + 62029 + 59812 + 58336 + 57927 + 56425 + 55519 + 55047 + 5432 + 540

43 + 5397 + 506

45 + 47734 + 47114 + 45638 + 4526 + 440

17 + 44541 2 4394 2 434

32 + 42431 + 41321 + 40628 + 40426 + 67422 + 65237 + 62211 2 59518 + 5711 + 556

15 + 54939 + 5483 + 522

46 + 4618 + 411

48 + 40733 + 62613 + 6005 + 557

42 + 54524 + 46030 + 44820 + 43935 + 42444 + 419

Note FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacy

The two highest loading items on the rst factor were 16 (lsquoI worry too much about what others think of meto conde in themrsquo) and 10 (lsquoTo discuss my problems with somebody feels good at the time but afterwards Iworry about what I have saidrsquo) and this factor was labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) The two highest loadingitems on the second factor were 26 (lsquoI like to talk problems over to get them off my chestrsquo) and 22 (lsquoWhen Ifeel upset about something I feel the need to talk to somebody about itrsquo) and this factor was labelled socialcoping (SC) Items 33 (lsquoA good friend is somebody you can be honest withrsquo) and 13 (lsquoTo be able to give andtake in a friendship is importantrsquo) loaded highest on the third factor which was labelled social intimacy (SI)

Four-factor and two-factor solutions were also examined The items on the rst three factors of the four-factor solution were virtually identical to those for the three-factor solution Only six items loaded on thefourth factor all of which referred explicitly to the familymdashfor example the highest loading was for item 55in the initial pool lsquoI feel that I can turn to my family for help whenever I need torsquo In fact this item and theitem lsquoI can conde in at least one family member of my familyrsquo both loaded below criterion on the thirdfactor of the three-factor solution (380 and 372 respectively) These items may well be salient to thestudent population used but in view of a low coefcient alpha for the fourth factor and the small number ofitems the four-factor solution was rejected in favour of three factors The second factor on the two-factorsolution was very similar to FOD while the rst factor appeared to combine some elements of the second andthird factors from the three-factor solution In fact rotating only the items on the rst factor solution to atwo-factor solution yielded factors very similar to SC and SI but with fewer items that either factor from thethree-factor solution

Separate factor analyses for the male and female samples produced almost identical three-factor structuresThe analysis was also repeated using an oblique rotation but this did not signicantly alter the orthogonalstructure There was no increase in double loads over the three which occurred in the orthogonal rotationthus conrming that the three factors were indeed independent Responses to the full item pool weresubsequently collected from an additional sample of undergraduatestudents and these were used to increasethe original sample to a total of 543 participants176 males (mean age 2096 years SD 633) and 367 females(mean age 2019 years SD 447) A scree test again indicated a three-factor structure and a maximumlikelihood conrmatory factor analysis of these data yielded a structure indistinguishable from the earliersolution Testing the t of the three-factor model yielded a chi-square value of 229915 (p lt 0001)

One of the shortcomings of the initial factor analysis was the low participantvariable ratio but therobustness of the factor structure is conrmed by the replication of the ndings with the substantially largersample The fact that the analyses extracted only approximately one third of items from the initial pool wasnot surprising in view of the scenario technique used to generate items which tends to be exhaustive anduncontaminated by experimenter bias in item selection

All three of the factors had good face validity and were internally consistent and in view of the convergentstructure across analyses and samples a three-factor solution was accepted as representing the best tCorrelations were computed between the factors for the original sample and SC was found to correlatesignicantly inversely with FOD (r(327) = 2 338 p lt 001) and signicantly positively with SI(r(327) = 416 p lt 001) The FOD and SI factors did not correlate signicantly (r(327) = 2 104)Separate correlation matrices for equal samples of 75 males and females yielded broadly similar resultsThe FOD and SI factors did correlate signicantly for males (r(73) = 2 297 p lt 01) but not for females(r(74) = 2 111) but the correlation was modest accounting for less than 10 of the common variance

The mean scores for the male and female samples were compared using independent t tests (in all casesdf = N1 + N2 2 2) There was no signicant difference in the means for males and females for FOD(t(315) = 52 ns) but the means for both SC and SI did differ signicantly between groups with femalesscoring higher than males on SC (t(315) = 306 p lt 05) and on SI (t(315) = 354 p lt 001) The meanscores for the samples and the relevant t ratios are displayed in Table 2

Results

Reliability

Internal consistency The internal consistency for all of the factors was highly satisfactorywith alpha coefcients of 879 for FOD 771 for SC and 778 for SI

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger170

Testndashretest reliability Following an inter-test interval of 10 weeks the questionnaire wassent out to 156 of the students from the University of York who could be contacted45 males and 111 females Returns were received from 134 subjects (40 males and94 females) representing 86 of the total The retest coefcients for FOD (846) and SC(732) were highly satisfactory although the coefcient for SI was somewhat more modest(609) Separate sets of retest coefcients for males and females were comparable to thoseobtained for the overall sample

Interpersonal trust emotion control coping and social support

To investigate the relationship of the ITQ to relevant measures of personality coping andsocial support the participantsrsquo scores were correlated with the following indices

(a) The rehearsal (rumination) and emotional inhibition scales from the Emotion ControlQuestionnaire (ECQ Roger amp Najarian 1989) each of which comprises 14 items ECQrehearsal measures the tendency to ruminate about emotional upset and as the nameimplies ECQ emotional inhibition assesses the tendency to inhibit the expression ofemotion(b) The detachment scale derived from the Coping Styles Questionnaire (CSQ RogerJarvis amp Najarian 1993) The 22-item scale is bipolar comprising detached andemotional coping and is keyed for higher scores to reect a more detached coping style(c) The Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ Sarason et al 1983) which is primarily ameasure of perceived emotional support comprising 27 items For each item theparticipant is asked to state the number of people (up to a maximum of nine) whoprovide them with the type of support specied and to give a summary rating of overallsatisfaction with the support perceived to be available There are thus two scores for eachsubject SSQN (the sum of the number of people listed divided by the number of items)and SSQS (the mean satisfaction score)(d) The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviours (ISSB Barrera 1981) The ISSBconsists of 40 items It provides a measure of enacted or received support and assesses theamount of support received over the past month

The overall sample of 380 included in the validation studies were divided into twogroups The rst group of 150 comprising 42 males (mean age 2069 years SD 588) and

171Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 2 Comparison of mean scores for males (N = 75) and females (N = 242) on the three-factor solution

Gender Means SD df t ratio

FactorFear of disclosure Male 3388 839 315 52 ns

Female 3468 1170

Social coping Male 2368 476 315 306Female 2561 475

Social intimacy Male 2108 302 315 354Female 2248 287

p lt 05 p lt 001

108 females (mean age 1974 years SD 302) completed the ITQ the ECQ and the CSQdetachment scale The second group of 230 participants included 107 males (mean age2006 years SD 571) and 123 females (mean age 1956 years SD 542) and theseparticipants all completed the ITQ and the ISSB A subsample of this group comprising126 participants 55 males (mean age 1987 years SD 420) and 71 females (mean age1983 years SD 626) also completed the SSQ in addition to the ITQ and ISSB

The mean scores for the ITQ scales were almost identical to those obtained for thequestionnaire construction sample reported in Table 2 with females again scoring higheron SC and SI than males The means for the remaining scales were consistent withpreviously reported data and as expected there was a trend for females to obtain lowerscores on emotional inhibition and lower scores on detached coping The correlationsbetween the three ITQ scales and the ECQ CSQ SSQ and ISSB scales are shown inTable 3 below for the total samples and for males and females separately

As had been anticipated the correlations between the ITQ factors and the emotionalinhibition scale from the ECQ were all signicant and consistent with FOD correlatingpositively and both SC and SI correlating negatively The pattern of correlations for the

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger172

Table 3 Correlations between the three ITQ factors and the ECQ CSQ detachment SSQ andISSB scales

ITQ factorsFOD SC SI

ECQ and CSQECQ E-I Males (N = 42) 277 2 434 2 190

Females (N = 108) 375 2 421 2 188Total (N = 150) 345 2 441 2 222

ECQ R Males (N = 42) 351 2 081 2 091Females (N = 108) 161 068 029Total (N = 150) 206 046 029

CSQ Det Males (N = 42) 2 557 054 2 113Females (N = 108) 2 459 068 029Total (N = 150) 2 436 048 2 124

SSQ and ISSBSSQ N Males (N = 55) 2 483 462 314

Females (N = 71) 2 200 074 095Total (N = 126) 2 345 345 255

SSQ S Males (N = 55) 2 527 326 280Females (N = 71) 2 332 014 054Total (N = 126) 2 468 328 262

ISSB Males (N = 107) 2 222 342 225Females (N = 123) 2 268 317 189Total (N = 230) 253 369 231

Note ITQ FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacyECQCSQ E-I = emotional inhibition R = rehearsal Det = detachment

overall sample was broadly similar for males and females separately although thecorrelation between FOD and ECQ rehearsal (r(148) = 206 p lt 05) for the totalsample was clearly carried by the correlation for males ECQ emotional inhibitioncorrelated higher with FOD for females (r(106) = 375 p lt 01) than for males(r(40) = 277 p lt 05) although the difference between the coefcients was notsignicant (z = 059 ns) The correlations between the ITQ and ISSB showed similarconsistencies but the correlations between the ITQ factors and the SSQ were stronger formales than for females Indeed only SSQS and FOD correlated signicantly for females(r(69) = 2 332 p lt 05) whereas all of the ITQ factors correlated signicantly withSSQN and SSQS for males

Interpersonal trust and network orientation

In addition to the emotion control and social support scales data were obtained from anindependent sample of undergraduate students who completed only the ITQ and VauxBurda amp Stewartrsquos (1986) Network Orientation Scale (NOS) a 20-item questionnairebased on a 4-point Likert scale As has been noted the network orientation construct hasbeen used to devise the more recent Network Utilization Scale (NUS Gruen et al 1994)but in view of the preliminary nature of the scale the NOS was chosen in preference forthe present study

The sample compromised 178 participants 102 females (mean age 1936 yearsSD 44) and 76 males (mean age 278 years SD 67) The NOS and ITQ were includedwith a package of unrelated scales which were sent out by mail to members of a volunteerundergraduate participant panel at the University of York Vaux (1985a) reported athree-factor structure for the NOS but the analysis was based on a small sample of 80The responses to the NOS in the present study were therefore initially subjected to factoranalysis and the scree plot suggested a unifactor or perhaps a two-factor solution ratherthan the three factors extracted by Vaux A one-factor extraction included 18 of the 20items with only items 16 and 17 failing to load above the 30 criterion and the factoraccounted for 277 of the variance However the internal consistency was extremelylow (coefcient alpha = 10) and the items were therefore rotated to a two-factorVarimax orthogonal terminal solution This yielded factors with 10 and 9 itemsrespectively with the previously omitted item 17 entering the second factor

The highest-loading items on the rst factor were 2 (lsquoFriends often have good advice togiversquo) and 14 (lsquoIt really helps when you are angry to tell a friend what has happenedrsquo) andthe two highest loadings on the second factor were 15 (lsquoSome things are too personal totalk to anyone aboutrsquo) and 18 (lsquoIf you conde in other people they take advantage ofyoursquo) The two factors clearly reect a distinction between positive (factor 1) and negativeor defensive attitudes (factor 2) about disclosure and conding but there were fourdouble-loading items of factor 1 and ve on factor 2 The number of double loadsincreased with an oblique rotation and the internal consistency remained very modest forboth factor 1 (coefcient alpha =468) and factor 2 (coefcient alpha =360)

Despite these unsatisfactory ndings the scores from the 18-item unifactor solutionwere correlated with scores from the three ITQ factors The NOS correlated signicantlywith FOD (r(176) = 398 p lt 01) and with SC (r(176) = 2 180 p lt 05) but notwith SI Slightly higher correlations between the rst factor from the NOS and FOD and

173Stress social support and fear of disclosure

between the second factor and SC conrmed the apparent correspondence between thembut in view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS this was not explored further

Interpersonal trust and health status during adaptation

As part of the larger programme of research to which this study is related additional datawere available for the sample of 126 participants who completed the ITQ the SSQ andthe ISSB The additional data for this sample included measures of health status andreturns from repeated administrations were obtained from a subsample of 102 compris-ing 44 males (mean age 1995 years SD 438) and 52 females (mean age 1919 SD 498)Health status was assessed over a period of adaptation which was dened as the 4 monthsbetween entering university as rst-year undergraduates and the middle of the secondterm of their rst academic year Previous studies have shown that this is a period ofsignicant demand for adaptation to a new social environment and that deterioration inhealth status during this time is inuenced by a variety of individual difference variables(Roger 1996) The students were contacted for the rst time immediately after entry tothe University of York and were asked to complete a health inventory entitled the HealthStatus Checklist (HSC Meadows 1989) The HSC is based on an extensive GP surveycovering 30 common illnesses and yields overall scores based on stability deteriorationor improvement across repeated administrations thus allowing for the partialling out ofinitial health status

The HSC was rst administered at the start of the study to provide a baseline andadministered again after an interval of ve months A difference score reecting relativedeterioration in health status was calculated using the initial administration as a baselineto take account of initial values The participantsrsquo scores on the ITQ the ISSB and bothsubscales of the SSQ (SSQN and SSQS) were then entered into stepwise multipleregression analyses as independent variables with deterioration in health status as thedependent variable

In view of the differential effects for gender in the correlations between the ITQ factorsand the independent variables used in the concurrent validation exercise the data formales and females were analysed separately Results for females showed that scores onFOD contributed signicantly with an adjusted R2 of 106 and a standardized beta of358 (t(1 41) = 2426 p lt 02) The remaining independent variables were excluded inthe analysis and none were included in the stepwise regression for males Combining thedata for males and females in the present study yielded similar effects to those obtainedfor females

Discussion and conclusions

The factor analysis of a preliminary item pool based on participantsrsquo perceptions of socialsupport produced a stable three-factor structure which included 48 items The factorswere labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) Allthree were internally consistent and apart from SI were also stable over time The retestreliability coefcient for SI fell below 70 but this factor may well be tapping attitudestowards social support or friendship rather than a stable predisposition to use support in aparticular way and may thus reect changes in friendship patterns over the inter-test

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger174

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

typically classied as either rational or emotional but within this broad classication avariety of different strategies have been identied Folkman amp Lazarus (1985) forexample describe eight factors in their Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) but halfof them comprised fewer than ve items each In response to these and other psycho-metric shortcomings in the WCQ Endler amp Parker (1990) devised the MultidimensionalCoping Inventory (MCI) which comprises three factors task (or rational) emotional andavoidance Roger Jarvis amp Najarian (1993) expanded this model with the inclusion of anadditional lsquodetachmentrsquo factor and subsequent research by Roger Najarian amp Nash(1996) demonstrated that the detached and emotional factors combine into a singlebipolar factor which signicantly predicts worsening health status during stress

The aim of the present study was to shed further light on individual differences in thecapacity to self-disclose and express emotion in an adaptive manner in the context ofsocial support The study reports on the development of a new instrument theInterpersonal Trust Questionnaire (ITQ) The relationship of the ITQ to existing indicesof social support coping and other relevant measures of individual differences isexamined including the NOS as well as the extent to which inhibiting emotionalexpression inuences health during periods of adaptation

Method

ParticipantsTwo samples of participants were included in the study The rst sample was used for the construction andfactorial validation of the new scale and comprised 329 participants of which 242 were females (mean age2052 years SD 401) and 75 were males (mean age 2219 years SD 678) They were all undergraduatestudents drawn from a wide range of academic disciplines excluding psychology at the University of Yorkthe University of Ripon and York St John in York and the University of Humberside in Hull

The second sample of 380 was used for the validation studies and comprised 149 males (mean age 2038years SD 578) and 231 females (mean age 1965 years SD 422) All were undergraduatesat the Universityof York

Test constructionIn order to generate items for the preliminary item pool a scenario-basedquestionnairewas completed by anindependent sample of 43 undergraduates from the University of York 19 males and 24 females (mean age1898 years SD 160) The questionnaireconsisted of 10 scenarios describing potentially stressful situationsthat were intended to be of relevance to the populationin questionbased on a methodologydeveloped by thesecond author (Roger Jarvis amp Najarian 1993 Roger amp Nesshoever 1987) The participants were asked togive as much information as possible about the way in which they would respond to the situations describedTheir responses were used to generate the items for the initial pool and the scenario technique has theadvantage of providing questionnaire items which are more contemporaneous and less biased thanconventional trawls through literature and existing scales

The responses generated by the scenarios were combined with those from a review of the literature togenerate a 130-item pilot questionnaire The response format was a 4-point Likert scale ranging fromlsquostrongly agreersquo to lsquostrongly disagreersquo The questionnairewas sent out to the 329 students comprising the rstsample and their returns were subjected to principal axis factor analysisA scree test (Cattell 1966) indicateda three-factor terminal solution which was produced by Varimax orthogonal rotation Only three itemswhich loaded on more than one factor were omitted and using a criterion of 04 the three-factor solutionincluded 48 items 27 on the rst factor 12 on the second factor and 9 on the third factor The loadings areshown in Table 1 (the items in the scale appear in the Appendix)

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger168

169Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 1 Factor loadings for the three-factor solution

LoadingItem Factor 1 (FOD) Factor 2 (SC) Factor 3 (SI)

16 + 69210 + 68523 + 6839 + 623

40 + 62029 + 59812 + 58336 + 57927 + 56425 + 55519 + 55047 + 5432 + 540

43 + 5397 + 506

45 + 47734 + 47114 + 45638 + 4526 + 440

17 + 44541 2 4394 2 434

32 + 42431 + 41321 + 40628 + 40426 + 67422 + 65237 + 62211 2 59518 + 5711 + 556

15 + 54939 + 5483 + 522

46 + 4618 + 411

48 + 40733 + 62613 + 6005 + 557

42 + 54524 + 46030 + 44820 + 43935 + 42444 + 419

Note FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacy

The two highest loading items on the rst factor were 16 (lsquoI worry too much about what others think of meto conde in themrsquo) and 10 (lsquoTo discuss my problems with somebody feels good at the time but afterwards Iworry about what I have saidrsquo) and this factor was labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) The two highest loadingitems on the second factor were 26 (lsquoI like to talk problems over to get them off my chestrsquo) and 22 (lsquoWhen Ifeel upset about something I feel the need to talk to somebody about itrsquo) and this factor was labelled socialcoping (SC) Items 33 (lsquoA good friend is somebody you can be honest withrsquo) and 13 (lsquoTo be able to give andtake in a friendship is importantrsquo) loaded highest on the third factor which was labelled social intimacy (SI)

Four-factor and two-factor solutions were also examined The items on the rst three factors of the four-factor solution were virtually identical to those for the three-factor solution Only six items loaded on thefourth factor all of which referred explicitly to the familymdashfor example the highest loading was for item 55in the initial pool lsquoI feel that I can turn to my family for help whenever I need torsquo In fact this item and theitem lsquoI can conde in at least one family member of my familyrsquo both loaded below criterion on the thirdfactor of the three-factor solution (380 and 372 respectively) These items may well be salient to thestudent population used but in view of a low coefcient alpha for the fourth factor and the small number ofitems the four-factor solution was rejected in favour of three factors The second factor on the two-factorsolution was very similar to FOD while the rst factor appeared to combine some elements of the second andthird factors from the three-factor solution In fact rotating only the items on the rst factor solution to atwo-factor solution yielded factors very similar to SC and SI but with fewer items that either factor from thethree-factor solution

Separate factor analyses for the male and female samples produced almost identical three-factor structuresThe analysis was also repeated using an oblique rotation but this did not signicantly alter the orthogonalstructure There was no increase in double loads over the three which occurred in the orthogonal rotationthus conrming that the three factors were indeed independent Responses to the full item pool weresubsequently collected from an additional sample of undergraduatestudents and these were used to increasethe original sample to a total of 543 participants176 males (mean age 2096 years SD 633) and 367 females(mean age 2019 years SD 447) A scree test again indicated a three-factor structure and a maximumlikelihood conrmatory factor analysis of these data yielded a structure indistinguishable from the earliersolution Testing the t of the three-factor model yielded a chi-square value of 229915 (p lt 0001)

One of the shortcomings of the initial factor analysis was the low participantvariable ratio but therobustness of the factor structure is conrmed by the replication of the ndings with the substantially largersample The fact that the analyses extracted only approximately one third of items from the initial pool wasnot surprising in view of the scenario technique used to generate items which tends to be exhaustive anduncontaminated by experimenter bias in item selection

All three of the factors had good face validity and were internally consistent and in view of the convergentstructure across analyses and samples a three-factor solution was accepted as representing the best tCorrelations were computed between the factors for the original sample and SC was found to correlatesignicantly inversely with FOD (r(327) = 2 338 p lt 001) and signicantly positively with SI(r(327) = 416 p lt 001) The FOD and SI factors did not correlate signicantly (r(327) = 2 104)Separate correlation matrices for equal samples of 75 males and females yielded broadly similar resultsThe FOD and SI factors did correlate signicantly for males (r(73) = 2 297 p lt 01) but not for females(r(74) = 2 111) but the correlation was modest accounting for less than 10 of the common variance

The mean scores for the male and female samples were compared using independent t tests (in all casesdf = N1 + N2 2 2) There was no signicant difference in the means for males and females for FOD(t(315) = 52 ns) but the means for both SC and SI did differ signicantly between groups with femalesscoring higher than males on SC (t(315) = 306 p lt 05) and on SI (t(315) = 354 p lt 001) The meanscores for the samples and the relevant t ratios are displayed in Table 2

Results

Reliability

Internal consistency The internal consistency for all of the factors was highly satisfactorywith alpha coefcients of 879 for FOD 771 for SC and 778 for SI

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger170

Testndashretest reliability Following an inter-test interval of 10 weeks the questionnaire wassent out to 156 of the students from the University of York who could be contacted45 males and 111 females Returns were received from 134 subjects (40 males and94 females) representing 86 of the total The retest coefcients for FOD (846) and SC(732) were highly satisfactory although the coefcient for SI was somewhat more modest(609) Separate sets of retest coefcients for males and females were comparable to thoseobtained for the overall sample

Interpersonal trust emotion control coping and social support

To investigate the relationship of the ITQ to relevant measures of personality coping andsocial support the participantsrsquo scores were correlated with the following indices

(a) The rehearsal (rumination) and emotional inhibition scales from the Emotion ControlQuestionnaire (ECQ Roger amp Najarian 1989) each of which comprises 14 items ECQrehearsal measures the tendency to ruminate about emotional upset and as the nameimplies ECQ emotional inhibition assesses the tendency to inhibit the expression ofemotion(b) The detachment scale derived from the Coping Styles Questionnaire (CSQ RogerJarvis amp Najarian 1993) The 22-item scale is bipolar comprising detached andemotional coping and is keyed for higher scores to reect a more detached coping style(c) The Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ Sarason et al 1983) which is primarily ameasure of perceived emotional support comprising 27 items For each item theparticipant is asked to state the number of people (up to a maximum of nine) whoprovide them with the type of support specied and to give a summary rating of overallsatisfaction with the support perceived to be available There are thus two scores for eachsubject SSQN (the sum of the number of people listed divided by the number of items)and SSQS (the mean satisfaction score)(d) The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviours (ISSB Barrera 1981) The ISSBconsists of 40 items It provides a measure of enacted or received support and assesses theamount of support received over the past month

The overall sample of 380 included in the validation studies were divided into twogroups The rst group of 150 comprising 42 males (mean age 2069 years SD 588) and

171Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 2 Comparison of mean scores for males (N = 75) and females (N = 242) on the three-factor solution

Gender Means SD df t ratio

FactorFear of disclosure Male 3388 839 315 52 ns

Female 3468 1170

Social coping Male 2368 476 315 306Female 2561 475

Social intimacy Male 2108 302 315 354Female 2248 287

p lt 05 p lt 001

108 females (mean age 1974 years SD 302) completed the ITQ the ECQ and the CSQdetachment scale The second group of 230 participants included 107 males (mean age2006 years SD 571) and 123 females (mean age 1956 years SD 542) and theseparticipants all completed the ITQ and the ISSB A subsample of this group comprising126 participants 55 males (mean age 1987 years SD 420) and 71 females (mean age1983 years SD 626) also completed the SSQ in addition to the ITQ and ISSB

The mean scores for the ITQ scales were almost identical to those obtained for thequestionnaire construction sample reported in Table 2 with females again scoring higheron SC and SI than males The means for the remaining scales were consistent withpreviously reported data and as expected there was a trend for females to obtain lowerscores on emotional inhibition and lower scores on detached coping The correlationsbetween the three ITQ scales and the ECQ CSQ SSQ and ISSB scales are shown inTable 3 below for the total samples and for males and females separately

As had been anticipated the correlations between the ITQ factors and the emotionalinhibition scale from the ECQ were all signicant and consistent with FOD correlatingpositively and both SC and SI correlating negatively The pattern of correlations for the

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger172

Table 3 Correlations between the three ITQ factors and the ECQ CSQ detachment SSQ andISSB scales

ITQ factorsFOD SC SI

ECQ and CSQECQ E-I Males (N = 42) 277 2 434 2 190

Females (N = 108) 375 2 421 2 188Total (N = 150) 345 2 441 2 222

ECQ R Males (N = 42) 351 2 081 2 091Females (N = 108) 161 068 029Total (N = 150) 206 046 029

CSQ Det Males (N = 42) 2 557 054 2 113Females (N = 108) 2 459 068 029Total (N = 150) 2 436 048 2 124

SSQ and ISSBSSQ N Males (N = 55) 2 483 462 314

Females (N = 71) 2 200 074 095Total (N = 126) 2 345 345 255

SSQ S Males (N = 55) 2 527 326 280Females (N = 71) 2 332 014 054Total (N = 126) 2 468 328 262

ISSB Males (N = 107) 2 222 342 225Females (N = 123) 2 268 317 189Total (N = 230) 253 369 231

Note ITQ FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacyECQCSQ E-I = emotional inhibition R = rehearsal Det = detachment

overall sample was broadly similar for males and females separately although thecorrelation between FOD and ECQ rehearsal (r(148) = 206 p lt 05) for the totalsample was clearly carried by the correlation for males ECQ emotional inhibitioncorrelated higher with FOD for females (r(106) = 375 p lt 01) than for males(r(40) = 277 p lt 05) although the difference between the coefcients was notsignicant (z = 059 ns) The correlations between the ITQ and ISSB showed similarconsistencies but the correlations between the ITQ factors and the SSQ were stronger formales than for females Indeed only SSQS and FOD correlated signicantly for females(r(69) = 2 332 p lt 05) whereas all of the ITQ factors correlated signicantly withSSQN and SSQS for males

Interpersonal trust and network orientation

In addition to the emotion control and social support scales data were obtained from anindependent sample of undergraduate students who completed only the ITQ and VauxBurda amp Stewartrsquos (1986) Network Orientation Scale (NOS) a 20-item questionnairebased on a 4-point Likert scale As has been noted the network orientation construct hasbeen used to devise the more recent Network Utilization Scale (NUS Gruen et al 1994)but in view of the preliminary nature of the scale the NOS was chosen in preference forthe present study

The sample compromised 178 participants 102 females (mean age 1936 yearsSD 44) and 76 males (mean age 278 years SD 67) The NOS and ITQ were includedwith a package of unrelated scales which were sent out by mail to members of a volunteerundergraduate participant panel at the University of York Vaux (1985a) reported athree-factor structure for the NOS but the analysis was based on a small sample of 80The responses to the NOS in the present study were therefore initially subjected to factoranalysis and the scree plot suggested a unifactor or perhaps a two-factor solution ratherthan the three factors extracted by Vaux A one-factor extraction included 18 of the 20items with only items 16 and 17 failing to load above the 30 criterion and the factoraccounted for 277 of the variance However the internal consistency was extremelylow (coefcient alpha = 10) and the items were therefore rotated to a two-factorVarimax orthogonal terminal solution This yielded factors with 10 and 9 itemsrespectively with the previously omitted item 17 entering the second factor

The highest-loading items on the rst factor were 2 (lsquoFriends often have good advice togiversquo) and 14 (lsquoIt really helps when you are angry to tell a friend what has happenedrsquo) andthe two highest loadings on the second factor were 15 (lsquoSome things are too personal totalk to anyone aboutrsquo) and 18 (lsquoIf you conde in other people they take advantage ofyoursquo) The two factors clearly reect a distinction between positive (factor 1) and negativeor defensive attitudes (factor 2) about disclosure and conding but there were fourdouble-loading items of factor 1 and ve on factor 2 The number of double loadsincreased with an oblique rotation and the internal consistency remained very modest forboth factor 1 (coefcient alpha =468) and factor 2 (coefcient alpha =360)

Despite these unsatisfactory ndings the scores from the 18-item unifactor solutionwere correlated with scores from the three ITQ factors The NOS correlated signicantlywith FOD (r(176) = 398 p lt 01) and with SC (r(176) = 2 180 p lt 05) but notwith SI Slightly higher correlations between the rst factor from the NOS and FOD and

173Stress social support and fear of disclosure

between the second factor and SC conrmed the apparent correspondence between thembut in view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS this was not explored further

Interpersonal trust and health status during adaptation

As part of the larger programme of research to which this study is related additional datawere available for the sample of 126 participants who completed the ITQ the SSQ andthe ISSB The additional data for this sample included measures of health status andreturns from repeated administrations were obtained from a subsample of 102 compris-ing 44 males (mean age 1995 years SD 438) and 52 females (mean age 1919 SD 498)Health status was assessed over a period of adaptation which was dened as the 4 monthsbetween entering university as rst-year undergraduates and the middle of the secondterm of their rst academic year Previous studies have shown that this is a period ofsignicant demand for adaptation to a new social environment and that deterioration inhealth status during this time is inuenced by a variety of individual difference variables(Roger 1996) The students were contacted for the rst time immediately after entry tothe University of York and were asked to complete a health inventory entitled the HealthStatus Checklist (HSC Meadows 1989) The HSC is based on an extensive GP surveycovering 30 common illnesses and yields overall scores based on stability deteriorationor improvement across repeated administrations thus allowing for the partialling out ofinitial health status

The HSC was rst administered at the start of the study to provide a baseline andadministered again after an interval of ve months A difference score reecting relativedeterioration in health status was calculated using the initial administration as a baselineto take account of initial values The participantsrsquo scores on the ITQ the ISSB and bothsubscales of the SSQ (SSQN and SSQS) were then entered into stepwise multipleregression analyses as independent variables with deterioration in health status as thedependent variable

In view of the differential effects for gender in the correlations between the ITQ factorsand the independent variables used in the concurrent validation exercise the data formales and females were analysed separately Results for females showed that scores onFOD contributed signicantly with an adjusted R2 of 106 and a standardized beta of358 (t(1 41) = 2426 p lt 02) The remaining independent variables were excluded inthe analysis and none were included in the stepwise regression for males Combining thedata for males and females in the present study yielded similar effects to those obtainedfor females

Discussion and conclusions

The factor analysis of a preliminary item pool based on participantsrsquo perceptions of socialsupport produced a stable three-factor structure which included 48 items The factorswere labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) Allthree were internally consistent and apart from SI were also stable over time The retestreliability coefcient for SI fell below 70 but this factor may well be tapping attitudestowards social support or friendship rather than a stable predisposition to use support in aparticular way and may thus reect changes in friendship patterns over the inter-test

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger174

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

169Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 1 Factor loadings for the three-factor solution

LoadingItem Factor 1 (FOD) Factor 2 (SC) Factor 3 (SI)

16 + 69210 + 68523 + 6839 + 623

40 + 62029 + 59812 + 58336 + 57927 + 56425 + 55519 + 55047 + 5432 + 540

43 + 5397 + 506

45 + 47734 + 47114 + 45638 + 4526 + 440

17 + 44541 2 4394 2 434

32 + 42431 + 41321 + 40628 + 40426 + 67422 + 65237 + 62211 2 59518 + 5711 + 556

15 + 54939 + 5483 + 522

46 + 4618 + 411

48 + 40733 + 62613 + 6005 + 557

42 + 54524 + 46030 + 44820 + 43935 + 42444 + 419

Note FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacy

The two highest loading items on the rst factor were 16 (lsquoI worry too much about what others think of meto conde in themrsquo) and 10 (lsquoTo discuss my problems with somebody feels good at the time but afterwards Iworry about what I have saidrsquo) and this factor was labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) The two highest loadingitems on the second factor were 26 (lsquoI like to talk problems over to get them off my chestrsquo) and 22 (lsquoWhen Ifeel upset about something I feel the need to talk to somebody about itrsquo) and this factor was labelled socialcoping (SC) Items 33 (lsquoA good friend is somebody you can be honest withrsquo) and 13 (lsquoTo be able to give andtake in a friendship is importantrsquo) loaded highest on the third factor which was labelled social intimacy (SI)

Four-factor and two-factor solutions were also examined The items on the rst three factors of the four-factor solution were virtually identical to those for the three-factor solution Only six items loaded on thefourth factor all of which referred explicitly to the familymdashfor example the highest loading was for item 55in the initial pool lsquoI feel that I can turn to my family for help whenever I need torsquo In fact this item and theitem lsquoI can conde in at least one family member of my familyrsquo both loaded below criterion on the thirdfactor of the three-factor solution (380 and 372 respectively) These items may well be salient to thestudent population used but in view of a low coefcient alpha for the fourth factor and the small number ofitems the four-factor solution was rejected in favour of three factors The second factor on the two-factorsolution was very similar to FOD while the rst factor appeared to combine some elements of the second andthird factors from the three-factor solution In fact rotating only the items on the rst factor solution to atwo-factor solution yielded factors very similar to SC and SI but with fewer items that either factor from thethree-factor solution

Separate factor analyses for the male and female samples produced almost identical three-factor structuresThe analysis was also repeated using an oblique rotation but this did not signicantly alter the orthogonalstructure There was no increase in double loads over the three which occurred in the orthogonal rotationthus conrming that the three factors were indeed independent Responses to the full item pool weresubsequently collected from an additional sample of undergraduatestudents and these were used to increasethe original sample to a total of 543 participants176 males (mean age 2096 years SD 633) and 367 females(mean age 2019 years SD 447) A scree test again indicated a three-factor structure and a maximumlikelihood conrmatory factor analysis of these data yielded a structure indistinguishable from the earliersolution Testing the t of the three-factor model yielded a chi-square value of 229915 (p lt 0001)

One of the shortcomings of the initial factor analysis was the low participantvariable ratio but therobustness of the factor structure is conrmed by the replication of the ndings with the substantially largersample The fact that the analyses extracted only approximately one third of items from the initial pool wasnot surprising in view of the scenario technique used to generate items which tends to be exhaustive anduncontaminated by experimenter bias in item selection

All three of the factors had good face validity and were internally consistent and in view of the convergentstructure across analyses and samples a three-factor solution was accepted as representing the best tCorrelations were computed between the factors for the original sample and SC was found to correlatesignicantly inversely with FOD (r(327) = 2 338 p lt 001) and signicantly positively with SI(r(327) = 416 p lt 001) The FOD and SI factors did not correlate signicantly (r(327) = 2 104)Separate correlation matrices for equal samples of 75 males and females yielded broadly similar resultsThe FOD and SI factors did correlate signicantly for males (r(73) = 2 297 p lt 01) but not for females(r(74) = 2 111) but the correlation was modest accounting for less than 10 of the common variance

The mean scores for the male and female samples were compared using independent t tests (in all casesdf = N1 + N2 2 2) There was no signicant difference in the means for males and females for FOD(t(315) = 52 ns) but the means for both SC and SI did differ signicantly between groups with femalesscoring higher than males on SC (t(315) = 306 p lt 05) and on SI (t(315) = 354 p lt 001) The meanscores for the samples and the relevant t ratios are displayed in Table 2

Results

Reliability

Internal consistency The internal consistency for all of the factors was highly satisfactorywith alpha coefcients of 879 for FOD 771 for SC and 778 for SI

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger170

Testndashretest reliability Following an inter-test interval of 10 weeks the questionnaire wassent out to 156 of the students from the University of York who could be contacted45 males and 111 females Returns were received from 134 subjects (40 males and94 females) representing 86 of the total The retest coefcients for FOD (846) and SC(732) were highly satisfactory although the coefcient for SI was somewhat more modest(609) Separate sets of retest coefcients for males and females were comparable to thoseobtained for the overall sample

Interpersonal trust emotion control coping and social support

To investigate the relationship of the ITQ to relevant measures of personality coping andsocial support the participantsrsquo scores were correlated with the following indices

(a) The rehearsal (rumination) and emotional inhibition scales from the Emotion ControlQuestionnaire (ECQ Roger amp Najarian 1989) each of which comprises 14 items ECQrehearsal measures the tendency to ruminate about emotional upset and as the nameimplies ECQ emotional inhibition assesses the tendency to inhibit the expression ofemotion(b) The detachment scale derived from the Coping Styles Questionnaire (CSQ RogerJarvis amp Najarian 1993) The 22-item scale is bipolar comprising detached andemotional coping and is keyed for higher scores to reect a more detached coping style(c) The Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ Sarason et al 1983) which is primarily ameasure of perceived emotional support comprising 27 items For each item theparticipant is asked to state the number of people (up to a maximum of nine) whoprovide them with the type of support specied and to give a summary rating of overallsatisfaction with the support perceived to be available There are thus two scores for eachsubject SSQN (the sum of the number of people listed divided by the number of items)and SSQS (the mean satisfaction score)(d) The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviours (ISSB Barrera 1981) The ISSBconsists of 40 items It provides a measure of enacted or received support and assesses theamount of support received over the past month

The overall sample of 380 included in the validation studies were divided into twogroups The rst group of 150 comprising 42 males (mean age 2069 years SD 588) and

171Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 2 Comparison of mean scores for males (N = 75) and females (N = 242) on the three-factor solution

Gender Means SD df t ratio

FactorFear of disclosure Male 3388 839 315 52 ns

Female 3468 1170

Social coping Male 2368 476 315 306Female 2561 475

Social intimacy Male 2108 302 315 354Female 2248 287

p lt 05 p lt 001

108 females (mean age 1974 years SD 302) completed the ITQ the ECQ and the CSQdetachment scale The second group of 230 participants included 107 males (mean age2006 years SD 571) and 123 females (mean age 1956 years SD 542) and theseparticipants all completed the ITQ and the ISSB A subsample of this group comprising126 participants 55 males (mean age 1987 years SD 420) and 71 females (mean age1983 years SD 626) also completed the SSQ in addition to the ITQ and ISSB

The mean scores for the ITQ scales were almost identical to those obtained for thequestionnaire construction sample reported in Table 2 with females again scoring higheron SC and SI than males The means for the remaining scales were consistent withpreviously reported data and as expected there was a trend for females to obtain lowerscores on emotional inhibition and lower scores on detached coping The correlationsbetween the three ITQ scales and the ECQ CSQ SSQ and ISSB scales are shown inTable 3 below for the total samples and for males and females separately

As had been anticipated the correlations between the ITQ factors and the emotionalinhibition scale from the ECQ were all signicant and consistent with FOD correlatingpositively and both SC and SI correlating negatively The pattern of correlations for the

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger172

Table 3 Correlations between the three ITQ factors and the ECQ CSQ detachment SSQ andISSB scales

ITQ factorsFOD SC SI

ECQ and CSQECQ E-I Males (N = 42) 277 2 434 2 190

Females (N = 108) 375 2 421 2 188Total (N = 150) 345 2 441 2 222

ECQ R Males (N = 42) 351 2 081 2 091Females (N = 108) 161 068 029Total (N = 150) 206 046 029

CSQ Det Males (N = 42) 2 557 054 2 113Females (N = 108) 2 459 068 029Total (N = 150) 2 436 048 2 124

SSQ and ISSBSSQ N Males (N = 55) 2 483 462 314

Females (N = 71) 2 200 074 095Total (N = 126) 2 345 345 255

SSQ S Males (N = 55) 2 527 326 280Females (N = 71) 2 332 014 054Total (N = 126) 2 468 328 262

ISSB Males (N = 107) 2 222 342 225Females (N = 123) 2 268 317 189Total (N = 230) 253 369 231

Note ITQ FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacyECQCSQ E-I = emotional inhibition R = rehearsal Det = detachment

overall sample was broadly similar for males and females separately although thecorrelation between FOD and ECQ rehearsal (r(148) = 206 p lt 05) for the totalsample was clearly carried by the correlation for males ECQ emotional inhibitioncorrelated higher with FOD for females (r(106) = 375 p lt 01) than for males(r(40) = 277 p lt 05) although the difference between the coefcients was notsignicant (z = 059 ns) The correlations between the ITQ and ISSB showed similarconsistencies but the correlations between the ITQ factors and the SSQ were stronger formales than for females Indeed only SSQS and FOD correlated signicantly for females(r(69) = 2 332 p lt 05) whereas all of the ITQ factors correlated signicantly withSSQN and SSQS for males

Interpersonal trust and network orientation

In addition to the emotion control and social support scales data were obtained from anindependent sample of undergraduate students who completed only the ITQ and VauxBurda amp Stewartrsquos (1986) Network Orientation Scale (NOS) a 20-item questionnairebased on a 4-point Likert scale As has been noted the network orientation construct hasbeen used to devise the more recent Network Utilization Scale (NUS Gruen et al 1994)but in view of the preliminary nature of the scale the NOS was chosen in preference forthe present study

The sample compromised 178 participants 102 females (mean age 1936 yearsSD 44) and 76 males (mean age 278 years SD 67) The NOS and ITQ were includedwith a package of unrelated scales which were sent out by mail to members of a volunteerundergraduate participant panel at the University of York Vaux (1985a) reported athree-factor structure for the NOS but the analysis was based on a small sample of 80The responses to the NOS in the present study were therefore initially subjected to factoranalysis and the scree plot suggested a unifactor or perhaps a two-factor solution ratherthan the three factors extracted by Vaux A one-factor extraction included 18 of the 20items with only items 16 and 17 failing to load above the 30 criterion and the factoraccounted for 277 of the variance However the internal consistency was extremelylow (coefcient alpha = 10) and the items were therefore rotated to a two-factorVarimax orthogonal terminal solution This yielded factors with 10 and 9 itemsrespectively with the previously omitted item 17 entering the second factor

The highest-loading items on the rst factor were 2 (lsquoFriends often have good advice togiversquo) and 14 (lsquoIt really helps when you are angry to tell a friend what has happenedrsquo) andthe two highest loadings on the second factor were 15 (lsquoSome things are too personal totalk to anyone aboutrsquo) and 18 (lsquoIf you conde in other people they take advantage ofyoursquo) The two factors clearly reect a distinction between positive (factor 1) and negativeor defensive attitudes (factor 2) about disclosure and conding but there were fourdouble-loading items of factor 1 and ve on factor 2 The number of double loadsincreased with an oblique rotation and the internal consistency remained very modest forboth factor 1 (coefcient alpha =468) and factor 2 (coefcient alpha =360)

Despite these unsatisfactory ndings the scores from the 18-item unifactor solutionwere correlated with scores from the three ITQ factors The NOS correlated signicantlywith FOD (r(176) = 398 p lt 01) and with SC (r(176) = 2 180 p lt 05) but notwith SI Slightly higher correlations between the rst factor from the NOS and FOD and

173Stress social support and fear of disclosure

between the second factor and SC conrmed the apparent correspondence between thembut in view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS this was not explored further

Interpersonal trust and health status during adaptation

As part of the larger programme of research to which this study is related additional datawere available for the sample of 126 participants who completed the ITQ the SSQ andthe ISSB The additional data for this sample included measures of health status andreturns from repeated administrations were obtained from a subsample of 102 compris-ing 44 males (mean age 1995 years SD 438) and 52 females (mean age 1919 SD 498)Health status was assessed over a period of adaptation which was dened as the 4 monthsbetween entering university as rst-year undergraduates and the middle of the secondterm of their rst academic year Previous studies have shown that this is a period ofsignicant demand for adaptation to a new social environment and that deterioration inhealth status during this time is inuenced by a variety of individual difference variables(Roger 1996) The students were contacted for the rst time immediately after entry tothe University of York and were asked to complete a health inventory entitled the HealthStatus Checklist (HSC Meadows 1989) The HSC is based on an extensive GP surveycovering 30 common illnesses and yields overall scores based on stability deteriorationor improvement across repeated administrations thus allowing for the partialling out ofinitial health status

The HSC was rst administered at the start of the study to provide a baseline andadministered again after an interval of ve months A difference score reecting relativedeterioration in health status was calculated using the initial administration as a baselineto take account of initial values The participantsrsquo scores on the ITQ the ISSB and bothsubscales of the SSQ (SSQN and SSQS) were then entered into stepwise multipleregression analyses as independent variables with deterioration in health status as thedependent variable

In view of the differential effects for gender in the correlations between the ITQ factorsand the independent variables used in the concurrent validation exercise the data formales and females were analysed separately Results for females showed that scores onFOD contributed signicantly with an adjusted R2 of 106 and a standardized beta of358 (t(1 41) = 2426 p lt 02) The remaining independent variables were excluded inthe analysis and none were included in the stepwise regression for males Combining thedata for males and females in the present study yielded similar effects to those obtainedfor females

Discussion and conclusions

The factor analysis of a preliminary item pool based on participantsrsquo perceptions of socialsupport produced a stable three-factor structure which included 48 items The factorswere labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) Allthree were internally consistent and apart from SI were also stable over time The retestreliability coefcient for SI fell below 70 but this factor may well be tapping attitudestowards social support or friendship rather than a stable predisposition to use support in aparticular way and may thus reect changes in friendship patterns over the inter-test

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger174

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

The two highest loading items on the rst factor were 16 (lsquoI worry too much about what others think of meto conde in themrsquo) and 10 (lsquoTo discuss my problems with somebody feels good at the time but afterwards Iworry about what I have saidrsquo) and this factor was labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) The two highest loadingitems on the second factor were 26 (lsquoI like to talk problems over to get them off my chestrsquo) and 22 (lsquoWhen Ifeel upset about something I feel the need to talk to somebody about itrsquo) and this factor was labelled socialcoping (SC) Items 33 (lsquoA good friend is somebody you can be honest withrsquo) and 13 (lsquoTo be able to give andtake in a friendship is importantrsquo) loaded highest on the third factor which was labelled social intimacy (SI)

Four-factor and two-factor solutions were also examined The items on the rst three factors of the four-factor solution were virtually identical to those for the three-factor solution Only six items loaded on thefourth factor all of which referred explicitly to the familymdashfor example the highest loading was for item 55in the initial pool lsquoI feel that I can turn to my family for help whenever I need torsquo In fact this item and theitem lsquoI can conde in at least one family member of my familyrsquo both loaded below criterion on the thirdfactor of the three-factor solution (380 and 372 respectively) These items may well be salient to thestudent population used but in view of a low coefcient alpha for the fourth factor and the small number ofitems the four-factor solution was rejected in favour of three factors The second factor on the two-factorsolution was very similar to FOD while the rst factor appeared to combine some elements of the second andthird factors from the three-factor solution In fact rotating only the items on the rst factor solution to atwo-factor solution yielded factors very similar to SC and SI but with fewer items that either factor from thethree-factor solution

Separate factor analyses for the male and female samples produced almost identical three-factor structuresThe analysis was also repeated using an oblique rotation but this did not signicantly alter the orthogonalstructure There was no increase in double loads over the three which occurred in the orthogonal rotationthus conrming that the three factors were indeed independent Responses to the full item pool weresubsequently collected from an additional sample of undergraduatestudents and these were used to increasethe original sample to a total of 543 participants176 males (mean age 2096 years SD 633) and 367 females(mean age 2019 years SD 447) A scree test again indicated a three-factor structure and a maximumlikelihood conrmatory factor analysis of these data yielded a structure indistinguishable from the earliersolution Testing the t of the three-factor model yielded a chi-square value of 229915 (p lt 0001)

One of the shortcomings of the initial factor analysis was the low participantvariable ratio but therobustness of the factor structure is conrmed by the replication of the ndings with the substantially largersample The fact that the analyses extracted only approximately one third of items from the initial pool wasnot surprising in view of the scenario technique used to generate items which tends to be exhaustive anduncontaminated by experimenter bias in item selection

All three of the factors had good face validity and were internally consistent and in view of the convergentstructure across analyses and samples a three-factor solution was accepted as representing the best tCorrelations were computed between the factors for the original sample and SC was found to correlatesignicantly inversely with FOD (r(327) = 2 338 p lt 001) and signicantly positively with SI(r(327) = 416 p lt 001) The FOD and SI factors did not correlate signicantly (r(327) = 2 104)Separate correlation matrices for equal samples of 75 males and females yielded broadly similar resultsThe FOD and SI factors did correlate signicantly for males (r(73) = 2 297 p lt 01) but not for females(r(74) = 2 111) but the correlation was modest accounting for less than 10 of the common variance

The mean scores for the male and female samples were compared using independent t tests (in all casesdf = N1 + N2 2 2) There was no signicant difference in the means for males and females for FOD(t(315) = 52 ns) but the means for both SC and SI did differ signicantly between groups with femalesscoring higher than males on SC (t(315) = 306 p lt 05) and on SI (t(315) = 354 p lt 001) The meanscores for the samples and the relevant t ratios are displayed in Table 2

Results

Reliability

Internal consistency The internal consistency for all of the factors was highly satisfactorywith alpha coefcients of 879 for FOD 771 for SC and 778 for SI

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger170

Testndashretest reliability Following an inter-test interval of 10 weeks the questionnaire wassent out to 156 of the students from the University of York who could be contacted45 males and 111 females Returns were received from 134 subjects (40 males and94 females) representing 86 of the total The retest coefcients for FOD (846) and SC(732) were highly satisfactory although the coefcient for SI was somewhat more modest(609) Separate sets of retest coefcients for males and females were comparable to thoseobtained for the overall sample

Interpersonal trust emotion control coping and social support

To investigate the relationship of the ITQ to relevant measures of personality coping andsocial support the participantsrsquo scores were correlated with the following indices

(a) The rehearsal (rumination) and emotional inhibition scales from the Emotion ControlQuestionnaire (ECQ Roger amp Najarian 1989) each of which comprises 14 items ECQrehearsal measures the tendency to ruminate about emotional upset and as the nameimplies ECQ emotional inhibition assesses the tendency to inhibit the expression ofemotion(b) The detachment scale derived from the Coping Styles Questionnaire (CSQ RogerJarvis amp Najarian 1993) The 22-item scale is bipolar comprising detached andemotional coping and is keyed for higher scores to reect a more detached coping style(c) The Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ Sarason et al 1983) which is primarily ameasure of perceived emotional support comprising 27 items For each item theparticipant is asked to state the number of people (up to a maximum of nine) whoprovide them with the type of support specied and to give a summary rating of overallsatisfaction with the support perceived to be available There are thus two scores for eachsubject SSQN (the sum of the number of people listed divided by the number of items)and SSQS (the mean satisfaction score)(d) The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviours (ISSB Barrera 1981) The ISSBconsists of 40 items It provides a measure of enacted or received support and assesses theamount of support received over the past month

The overall sample of 380 included in the validation studies were divided into twogroups The rst group of 150 comprising 42 males (mean age 2069 years SD 588) and

171Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 2 Comparison of mean scores for males (N = 75) and females (N = 242) on the three-factor solution

Gender Means SD df t ratio

FactorFear of disclosure Male 3388 839 315 52 ns

Female 3468 1170

Social coping Male 2368 476 315 306Female 2561 475

Social intimacy Male 2108 302 315 354Female 2248 287

p lt 05 p lt 001

108 females (mean age 1974 years SD 302) completed the ITQ the ECQ and the CSQdetachment scale The second group of 230 participants included 107 males (mean age2006 years SD 571) and 123 females (mean age 1956 years SD 542) and theseparticipants all completed the ITQ and the ISSB A subsample of this group comprising126 participants 55 males (mean age 1987 years SD 420) and 71 females (mean age1983 years SD 626) also completed the SSQ in addition to the ITQ and ISSB

The mean scores for the ITQ scales were almost identical to those obtained for thequestionnaire construction sample reported in Table 2 with females again scoring higheron SC and SI than males The means for the remaining scales were consistent withpreviously reported data and as expected there was a trend for females to obtain lowerscores on emotional inhibition and lower scores on detached coping The correlationsbetween the three ITQ scales and the ECQ CSQ SSQ and ISSB scales are shown inTable 3 below for the total samples and for males and females separately

As had been anticipated the correlations between the ITQ factors and the emotionalinhibition scale from the ECQ were all signicant and consistent with FOD correlatingpositively and both SC and SI correlating negatively The pattern of correlations for the

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger172

Table 3 Correlations between the three ITQ factors and the ECQ CSQ detachment SSQ andISSB scales

ITQ factorsFOD SC SI

ECQ and CSQECQ E-I Males (N = 42) 277 2 434 2 190

Females (N = 108) 375 2 421 2 188Total (N = 150) 345 2 441 2 222

ECQ R Males (N = 42) 351 2 081 2 091Females (N = 108) 161 068 029Total (N = 150) 206 046 029

CSQ Det Males (N = 42) 2 557 054 2 113Females (N = 108) 2 459 068 029Total (N = 150) 2 436 048 2 124

SSQ and ISSBSSQ N Males (N = 55) 2 483 462 314

Females (N = 71) 2 200 074 095Total (N = 126) 2 345 345 255

SSQ S Males (N = 55) 2 527 326 280Females (N = 71) 2 332 014 054Total (N = 126) 2 468 328 262

ISSB Males (N = 107) 2 222 342 225Females (N = 123) 2 268 317 189Total (N = 230) 253 369 231

Note ITQ FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacyECQCSQ E-I = emotional inhibition R = rehearsal Det = detachment

overall sample was broadly similar for males and females separately although thecorrelation between FOD and ECQ rehearsal (r(148) = 206 p lt 05) for the totalsample was clearly carried by the correlation for males ECQ emotional inhibitioncorrelated higher with FOD for females (r(106) = 375 p lt 01) than for males(r(40) = 277 p lt 05) although the difference between the coefcients was notsignicant (z = 059 ns) The correlations between the ITQ and ISSB showed similarconsistencies but the correlations between the ITQ factors and the SSQ were stronger formales than for females Indeed only SSQS and FOD correlated signicantly for females(r(69) = 2 332 p lt 05) whereas all of the ITQ factors correlated signicantly withSSQN and SSQS for males

Interpersonal trust and network orientation

In addition to the emotion control and social support scales data were obtained from anindependent sample of undergraduate students who completed only the ITQ and VauxBurda amp Stewartrsquos (1986) Network Orientation Scale (NOS) a 20-item questionnairebased on a 4-point Likert scale As has been noted the network orientation construct hasbeen used to devise the more recent Network Utilization Scale (NUS Gruen et al 1994)but in view of the preliminary nature of the scale the NOS was chosen in preference forthe present study

The sample compromised 178 participants 102 females (mean age 1936 yearsSD 44) and 76 males (mean age 278 years SD 67) The NOS and ITQ were includedwith a package of unrelated scales which were sent out by mail to members of a volunteerundergraduate participant panel at the University of York Vaux (1985a) reported athree-factor structure for the NOS but the analysis was based on a small sample of 80The responses to the NOS in the present study were therefore initially subjected to factoranalysis and the scree plot suggested a unifactor or perhaps a two-factor solution ratherthan the three factors extracted by Vaux A one-factor extraction included 18 of the 20items with only items 16 and 17 failing to load above the 30 criterion and the factoraccounted for 277 of the variance However the internal consistency was extremelylow (coefcient alpha = 10) and the items were therefore rotated to a two-factorVarimax orthogonal terminal solution This yielded factors with 10 and 9 itemsrespectively with the previously omitted item 17 entering the second factor

The highest-loading items on the rst factor were 2 (lsquoFriends often have good advice togiversquo) and 14 (lsquoIt really helps when you are angry to tell a friend what has happenedrsquo) andthe two highest loadings on the second factor were 15 (lsquoSome things are too personal totalk to anyone aboutrsquo) and 18 (lsquoIf you conde in other people they take advantage ofyoursquo) The two factors clearly reect a distinction between positive (factor 1) and negativeor defensive attitudes (factor 2) about disclosure and conding but there were fourdouble-loading items of factor 1 and ve on factor 2 The number of double loadsincreased with an oblique rotation and the internal consistency remained very modest forboth factor 1 (coefcient alpha =468) and factor 2 (coefcient alpha =360)

Despite these unsatisfactory ndings the scores from the 18-item unifactor solutionwere correlated with scores from the three ITQ factors The NOS correlated signicantlywith FOD (r(176) = 398 p lt 01) and with SC (r(176) = 2 180 p lt 05) but notwith SI Slightly higher correlations between the rst factor from the NOS and FOD and

173Stress social support and fear of disclosure

between the second factor and SC conrmed the apparent correspondence between thembut in view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS this was not explored further

Interpersonal trust and health status during adaptation

As part of the larger programme of research to which this study is related additional datawere available for the sample of 126 participants who completed the ITQ the SSQ andthe ISSB The additional data for this sample included measures of health status andreturns from repeated administrations were obtained from a subsample of 102 compris-ing 44 males (mean age 1995 years SD 438) and 52 females (mean age 1919 SD 498)Health status was assessed over a period of adaptation which was dened as the 4 monthsbetween entering university as rst-year undergraduates and the middle of the secondterm of their rst academic year Previous studies have shown that this is a period ofsignicant demand for adaptation to a new social environment and that deterioration inhealth status during this time is inuenced by a variety of individual difference variables(Roger 1996) The students were contacted for the rst time immediately after entry tothe University of York and were asked to complete a health inventory entitled the HealthStatus Checklist (HSC Meadows 1989) The HSC is based on an extensive GP surveycovering 30 common illnesses and yields overall scores based on stability deteriorationor improvement across repeated administrations thus allowing for the partialling out ofinitial health status

The HSC was rst administered at the start of the study to provide a baseline andadministered again after an interval of ve months A difference score reecting relativedeterioration in health status was calculated using the initial administration as a baselineto take account of initial values The participantsrsquo scores on the ITQ the ISSB and bothsubscales of the SSQ (SSQN and SSQS) were then entered into stepwise multipleregression analyses as independent variables with deterioration in health status as thedependent variable

In view of the differential effects for gender in the correlations between the ITQ factorsand the independent variables used in the concurrent validation exercise the data formales and females were analysed separately Results for females showed that scores onFOD contributed signicantly with an adjusted R2 of 106 and a standardized beta of358 (t(1 41) = 2426 p lt 02) The remaining independent variables were excluded inthe analysis and none were included in the stepwise regression for males Combining thedata for males and females in the present study yielded similar effects to those obtainedfor females

Discussion and conclusions

The factor analysis of a preliminary item pool based on participantsrsquo perceptions of socialsupport produced a stable three-factor structure which included 48 items The factorswere labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) Allthree were internally consistent and apart from SI were also stable over time The retestreliability coefcient for SI fell below 70 but this factor may well be tapping attitudestowards social support or friendship rather than a stable predisposition to use support in aparticular way and may thus reect changes in friendship patterns over the inter-test

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger174

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

Testndashretest reliability Following an inter-test interval of 10 weeks the questionnaire wassent out to 156 of the students from the University of York who could be contacted45 males and 111 females Returns were received from 134 subjects (40 males and94 females) representing 86 of the total The retest coefcients for FOD (846) and SC(732) were highly satisfactory although the coefcient for SI was somewhat more modest(609) Separate sets of retest coefcients for males and females were comparable to thoseobtained for the overall sample

Interpersonal trust emotion control coping and social support

To investigate the relationship of the ITQ to relevant measures of personality coping andsocial support the participantsrsquo scores were correlated with the following indices

(a) The rehearsal (rumination) and emotional inhibition scales from the Emotion ControlQuestionnaire (ECQ Roger amp Najarian 1989) each of which comprises 14 items ECQrehearsal measures the tendency to ruminate about emotional upset and as the nameimplies ECQ emotional inhibition assesses the tendency to inhibit the expression ofemotion(b) The detachment scale derived from the Coping Styles Questionnaire (CSQ RogerJarvis amp Najarian 1993) The 22-item scale is bipolar comprising detached andemotional coping and is keyed for higher scores to reect a more detached coping style(c) The Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ Sarason et al 1983) which is primarily ameasure of perceived emotional support comprising 27 items For each item theparticipant is asked to state the number of people (up to a maximum of nine) whoprovide them with the type of support specied and to give a summary rating of overallsatisfaction with the support perceived to be available There are thus two scores for eachsubject SSQN (the sum of the number of people listed divided by the number of items)and SSQS (the mean satisfaction score)(d) The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviours (ISSB Barrera 1981) The ISSBconsists of 40 items It provides a measure of enacted or received support and assesses theamount of support received over the past month

The overall sample of 380 included in the validation studies were divided into twogroups The rst group of 150 comprising 42 males (mean age 2069 years SD 588) and

171Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Table 2 Comparison of mean scores for males (N = 75) and females (N = 242) on the three-factor solution

Gender Means SD df t ratio

FactorFear of disclosure Male 3388 839 315 52 ns

Female 3468 1170

Social coping Male 2368 476 315 306Female 2561 475

Social intimacy Male 2108 302 315 354Female 2248 287

p lt 05 p lt 001

108 females (mean age 1974 years SD 302) completed the ITQ the ECQ and the CSQdetachment scale The second group of 230 participants included 107 males (mean age2006 years SD 571) and 123 females (mean age 1956 years SD 542) and theseparticipants all completed the ITQ and the ISSB A subsample of this group comprising126 participants 55 males (mean age 1987 years SD 420) and 71 females (mean age1983 years SD 626) also completed the SSQ in addition to the ITQ and ISSB

The mean scores for the ITQ scales were almost identical to those obtained for thequestionnaire construction sample reported in Table 2 with females again scoring higheron SC and SI than males The means for the remaining scales were consistent withpreviously reported data and as expected there was a trend for females to obtain lowerscores on emotional inhibition and lower scores on detached coping The correlationsbetween the three ITQ scales and the ECQ CSQ SSQ and ISSB scales are shown inTable 3 below for the total samples and for males and females separately

As had been anticipated the correlations between the ITQ factors and the emotionalinhibition scale from the ECQ were all signicant and consistent with FOD correlatingpositively and both SC and SI correlating negatively The pattern of correlations for the

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger172

Table 3 Correlations between the three ITQ factors and the ECQ CSQ detachment SSQ andISSB scales

ITQ factorsFOD SC SI

ECQ and CSQECQ E-I Males (N = 42) 277 2 434 2 190

Females (N = 108) 375 2 421 2 188Total (N = 150) 345 2 441 2 222

ECQ R Males (N = 42) 351 2 081 2 091Females (N = 108) 161 068 029Total (N = 150) 206 046 029

CSQ Det Males (N = 42) 2 557 054 2 113Females (N = 108) 2 459 068 029Total (N = 150) 2 436 048 2 124

SSQ and ISSBSSQ N Males (N = 55) 2 483 462 314

Females (N = 71) 2 200 074 095Total (N = 126) 2 345 345 255

SSQ S Males (N = 55) 2 527 326 280Females (N = 71) 2 332 014 054Total (N = 126) 2 468 328 262

ISSB Males (N = 107) 2 222 342 225Females (N = 123) 2 268 317 189Total (N = 230) 253 369 231

Note ITQ FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacyECQCSQ E-I = emotional inhibition R = rehearsal Det = detachment

overall sample was broadly similar for males and females separately although thecorrelation between FOD and ECQ rehearsal (r(148) = 206 p lt 05) for the totalsample was clearly carried by the correlation for males ECQ emotional inhibitioncorrelated higher with FOD for females (r(106) = 375 p lt 01) than for males(r(40) = 277 p lt 05) although the difference between the coefcients was notsignicant (z = 059 ns) The correlations between the ITQ and ISSB showed similarconsistencies but the correlations between the ITQ factors and the SSQ were stronger formales than for females Indeed only SSQS and FOD correlated signicantly for females(r(69) = 2 332 p lt 05) whereas all of the ITQ factors correlated signicantly withSSQN and SSQS for males

Interpersonal trust and network orientation

In addition to the emotion control and social support scales data were obtained from anindependent sample of undergraduate students who completed only the ITQ and VauxBurda amp Stewartrsquos (1986) Network Orientation Scale (NOS) a 20-item questionnairebased on a 4-point Likert scale As has been noted the network orientation construct hasbeen used to devise the more recent Network Utilization Scale (NUS Gruen et al 1994)but in view of the preliminary nature of the scale the NOS was chosen in preference forthe present study

The sample compromised 178 participants 102 females (mean age 1936 yearsSD 44) and 76 males (mean age 278 years SD 67) The NOS and ITQ were includedwith a package of unrelated scales which were sent out by mail to members of a volunteerundergraduate participant panel at the University of York Vaux (1985a) reported athree-factor structure for the NOS but the analysis was based on a small sample of 80The responses to the NOS in the present study were therefore initially subjected to factoranalysis and the scree plot suggested a unifactor or perhaps a two-factor solution ratherthan the three factors extracted by Vaux A one-factor extraction included 18 of the 20items with only items 16 and 17 failing to load above the 30 criterion and the factoraccounted for 277 of the variance However the internal consistency was extremelylow (coefcient alpha = 10) and the items were therefore rotated to a two-factorVarimax orthogonal terminal solution This yielded factors with 10 and 9 itemsrespectively with the previously omitted item 17 entering the second factor

The highest-loading items on the rst factor were 2 (lsquoFriends often have good advice togiversquo) and 14 (lsquoIt really helps when you are angry to tell a friend what has happenedrsquo) andthe two highest loadings on the second factor were 15 (lsquoSome things are too personal totalk to anyone aboutrsquo) and 18 (lsquoIf you conde in other people they take advantage ofyoursquo) The two factors clearly reect a distinction between positive (factor 1) and negativeor defensive attitudes (factor 2) about disclosure and conding but there were fourdouble-loading items of factor 1 and ve on factor 2 The number of double loadsincreased with an oblique rotation and the internal consistency remained very modest forboth factor 1 (coefcient alpha =468) and factor 2 (coefcient alpha =360)

Despite these unsatisfactory ndings the scores from the 18-item unifactor solutionwere correlated with scores from the three ITQ factors The NOS correlated signicantlywith FOD (r(176) = 398 p lt 01) and with SC (r(176) = 2 180 p lt 05) but notwith SI Slightly higher correlations between the rst factor from the NOS and FOD and

173Stress social support and fear of disclosure

between the second factor and SC conrmed the apparent correspondence between thembut in view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS this was not explored further

Interpersonal trust and health status during adaptation

As part of the larger programme of research to which this study is related additional datawere available for the sample of 126 participants who completed the ITQ the SSQ andthe ISSB The additional data for this sample included measures of health status andreturns from repeated administrations were obtained from a subsample of 102 compris-ing 44 males (mean age 1995 years SD 438) and 52 females (mean age 1919 SD 498)Health status was assessed over a period of adaptation which was dened as the 4 monthsbetween entering university as rst-year undergraduates and the middle of the secondterm of their rst academic year Previous studies have shown that this is a period ofsignicant demand for adaptation to a new social environment and that deterioration inhealth status during this time is inuenced by a variety of individual difference variables(Roger 1996) The students were contacted for the rst time immediately after entry tothe University of York and were asked to complete a health inventory entitled the HealthStatus Checklist (HSC Meadows 1989) The HSC is based on an extensive GP surveycovering 30 common illnesses and yields overall scores based on stability deteriorationor improvement across repeated administrations thus allowing for the partialling out ofinitial health status

The HSC was rst administered at the start of the study to provide a baseline andadministered again after an interval of ve months A difference score reecting relativedeterioration in health status was calculated using the initial administration as a baselineto take account of initial values The participantsrsquo scores on the ITQ the ISSB and bothsubscales of the SSQ (SSQN and SSQS) were then entered into stepwise multipleregression analyses as independent variables with deterioration in health status as thedependent variable

In view of the differential effects for gender in the correlations between the ITQ factorsand the independent variables used in the concurrent validation exercise the data formales and females were analysed separately Results for females showed that scores onFOD contributed signicantly with an adjusted R2 of 106 and a standardized beta of358 (t(1 41) = 2426 p lt 02) The remaining independent variables were excluded inthe analysis and none were included in the stepwise regression for males Combining thedata for males and females in the present study yielded similar effects to those obtainedfor females

Discussion and conclusions

The factor analysis of a preliminary item pool based on participantsrsquo perceptions of socialsupport produced a stable three-factor structure which included 48 items The factorswere labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) Allthree were internally consistent and apart from SI were also stable over time The retestreliability coefcient for SI fell below 70 but this factor may well be tapping attitudestowards social support or friendship rather than a stable predisposition to use support in aparticular way and may thus reect changes in friendship patterns over the inter-test

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger174

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

108 females (mean age 1974 years SD 302) completed the ITQ the ECQ and the CSQdetachment scale The second group of 230 participants included 107 males (mean age2006 years SD 571) and 123 females (mean age 1956 years SD 542) and theseparticipants all completed the ITQ and the ISSB A subsample of this group comprising126 participants 55 males (mean age 1987 years SD 420) and 71 females (mean age1983 years SD 626) also completed the SSQ in addition to the ITQ and ISSB

The mean scores for the ITQ scales were almost identical to those obtained for thequestionnaire construction sample reported in Table 2 with females again scoring higheron SC and SI than males The means for the remaining scales were consistent withpreviously reported data and as expected there was a trend for females to obtain lowerscores on emotional inhibition and lower scores on detached coping The correlationsbetween the three ITQ scales and the ECQ CSQ SSQ and ISSB scales are shown inTable 3 below for the total samples and for males and females separately

As had been anticipated the correlations between the ITQ factors and the emotionalinhibition scale from the ECQ were all signicant and consistent with FOD correlatingpositively and both SC and SI correlating negatively The pattern of correlations for the

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger172

Table 3 Correlations between the three ITQ factors and the ECQ CSQ detachment SSQ andISSB scales

ITQ factorsFOD SC SI

ECQ and CSQECQ E-I Males (N = 42) 277 2 434 2 190

Females (N = 108) 375 2 421 2 188Total (N = 150) 345 2 441 2 222

ECQ R Males (N = 42) 351 2 081 2 091Females (N = 108) 161 068 029Total (N = 150) 206 046 029

CSQ Det Males (N = 42) 2 557 054 2 113Females (N = 108) 2 459 068 029Total (N = 150) 2 436 048 2 124

SSQ and ISSBSSQ N Males (N = 55) 2 483 462 314

Females (N = 71) 2 200 074 095Total (N = 126) 2 345 345 255

SSQ S Males (N = 55) 2 527 326 280Females (N = 71) 2 332 014 054Total (N = 126) 2 468 328 262

ISSB Males (N = 107) 2 222 342 225Females (N = 123) 2 268 317 189Total (N = 230) 253 369 231

Note ITQ FOD = fear of disclosure SC = social coping SI = social intimacyECQCSQ E-I = emotional inhibition R = rehearsal Det = detachment

overall sample was broadly similar for males and females separately although thecorrelation between FOD and ECQ rehearsal (r(148) = 206 p lt 05) for the totalsample was clearly carried by the correlation for males ECQ emotional inhibitioncorrelated higher with FOD for females (r(106) = 375 p lt 01) than for males(r(40) = 277 p lt 05) although the difference between the coefcients was notsignicant (z = 059 ns) The correlations between the ITQ and ISSB showed similarconsistencies but the correlations between the ITQ factors and the SSQ were stronger formales than for females Indeed only SSQS and FOD correlated signicantly for females(r(69) = 2 332 p lt 05) whereas all of the ITQ factors correlated signicantly withSSQN and SSQS for males

Interpersonal trust and network orientation

In addition to the emotion control and social support scales data were obtained from anindependent sample of undergraduate students who completed only the ITQ and VauxBurda amp Stewartrsquos (1986) Network Orientation Scale (NOS) a 20-item questionnairebased on a 4-point Likert scale As has been noted the network orientation construct hasbeen used to devise the more recent Network Utilization Scale (NUS Gruen et al 1994)but in view of the preliminary nature of the scale the NOS was chosen in preference forthe present study

The sample compromised 178 participants 102 females (mean age 1936 yearsSD 44) and 76 males (mean age 278 years SD 67) The NOS and ITQ were includedwith a package of unrelated scales which were sent out by mail to members of a volunteerundergraduate participant panel at the University of York Vaux (1985a) reported athree-factor structure for the NOS but the analysis was based on a small sample of 80The responses to the NOS in the present study were therefore initially subjected to factoranalysis and the scree plot suggested a unifactor or perhaps a two-factor solution ratherthan the three factors extracted by Vaux A one-factor extraction included 18 of the 20items with only items 16 and 17 failing to load above the 30 criterion and the factoraccounted for 277 of the variance However the internal consistency was extremelylow (coefcient alpha = 10) and the items were therefore rotated to a two-factorVarimax orthogonal terminal solution This yielded factors with 10 and 9 itemsrespectively with the previously omitted item 17 entering the second factor

The highest-loading items on the rst factor were 2 (lsquoFriends often have good advice togiversquo) and 14 (lsquoIt really helps when you are angry to tell a friend what has happenedrsquo) andthe two highest loadings on the second factor were 15 (lsquoSome things are too personal totalk to anyone aboutrsquo) and 18 (lsquoIf you conde in other people they take advantage ofyoursquo) The two factors clearly reect a distinction between positive (factor 1) and negativeor defensive attitudes (factor 2) about disclosure and conding but there were fourdouble-loading items of factor 1 and ve on factor 2 The number of double loadsincreased with an oblique rotation and the internal consistency remained very modest forboth factor 1 (coefcient alpha =468) and factor 2 (coefcient alpha =360)

Despite these unsatisfactory ndings the scores from the 18-item unifactor solutionwere correlated with scores from the three ITQ factors The NOS correlated signicantlywith FOD (r(176) = 398 p lt 01) and with SC (r(176) = 2 180 p lt 05) but notwith SI Slightly higher correlations between the rst factor from the NOS and FOD and

173Stress social support and fear of disclosure

between the second factor and SC conrmed the apparent correspondence between thembut in view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS this was not explored further

Interpersonal trust and health status during adaptation

As part of the larger programme of research to which this study is related additional datawere available for the sample of 126 participants who completed the ITQ the SSQ andthe ISSB The additional data for this sample included measures of health status andreturns from repeated administrations were obtained from a subsample of 102 compris-ing 44 males (mean age 1995 years SD 438) and 52 females (mean age 1919 SD 498)Health status was assessed over a period of adaptation which was dened as the 4 monthsbetween entering university as rst-year undergraduates and the middle of the secondterm of their rst academic year Previous studies have shown that this is a period ofsignicant demand for adaptation to a new social environment and that deterioration inhealth status during this time is inuenced by a variety of individual difference variables(Roger 1996) The students were contacted for the rst time immediately after entry tothe University of York and were asked to complete a health inventory entitled the HealthStatus Checklist (HSC Meadows 1989) The HSC is based on an extensive GP surveycovering 30 common illnesses and yields overall scores based on stability deteriorationor improvement across repeated administrations thus allowing for the partialling out ofinitial health status

The HSC was rst administered at the start of the study to provide a baseline andadministered again after an interval of ve months A difference score reecting relativedeterioration in health status was calculated using the initial administration as a baselineto take account of initial values The participantsrsquo scores on the ITQ the ISSB and bothsubscales of the SSQ (SSQN and SSQS) were then entered into stepwise multipleregression analyses as independent variables with deterioration in health status as thedependent variable

In view of the differential effects for gender in the correlations between the ITQ factorsand the independent variables used in the concurrent validation exercise the data formales and females were analysed separately Results for females showed that scores onFOD contributed signicantly with an adjusted R2 of 106 and a standardized beta of358 (t(1 41) = 2426 p lt 02) The remaining independent variables were excluded inthe analysis and none were included in the stepwise regression for males Combining thedata for males and females in the present study yielded similar effects to those obtainedfor females

Discussion and conclusions

The factor analysis of a preliminary item pool based on participantsrsquo perceptions of socialsupport produced a stable three-factor structure which included 48 items The factorswere labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) Allthree were internally consistent and apart from SI were also stable over time The retestreliability coefcient for SI fell below 70 but this factor may well be tapping attitudestowards social support or friendship rather than a stable predisposition to use support in aparticular way and may thus reect changes in friendship patterns over the inter-test

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger174

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

overall sample was broadly similar for males and females separately although thecorrelation between FOD and ECQ rehearsal (r(148) = 206 p lt 05) for the totalsample was clearly carried by the correlation for males ECQ emotional inhibitioncorrelated higher with FOD for females (r(106) = 375 p lt 01) than for males(r(40) = 277 p lt 05) although the difference between the coefcients was notsignicant (z = 059 ns) The correlations between the ITQ and ISSB showed similarconsistencies but the correlations between the ITQ factors and the SSQ were stronger formales than for females Indeed only SSQS and FOD correlated signicantly for females(r(69) = 2 332 p lt 05) whereas all of the ITQ factors correlated signicantly withSSQN and SSQS for males

Interpersonal trust and network orientation

In addition to the emotion control and social support scales data were obtained from anindependent sample of undergraduate students who completed only the ITQ and VauxBurda amp Stewartrsquos (1986) Network Orientation Scale (NOS) a 20-item questionnairebased on a 4-point Likert scale As has been noted the network orientation construct hasbeen used to devise the more recent Network Utilization Scale (NUS Gruen et al 1994)but in view of the preliminary nature of the scale the NOS was chosen in preference forthe present study

The sample compromised 178 participants 102 females (mean age 1936 yearsSD 44) and 76 males (mean age 278 years SD 67) The NOS and ITQ were includedwith a package of unrelated scales which were sent out by mail to members of a volunteerundergraduate participant panel at the University of York Vaux (1985a) reported athree-factor structure for the NOS but the analysis was based on a small sample of 80The responses to the NOS in the present study were therefore initially subjected to factoranalysis and the scree plot suggested a unifactor or perhaps a two-factor solution ratherthan the three factors extracted by Vaux A one-factor extraction included 18 of the 20items with only items 16 and 17 failing to load above the 30 criterion and the factoraccounted for 277 of the variance However the internal consistency was extremelylow (coefcient alpha = 10) and the items were therefore rotated to a two-factorVarimax orthogonal terminal solution This yielded factors with 10 and 9 itemsrespectively with the previously omitted item 17 entering the second factor

The highest-loading items on the rst factor were 2 (lsquoFriends often have good advice togiversquo) and 14 (lsquoIt really helps when you are angry to tell a friend what has happenedrsquo) andthe two highest loadings on the second factor were 15 (lsquoSome things are too personal totalk to anyone aboutrsquo) and 18 (lsquoIf you conde in other people they take advantage ofyoursquo) The two factors clearly reect a distinction between positive (factor 1) and negativeor defensive attitudes (factor 2) about disclosure and conding but there were fourdouble-loading items of factor 1 and ve on factor 2 The number of double loadsincreased with an oblique rotation and the internal consistency remained very modest forboth factor 1 (coefcient alpha =468) and factor 2 (coefcient alpha =360)

Despite these unsatisfactory ndings the scores from the 18-item unifactor solutionwere correlated with scores from the three ITQ factors The NOS correlated signicantlywith FOD (r(176) = 398 p lt 01) and with SC (r(176) = 2 180 p lt 05) but notwith SI Slightly higher correlations between the rst factor from the NOS and FOD and

173Stress social support and fear of disclosure

between the second factor and SC conrmed the apparent correspondence between thembut in view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS this was not explored further

Interpersonal trust and health status during adaptation

As part of the larger programme of research to which this study is related additional datawere available for the sample of 126 participants who completed the ITQ the SSQ andthe ISSB The additional data for this sample included measures of health status andreturns from repeated administrations were obtained from a subsample of 102 compris-ing 44 males (mean age 1995 years SD 438) and 52 females (mean age 1919 SD 498)Health status was assessed over a period of adaptation which was dened as the 4 monthsbetween entering university as rst-year undergraduates and the middle of the secondterm of their rst academic year Previous studies have shown that this is a period ofsignicant demand for adaptation to a new social environment and that deterioration inhealth status during this time is inuenced by a variety of individual difference variables(Roger 1996) The students were contacted for the rst time immediately after entry tothe University of York and were asked to complete a health inventory entitled the HealthStatus Checklist (HSC Meadows 1989) The HSC is based on an extensive GP surveycovering 30 common illnesses and yields overall scores based on stability deteriorationor improvement across repeated administrations thus allowing for the partialling out ofinitial health status

The HSC was rst administered at the start of the study to provide a baseline andadministered again after an interval of ve months A difference score reecting relativedeterioration in health status was calculated using the initial administration as a baselineto take account of initial values The participantsrsquo scores on the ITQ the ISSB and bothsubscales of the SSQ (SSQN and SSQS) were then entered into stepwise multipleregression analyses as independent variables with deterioration in health status as thedependent variable

In view of the differential effects for gender in the correlations between the ITQ factorsand the independent variables used in the concurrent validation exercise the data formales and females were analysed separately Results for females showed that scores onFOD contributed signicantly with an adjusted R2 of 106 and a standardized beta of358 (t(1 41) = 2426 p lt 02) The remaining independent variables were excluded inthe analysis and none were included in the stepwise regression for males Combining thedata for males and females in the present study yielded similar effects to those obtainedfor females

Discussion and conclusions

The factor analysis of a preliminary item pool based on participantsrsquo perceptions of socialsupport produced a stable three-factor structure which included 48 items The factorswere labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) Allthree were internally consistent and apart from SI were also stable over time The retestreliability coefcient for SI fell below 70 but this factor may well be tapping attitudestowards social support or friendship rather than a stable predisposition to use support in aparticular way and may thus reect changes in friendship patterns over the inter-test

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger174

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

between the second factor and SC conrmed the apparent correspondence between thembut in view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS this was not explored further

Interpersonal trust and health status during adaptation

As part of the larger programme of research to which this study is related additional datawere available for the sample of 126 participants who completed the ITQ the SSQ andthe ISSB The additional data for this sample included measures of health status andreturns from repeated administrations were obtained from a subsample of 102 compris-ing 44 males (mean age 1995 years SD 438) and 52 females (mean age 1919 SD 498)Health status was assessed over a period of adaptation which was dened as the 4 monthsbetween entering university as rst-year undergraduates and the middle of the secondterm of their rst academic year Previous studies have shown that this is a period ofsignicant demand for adaptation to a new social environment and that deterioration inhealth status during this time is inuenced by a variety of individual difference variables(Roger 1996) The students were contacted for the rst time immediately after entry tothe University of York and were asked to complete a health inventory entitled the HealthStatus Checklist (HSC Meadows 1989) The HSC is based on an extensive GP surveycovering 30 common illnesses and yields overall scores based on stability deteriorationor improvement across repeated administrations thus allowing for the partialling out ofinitial health status

The HSC was rst administered at the start of the study to provide a baseline andadministered again after an interval of ve months A difference score reecting relativedeterioration in health status was calculated using the initial administration as a baselineto take account of initial values The participantsrsquo scores on the ITQ the ISSB and bothsubscales of the SSQ (SSQN and SSQS) were then entered into stepwise multipleregression analyses as independent variables with deterioration in health status as thedependent variable

In view of the differential effects for gender in the correlations between the ITQ factorsand the independent variables used in the concurrent validation exercise the data formales and females were analysed separately Results for females showed that scores onFOD contributed signicantly with an adjusted R2 of 106 and a standardized beta of358 (t(1 41) = 2426 p lt 02) The remaining independent variables were excluded inthe analysis and none were included in the stepwise regression for males Combining thedata for males and females in the present study yielded similar effects to those obtainedfor females

Discussion and conclusions

The factor analysis of a preliminary item pool based on participantsrsquo perceptions of socialsupport produced a stable three-factor structure which included 48 items The factorswere labelled fear of disclosure (FOD) social coping (SC) and social intimacy (SI) Allthree were internally consistent and apart from SI were also stable over time The retestreliability coefcient for SI fell below 70 but this factor may well be tapping attitudestowards social support or friendship rather than a stable predisposition to use support in aparticular way and may thus reect changes in friendship patterns over the inter-test

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger174

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

interval The factors were moderately correlated but were found to be empiricallydiscriminable when compared with other personality scales

Comparisons between the mean scores for the male and female samples included in thestudy indicated signicant gender differences for the SC and SI scales with femalesscoring signicantly higher than males These factors primarily assess emotional supportand research has found that while females are more likely to use emotional support malesare more likely to use informational or tangible support (Ashton amp Fuehrer 1993)However it has been suggested (Sarason Shearin Pierce amp Sarason 1987) that thedifference in results for males and females is an artifact of the questionnaire items beingbiased towards a feminine stereotype

Previous studies have found that women are more likely to emphasize self-disclosurewithin a relationship whereas within male relationships there is a tendency to inhibitself-disclosure (Lowenthal amp Haven 1968) The absence of signicant gender differencesin the mean scores for the FOD factor in the present study was therefore surprising butthe results may have been affected by the student population which was used Workcurrently in progress is attempting to discover whether there are systematic genderdifferences in the ITQ factors using sex-role inventories across gender rather than relyingon simple gender classication

The investigation of the questionnairersquos concurrent validity showed that FODcorrelated signicantly positively with emotional inhibition and rehearsal from theECQ Fear of disclosure is associated with an inability or difculty in conding in othersparticularly concerning matters of an emotional nature and it is not surprising that therewas a positive correlation with emotional inhibition but in fact the coefcient accountsfor little more than 12 of the common variance indicating that the scales are notassessing identical constructs Emotional inhibition also correlated inversely with SI andespecially SC which may be explained in part by a degree of item overlap between theemotional inhibition and SC scales Neither SI nor SC correlated with ECQ rehearsal

All three factors correlated signicantly with SSQN SSQS and ISSB for the overallsample For the components of the SSQ the highest correlation was between FOD andSSQS which suggests that participants with a greater fear of disclosing emotionallyupsetting information may be less satised with the amount of support they perceive tobe available This could be because they have fewer supportive others to draw upon orthere may be a third variable such as neuroticism which is affecting their responsesInterestingly there were substantial gender differences in the separate correlationmatrices computed for the SSQ with only one signicant coefcient remaining forfemales (an inverse correlation between FOD and SSQS) The SSQN score is a simplemeasure of the frequency or number of supports available and frequency measures havebeen shown to be less satisfactory indices of social support than the satisfaction withsupports assessed by SSQS (Barrera 1981) What the results suggest is that the quality ofthe support is more important for females than it is for males

These gender differences appear consistent with those reported by Ashton amp Fuerher(1993) discussed earlier They are also conrmed to some extent by the multipleregression analyses carried out as part of the present study where deterioration in healthstatus was signicantly associated with scores on the FOD component of the ITQ forfemales but not for males The ability to make effective use of social support has beenfound to predict mental health outcomes (for example Tolsdorf 1976 Vaux 1985b) and

175Stress social support and fear of disclosure

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

the present ndings indicate that this may also be true for physical well-being at least asfar as females are concerned There has been little agreement over the individualdifferences which might be involved in these effects and these present study clearlyimplicates fear of disclosure as an important variable Again gender differences are highlysignicant and form the focus of current research at the University of York

The present study also offered the opportunity to explore further the NetworkOrientation Scale (NOS Vaux Burda amp Stewart 1986) which was developed as anindex of individualsrsquo propensity to call upon social support The ndings suggested aunifactor structure but the internal consistency was very low Extending the terminalsolution to two factors yielded a structure which corresponded broadly to the FOD andSC factors from the ITQ but the factors were psychometrically weak and the solutionincluded a large number of double loadings The single factor correlated signicantlypositively with FOD and negatively with SC but the correlations were modestaccounting for less than 16 of the common variance in the rst case and less than4 in the second In view of the psychometric inadequacies of the NOS and theconrmatory data from the validation of the ITQ the latter scale represents asubstantially better instrument for assessing the capacity to use social support

Research on social support has tended to focus on attitudes towards support rather thanon individual differences which might moderate its effectiveness Fear of intimacy hadbeen mooted as a factor which might affect the ability to use social support (see Emmonsamp Colby 1995) and the denition of support used for generating the item pool for theITQ was based on the ability to conde in others The results indicate that fear ofdisclosure is a key individual difference which needs to be taken into account and thenew scale offers the opportunity for developing more focused interactive models forexplaining the role of social support in moderating stress responses

References

Ashton W A amp Fuehrer A (1993) Effects of gender and gender role identication of participant and typeof social support resource on support seeking Sex Roles 28 461ndash476

Asterita M F (1985) The physiology of stress New York Human Sciences PressBarrera M (1981) Social support in the adjustment of pregnant adolescents Assessment issues In

B H Gottlieb (Ed) Social networks and social support pp 69ndash96 Beverly Hills CA SageBarrera M (1986) Distinctions between social support concepts measures and models American Journal of

Community Psychology 14 413ndash445Berkman L F (1985) The relationship of social networks and social support to morbidity and mortality In

S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds) Social support and health pp 241ndash262 London Academic PressBroadbentD E BroadbentM H P PhillpottsR J amp Wallace J (1984)Some further studies on the prediction

of experimental colds in volunteers by psychological factors Journal of Psychosomatic Research 28 511ndash523Cattell R B (1966) The scree test for the number of factors Multivariate Behavioural Research 1 245ndash276Cobb S (1976) Social support as a moderator of life stress Psychosomatic Medicine 38 300ndash314Cohen S amp Hoberman H (1983) Positive events and social supports as buffers of life change stress Journal

of Applied Social Psychology 13 99ndash125Cohen S Tyrell D A J amp Smith A P (1993) Negative life events perceived stress negative affect and

susceptibility to the common cold Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 131ndash140Cohen S amp Wills T A (1985) Stress social support and the buffering hypothesis Psychological Bulletin

98 310ndash357Denney D R amp Frisch M B (1981) The relation of neuroticism in relation to life stress and illness Journal

of Psychosomatic Research 25 303ndash307

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger176

Emmons R A amp Colby P M (1995) Emotional conict and well-being Relation to perceived availabilitydaily utilisation and observer reports of social support Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68947ndash959

Endler N S amp Parker J D A (1990) Multidimensional assessment of coping Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 58 844ndash854

Fiore J Becker J amp Coppel D (1983) Social network interactionsA buffer or a stress American Journal ofCommunity Psychology 11 423ndash439

Folkman S amp LazarusR S (1985) If it changes it must be a process A study of emotion and coping duringthree stages of a college examination Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 48 150ndash170

Folkman S Schaefer C amp Lazarus R S (1979) Cognitive processes as mediators of stress and coping InV Hamilton amp D M Warburton (Eds) Human Stress and Cognition An information-processing approachpp 265ndash298 London Wiley

Gottlieb B H (1985) Social support and the study of personal relationship Journal of Social and PersonalRelationship 2 351ndash375

Gruen R J Schuldberg D Nelson E A Epstein L Weiss L amp Quinlan D M (1994) Networkorientation and depressive symptomatology Development of the Network Utilization Scale Journal ofSocial and Clinical Psychology 13 352ndash365

House J S amp Kahn R L (1985) Measures and concepts of social support In S Cohen amp S L Syme (Eds)Social support and health pp 83ndash108 London Academic Press

Jemmott J B amp Locke S E (1984) Psychosocial factors immunologic mediation and humansusceptibility to infectious diseases How much do we know Psychological Bulletin 95 78ndash108

Kaiser J Hinton J W Krohne H W Stewart R amp Burton R (1995) Coping dispositions andphysiological recovery from a speech preparation stressor Personality and Individual Differences 19 1ndash11

Kobasa S (1979) Stressful life events personality and health An inquiry into hardiness Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 37 1ndash11

Kring A M Smith D A amp Neale J M (1994) Individual differences in dispositional expressivenessDevelopment and validation of the Emotional Expressivity Scale Journal of Personality and Social Psychology66 934ndash949

Lefcourt H M Martin R A amp Saleh W E (1984) Locus of control and social support Interativemoderators of stress Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47 378ndash389

Lowenthal M F amp Haven C (1968) Interaction and adaptation Intimacy as a critical variable AmericanSociological Review 33 20ndash30

Meadows M (1989) Personality stress and health Unpublished doctoral dissertation University of YorkEngland

Mendolia M amp Kleck R E (1993) Effects of talking about a stressful event on arousal Does what we talkabout make a difference Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64 283ndash292

Nieland M amp Roger D (1993) Emotion control and analgesia in labour Personality and IndividualDifferences 14 841ndash843

Procidano M E amp Heller K (1983) Measures of perceived social support from friends and from familyThree validation studies American Journal of Community Psychology 11 1ndash24

Roger D (1995) Emotion control coping strategies and adaptive behaviour Stress and Emotion 15255ndash264

Roger D (1996) The role of cognitive rumination coping styles and self-esteem in moderating adaptationalresponses tostress Paper presented at the 8th European Conference on Personality Ghent

Roger D amp Jamieson J (1988) Individual differences in delayed heart-rate recovery following stress Therole of extraversionneuroticism and emotional control Personality and Individual Differences 9 721ndash726

Roger D Jarvis G amp Najarian B (1993) Detachment and coping The construction and validation of anew scale for measuring coping strategies Personality and Individual Differences 15 619ndash626

Roger D amp Najarian B (1989) The construction and validation of a new scale for measuring emotionalcontrol Personality and Individual Differences 10 845ndash853

Roger D amp Najarian B (1998) The relationship between emotional rumination and cortisol secretionunder stress Personality and Individual Differences 24 531ndash538

Roger D Najarian B amp Nash P (1996) The interactive effects of self-esteem cognitive rumination and copingstyles in moderating the relationship between stress and illness Paper presented to the Annual Conference of theBritish Psychological Society Special Group in Health Psychology York

177Stress social support and fear of disclosure

Roger D amp Nesshoever W (1987) The construction and preliminary validation of a scale for measuringemotion control Personality and Individual Differences 8 527ndash534

Sandler I N amp Barrera M (1984) Toward a multimethod approach to assessing the effects of social supportAmerican Journal of Community Psychology 12 37ndash52

Sarason B R Sarason I G amp Pierce G R (1990) Traditional views of social support and their impacton assessment In B R Sarason I G Sarason amp G R Pierce (Eds) Social support An interactional viewpp 9ndash25 New York John Wiley amp Sons

Sarason B R Shearin E N Pierce G R amp Sarason I G (1987) Interrelationship among social supportmeasures Theoretical and practical implications Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52 813ndash832

Sarason I G (1981) Test anxiety stress and social support Journal of Personality 49 101ndash114Sarason I G Levine H M Basham R B amp Sarason B R (1983) Assessing social support The Social

Support Questionnaire Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 44 127ndash139Sarason I G Sarason B R amp Shearin E N (1986) Social support as an individual difference variable Its

stability origins and relational aspects Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52 813ndash832Tardy C H (1985) Social support measurement American Journal of Community Psychology 13 187ndash202Thoits P (1985) Conceptualmethodological and theoreticalproblems in studying social support as a buffer

against life stress Journal of Health and Social Behavior 23 145ndash159Tolsdorf C (1976) Social networks support and copingAn exploratory study Family Process 15 407ndash417Totman R Kiff J Reed S E amp Craig J W (1980) Predicting experimentalcolds in volunteersJournal of

Psychosomatic Research 24 155ndash163Turner R J (1981) Social support as a contingency in psychologicalwell-being Journal of Health and Social

Behavior 22 357ndash367Vaux A (1985a) Factor structure of the Network Orientation Scale Psychological Reports 57 1181ndash1182Vaux A (1985b) Variations in social support associated with gender ethnicity and age Journal of Social

Issues 41 89ndash110Vaux A Burda P amp Stewart D (1986) Orientation towards utilization of support resources Journal of

Community Psychology 14 159ndash170

Received 4 November 1997 revised version received 9 September 1998

Appendix

Items comprising the Interpersonal Trust Questionnaire1 It is important to have somebody who I can talk things over with2 Sometimes I am unable to conde even in someone who is close to me3 I like to discuss even trivial problems to reassure myself that I am making sensible decisions4 I am not afraid to ask somebody for help5 A good friend is somebody that is understanding6 I am unable to trust anybody with my problems7 Nobody can understand what I am going through so why should I try and explain8 Talking things over helps to focus on the positive aspects of a situation9 Sometimes I want to talk things over with a friend but I just cannot10 To discuss my problems with somebody feels good at the time but afterwards I worry about what I have said11 Some people need somebody to conde in but I prefer to solve my own problems12 I regret having told somebody something that is personal13 To be able to give and take in a friendship is important14 As I get older I nd it continuously more difcult to conde in people15 It is important to me to have somebody that will listen to my problems16 I worry too much about what others think of me to conde in them17 It is easy to be friendly but difcult to make friends18 I feel better when I have talked to my friends about my problems19 There are some situations which I am unable to conde in anybody20 I like to feel that people can conde in me

Angela Forbes and Derek Roger178

21 In the past I have been hurt by people breaking a condence22 When I feel upset about something I feel the need to talk to somebody about it23 I worry about what I have told people24 I am selective in who I conde in25 People will not be interested in my problems26 I like to talk problems over to lsquoget them off my chestrsquo27 People will not want to know me if they know what I am really like28 I am often given advice that I do not want29 I am afraid that if I conde in someone they will tell my problems to others30 I have somebody that I can turn to when I am in need of help31 People who I have thought were my friends have let me down in the past32 I have nobody that I feel that I can conde in33 A good friend is somebody that you can be honest with34 I do not want everybody to know what I am really like35 I prefer to conde in somebody who I feel knows me well36 I am afraid that people will laugh at me if I tell them my problems37 In the past I have found a problem easier to solve if I have talked it over with somebody38 If I trust someone it will only result in upset39 It is good to hear problems out loud40 Everybody seems so sure of themselves they will think that I am being foolish41 I nd it easy to trust people42 It is important to be there for someone if they need you43 I do not want to alienate people by showing them when I am upset44 It is good to have people who can give you encouragement45 I have friends who I know would help me but I nd it difcult to ask46 There are some things that I would be unable to cope with on my own47 I feel vulnerable if I have to ask other people for help48 It helps to discuss a problem even if it is impossible to reach a solution

179Stress social support and fear of disclosure