Social Support Opinions Survey (SSOS)

Abstract

The Social Support Opinions Survey (SSOS) is a specialized psychological scale designed to measure an individual’s preferred style and attitude toward providing social support, particularly when assisting someone facing a major or moderate problem. Developed by Harber et al. (2008), the SSOS differentiates between two primary approaches: Directive Support and Nondirective Support. The instrument assesses how important various helping behaviors are to the respondent, providing insight into their underlying beliefs about effective aid delivery. This scale is crucial for research exploring the dynamics of help-giving and recipient outcomes in social and clinical psychology.

Keywords

Social Support, Directive Support, Nondirective Support, Help-giving, Attitudes, Social Psychology, Psychometrics, Interpersonal relationships.

Authors

Kent D. Harber, Lee Jussim, Kathleen A. Kennedy, Robin Freyberg, Lisa Baum.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Social Support Opinions Survey (SSOS) is to quantify individual differences in preferred styles of offering aid during times of distress or moderate crisis. Unlike scales that measure received or perceived support, the SSOS focuses on the helper’s perspective—specifically, the perceived importance of various strategies when providing assistance to others. This measurement allows researchers to explore how personal philosophies regarding autonomy, control, and emotional engagement influence the delivery of effective social support.

The scale is instrumental in distinguishing between approaches that emphasize taking charge and offering solutions (Directive) versus those that prioritize listening, emotional acceptance, and allowing the recipient to manage their own pace (Nondirective). Understanding these orientations is essential for studying relationship dynamics, training mental health professionals, and analyzing why certain types of support may be perceived as helpful or harmful by recipients.

Construct

The SSOS measures the construct of Social Support Orientation, which is operationalized through two distinct, yet related, subscales: Directive and Nondirective support styles. These styles represent fundamentally different beliefs about the role of the helper.

• Directive Support (D): This construct reflects the belief that the helper should take an active, controlling role in problem resolution. Items loading on this factor emphasize taking charge, advising others, pushing the recipient, and making decisions about the type of help needed. This orientation is characterized by a desire for swift resolution and clear guidance.
• Nondirective Support (N): This construct reflects the belief that the helper should provide emotional presence and acceptance while respecting the recipient’s autonomy and pace. Items loading on this factor emphasize listening without judgment, accepting the recipient’s wishes (even for solitude), and supporting the recipient’s self-generated solutions. This orientation prioritizes emotional validation and self-efficacy enhancement.

Validity

While the source content does not provide explicit details on specific validity studies (e.g., convergent or discriminant validity with other personality measures), the instrument’s validity is supported by its clear theoretical foundation and subsequent use in published academic research. The distinct item coding (D vs. N) suggests strong face and content validity, as items clearly align with established definitions of controlling versus autonomy-supportive helping behaviors.

In the context of the 2008 publication, the SSOS demonstrated that these two dimensions of support opinions predict differing behaviors and relationship outcomes, thereby establishing sufficient construct validity for use in measuring distinct social support attitudes in research settings.

Reliability

The Social Support Opinions Survey demonstrates acceptable to good internal consistency across both primary subscales, as indicated by the reported Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients. These values suggest that the items within each subscale reliably measure their respective constructs.

• The Directive Subscale exhibited a Cronbach’s Alpha ($alpha$) ranging from 0.74 to 0.78.
• The Nondirective Subscale exhibited a Cronbach’s Alpha ($alpha$) ranging from 0.70 to 0.77.

These reliability estimates are well within the commonly accepted range for psychological research scales, confirming the internal consistency of both the Directive and Nondirective components of the SSOS.

Factor Analysis

Although the specific details of the exploratory or confirmatory factor analysis are not provided in the summary source, the clear division of the 14 items into Directive (D) and Nondirective (N) subscales strongly implies a two-factor structure. This factor structure is theoretically derived, reflecting the dual nature of social support orientation—the tendency to either control the helping process or facilitate the recipient’s autonomy.

The empirical evidence supporting the scale’s reliability (separate alpha coefficients for D and N factors) confirms that these two dimensions are statistically distinct factors, reinforcing the conceptual model that attitudes toward helping are not monolithic but comprise separable directive and facilitative elements.

Instrument

Test Type: Psychological scale / Self-report questionnaire.

Format: The SSOS uses a 5-point Likert scale format to assess the perceived importance of various helping behaviors. The response options are: Not at all important, Slightly important, Moderately important, Very important, and Extremely important.

Language Available: English (Original).

Population Group: General adult population (individuals capable of providing social support).

Age Group: Adults.

Population Details: Typically used with college students or general community samples in social psychology research.

Test Methodology: Respondents are asked to consider a scenario involving supplying help for a major (or moderate) problem and rate how important specific actions are to them personally as the helper.

Keywords

Psychometrics, Helping behavior, Autonomy, Control, Likert scale, Directive, Nondirective.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source content; typically associated with Kent D. Harber.

Affiliation Email addresses: [email protected]

Correspondence Address: Associated with the Department of Psychology, Rutgers University (at the time of publication).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was developed and published in 2008. The full reference and instrument details were made publicly available through academic publication and an institutional repository. The original PDF can be downloaded here: http://nwkpsych.rutgers.edu/ch‎arkharber/publications/Harber.et.al.2008.%20Social%20Support%20Opinions.pdf. For commercial use or large-scale adaptations, researchers should contact the primary author, Kent D. Harber, for permission.

Reference’s

Harber, Kent D., Jussim, Lee, Kennedy, Kathleen A., Freyberg, Robin, Baum, Lisa. (2008). Social Support Opinion. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(6); 1463–1505.

Items of the Social Support Opinions Survey (SSOS)

When supplying help for a major [moderate] problem, how important is it to you to:

1. Take ch‎arge of as much as possible. (D)
2. Encourage the person to get over his/her problem quickly. (D)
3. Know when to back off from being helpful. (N)
4. Let the person get over problems at his/her own pace. (N)
5. Listen to problems without making any judgments. (N)
6. Take ch‎arge of solving problems. (D)
7. Try to see things from the person’s point of view. (N)
8. Decide for the person what kind of help they might need. (D)
9. Let the person know that you are on his/her side. (N)
10. Advise others on how to help the person. (D)
11. Accept the person’s wish to be alone, even if you think company is what is needed. (N)
12. Only give help that is asked for, even if you think that other things should be done. (N)
13. Push the person to take ch‎arge of his/her problem. (D)
14. Support solutions that the person comes up with, even if you disagree with them. (N)

Note. D = Directive; N = Nondirective.